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20.42: Erin Roberts’ Personal Writing Process · Writing Excuses

• 0:01
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• 1:15
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• 1:21
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• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Season 20.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Episode 42.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Writing Excuses.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Erin's personal writing process.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mary Rebenett.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Don Lohn.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Dan.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Erin.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Howard.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I have been apprehensive about this episode since we decided to do it because I feel like my writing process is like a bunch of random practices thrown into a bag and shaken up and then every so often I reach in and see what's working for me or what's not.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: but you may also be like this, and not have a completely organized idea of your writing process.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So hopefully this is helpful, and I have organized it in my head into four categories, because I do still like to be slightly organized, which is...
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is all part of my writing process right now.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Outlaw it grab back.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which is getting work, getting in, getting done, and getting right.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So those are basically how do I manage my sort of business creative life, how do I start writing, how do I stop writing, and turn something in, and how do I live a balanced life?
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And because I am a game writer, I'm gonna let y'all pick.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which one do you want to hear about first?
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I just want to say a thing first, which is this is not me calling you out, but I do think that there is a thing where I hit, I think I have had a similar conversation with a lot of writers with like, oh, I don't have a process.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what I'm doing or whatever it is.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then as soon as you're talking to them, it's like, no, you, there are these things.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: You are doing this thing.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, one thing that I was excited to sort of talk about this with Aaron after she was like, I don't have a process.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what we're talking about in this episode is I think that's how most people feel, you know, I think we're only able to talk about this in a really cogent way right now because we're doing the work that Aaron just described if sitting down and being like, okay, what, what chaotic things do I do and how do I explain them?
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then when you explain it, it looks more cogent and coherent, right?
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I think the process of looking at it is the thing that makes it sound like a thing.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think for a lot of us, it really is instinctual or habitual or whatever it is.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, if you're listening to these episodes and being like, well, I don't have a thing like Mary Robinette does, then I think that's totally fine and you just find it as you go.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Essentially makes sense.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, since you gave us four things and you said it's like a game, I am rolling a die and it is number one.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: OK, getting work.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that is, thank you.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that we gamified it.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can listen to this out of order.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, just kidding.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So getting work.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's funny, because I think we have an episode coming up that's about business of writing.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: as someone who makes a living essentially writing like everything I do was writing, which I think is what makes it difficult to think about the writing process, because I do freelance writing for games, I do my own prose writing, I do script writing, I do video game writing, it's all writing, you know, and even though some of it is for direct cash, like you paid me to write this thing, and some of it is my own work,
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It all comes from the creative part of my brain, and so it's hard for me sometimes to separate one from the other, but I have to because otherwise I will get lost.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I have a lot of things that I do in order to figure out, should I take on a project?
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do I manage the projects that I have in front of me?
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like, you know, how do I know what I need to do on any given day?
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: To figure out if I should take on a project because a big mistake you can make, I think, no matter what you're doing, it's to overcome it yourself to things because it's hard to say, no, when things sound really cool.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you are better off saying, no, or saying, even, I can't right now, can I get back to you, or could we do this another time, or
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't, you know, at the moment, then saying yes and then being like, I haven't slept in a year and this is not great.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm now hallucinating things, which is what happens when you don't sleep for too long.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I have something that you have personal experience with.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I never hallucinated anything.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once I'm in college, I didn't sleep for several days and thought everything that started with the letter P was very funny for reasons that I don't understand.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure this day, but I use an air table because I, which I've talked about, I think on the podcast before, which is basically fancy Excel.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I actually keep like a running tab of every project I have, how many words it is when it do, including my own personal projects, like I think this story is going to be 6,000 words, and I'd like to get it done by June 1st or whatever it is.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I have them all like in different
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Categories and with different tags on them.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is also how I track, have I gotten paid?
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have I put this on my taxes?
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did I sign the contract because I am my own assistant?
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I have like writing time or I'm writing and assistant time where I'm assisting myself to write.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I keep it all on a big spreadsheet.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when somebody says, do you want to do this project?
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I look and I say, based on this deadline, do I have enough hours in the day to get this done?
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just going to keep roasting you for the fact that Mr. I don't have a project has a custom air stable to try and work counts deadlines and sequence and what do you hate your taxes on it?
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is incredible.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's such a useful framework.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It makes you feel better.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what she could be better organized.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I see that this is 10,000 has more organized than 95 percent of writers.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I literally wrote down Ask Erin for air stable.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know no process.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love that you're starting with this, though, because it's such like a useful thing to keep in mind, right, because I think so many writers went taking on projects aren't keeping on eye on the business side of it.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: You want to say business side of it, I don't even necessarily mean the negotiation or whatever, right?
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: But in terms of, can I...
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: get this deliverable to them on the schedule they're asking for.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Can I do the word count that they're asking for and have I been paid for this?
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like just being able to keep an eye on that like freelancer mindset of how do I slot this into my schedule is really hard and really difficult and it's really hard to say no to stuff, right?
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like I go through this all time of the client into, you know, our under contract for the book, but then like
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Star Wars comes knocking.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: How do you say no?
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the answer is you say no because you're gonna do a bad job on both projects if you say yes, right?
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I think it's really really difficult and really hard to learn to say no, but it's also very important.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the other kind of note of caution I would love to throw in there is this thing that I see that's like I consider the danger zone, which is when you get into that like, well, what if you, what if we
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's easy to say, yes, you're going to want to say, yes, at that point, but really you need to be real by the fact that what you need is six more weeks, not two more weeks, right?
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I think that like trying to fit stuff in too tightly and trying to slot stuff into your process in this really constrained way will lead to a dangerous zone as well when considering can I take this project up.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: question does your spreadsheet track like historically how long it took you to do a thing so that you know you've got the whole can I take this job I think it'll take this long and then you circle back and do a post-mortem and say hey you know what I actually was spot on with that guess it took me exactly three weeks or
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yes, and no.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yes, in the sense that I actually have fields for all of that that include things like like a star rating for like how I felt about the project is what I do, but I don't I don't feel the mouth.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: You have the same question I have asked and the answer is not yet, but I have room for it.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do have room for it.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: The star ratings that are like how I felt about like how did I feel about the project on three?
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: So there's okay, there's a thing where you really have to start living here kind of goes or is it just one rating?
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's a multiple ratings because there's a there's a Sorry
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is turning you to a four episode.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because we're only going to get to this one person step.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so there are sources.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a thing in freelancing where they say like you can be, there are three things that they, you should be on time.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good with your work and pleasant to work with.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I also think that is true that before you work with, you can do two out of three if you miss the third one, a probably shouldn't be nice to work with because that's the people don't like you, they don't like you.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at the end, so what I want to do with my star system is one is like, how were they to work with?
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: One is, how do I feel about my timeliness and how did I feel about the actual strength of my work?
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if I felt like I was on time and they were great, but like I did a poor job with this because turns out I'm not great at writing about 18 forms of geese monsters then in the future I'll be like another goose monster project maybe not for me and so that's how I learn like the type of work that I like to do in addition to how much I can do and like is this somebody I don't want to return to because they
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Pay slow they're mean they yelled at me that time they sent a goose after me a physical goose That would be a really one star ready for my house.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: I've made no stars.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's On the kind of goose though.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean like those are very old goose.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean Yeah, I think this is also an important lesson embedded in here though, which is you know You can have these systems, but also you're only going to use the stuff that is
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, immediately, you're always going to want to put more options in there, but the stuff that's actually useful is stuff you're going to use.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: If that makes sense, like, I think it would be really cool to have that data, but clearly it's also like, oh, I don't have time to think about that.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'll do that later.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like at the end of the year, I'll do it, but I don't.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to circle back to something you said earlier when you were talking about saying no to work, sometimes you can delay, you can ask to delay and say I'm very interested in this, but I don't have time, can we come back a few months later because I've been in this situation and I know that very often the should I take this decision is not made on how much time I have, but it's made on how much money I need.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if I am really hard up for money, my dumb kids keep wanting to eat all the time, I am a lot more likely to say yes to stuff.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And knowing that you have the freedom to push back a little and say, I'm very excited about this.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would love to do it.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can I do it in six months?
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is a really smart and important thing to be able to say?
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I was shot the first time I asked somebody and they were like, yeah, sure, I don't care.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, wait, what?
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it feels like they're like the powerful, great and magnificent Oz and like, you know, but it turns out there's just a person back there who's also dealing with their own deadlines and their own life and they understand, you know, I think this is something that being a teacher helped with because when my students won extensions, I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever, just get it to me at a reasonable time that I can do what I need to do.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I just made up this deadline because like, it made sense for me at the time I made it up.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's nice to be flexible, and with that now that we've done three of the four just kidding Go to the break Okay, so I think we covered getting work and I would just die again.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So now we're on number four
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: getting right.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is about like having a personal life.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the downside of getting work, this is like the underside of that sandwich, is that it can sometimes be hard to leave your work behind if you are me and leave the house.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think this is, I'm sure there are people who are saying, like, how can you leave your responsibilities behind?
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have kids, I have, you know, troublesome work, I have a spouse, I have all these things.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: A single old cat lady that they warn you about
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: and the good side of that is that I have a lot of time to write and the bad side of that is that I can only write and I could like never go out and so I think it's just important to for myself think about my gravestone that's going to sound bad.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I like to think on my gravestone will they say she worked a lot like she was a really hard worker and so sometimes I will prioritize a personal experience and I cannot have again, especially if it's a friend who I could see in three days
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I might say, hey, I really have this deadline.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if someone's coming into town, if I'm at a convention, having a really great conversation with someone I will never, never see again, I think it's better to have the life experience than to have the work experience.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes you pay the price for that or you're up late the next night.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I found that like, I am a better writer when I interact with humanity, when I don't become like someone who like has no knowledge of the world.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: One thing that I was thinking about when we were talking about all the birds in the sky is the idea at the end of the book that the people who are running the magic side to become really good at magic, you have to become really divorced from humanity, which is why the solution they come up with to save the world is basically to make all humans hate each other.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, I don't want to become that kind of magician.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's not worth, like the juices and worth the squeeze at that point.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think sometimes deadlines can feel so imminent.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can everything can feel like it's waiting, it's weighing on you.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I often like to say, from a friend of mine who worked in public relations, it's PR, not the ER, which is epic.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like we're not, we're saving lives, we're not saving lives, you know, and so I think that like trying to keep that perspective is something that is really important to me and that I want other people to do.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: I will be a lot of things in the books business that will want to make you or writing business journey that wants to make you feel like it is a crisis and it is immediate and urgent, but at the end of the day, there's very little that is actually a thing that needs to be solved this instant.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I will say that one of the things that I have been struck by when listening to you talk about, I go out and I do these things is the number of times that I have gone out with you and you have brought work with you to the bar, which is also like roasting you a little bit, but also it's sometimes it's both.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I know that when I've been on a deadline, sometimes the thing that I've done is I've arranged for, when I was building puppets, I'm like, hey, do you want to come over and do crafting while I'm building this thing?
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we can still socialize while that's happening or coffee shop dates.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: We get the socializing done, we both get worked on.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes you can actually blend them into both of them.
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: Douglas Adams said, I love deadlines.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love the hooshing sound they make as they go by.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, for 20 years, Schlock mercenary was never late, you know, online, everyday, new comic strip for 20 years.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: That did not mean that I did not miss some deadlines.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: There were lots of things that I missed deadlines for.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I feel like the knowing that there's a deadline
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: It might not be a bad idea for an early career writer to just experience pushing back on a deadline or missing a deadline and discovering, hey, it made a hooshing sound and I lived.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: But don't pick one that you're going to get fired for.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and more and more people that you're going to miss.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is a, here's the important thing.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you're going to miss it at nine, tell them early.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, things, if you tell me early that your book is going to be late, I can go and solve all those problems.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you wait till the day the thing is due, and then you tell me it's late, everything else is locked.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've locked the season that covers in, blah, blah, blah.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: And you know what I mean?
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then things get very hard and expensive to move, and then people are pissed.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: and also it messes with the lives of other freelancers because copy editors who've held space in their schedule to copy at it for you now aren't getting paid because your work is late and then when it comes in their schedule is so it's but if you let people know everyone can adjust.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I will say that I think people always say this, and it is true.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think from the internal side, it never happens that way.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: No one thinks, I will wait for the last minute to tell people I will be late.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: What happens is you get into a cycle of like optimism and shame, where you wake up optimistic that today, you will suddenly write 10,000 million words, like because you're like, if I just get in this zone, if I just do everything perfectly, it's gonna be fine.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna be fine, fine, fine, fine.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then as the day goes on, you're like, oh my god, it was not fine.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Things happened.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I needed to eat lunch at one point.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why did I do it?
• 18:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you think, oh my gosh, I'm so ashamed.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to say like I'm failing.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe tomorrow, I'll fix it.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll be the person.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be the best million person version of myself.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think you can get into that cycle until the point that you actually hit the deadline at which point then you're sending like really sad emails, being like, I don't know, I thought,
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was going to do it and it is really hard to give yourself permission to tell people how you're doing along the way and say like, hey, I think there might be a problem here.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to try to catch up, but it's possible that there may be a delay.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even if you need to couch it that way so that they understand what's going on and you're not like a black box where you're like, I just think, you know, we all want to be the best versions of ourselves, but you know, the idea that like you will be hit perfection every day just because you have to
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It may not happen, and if it does happen, you may not like the way it feels.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have a spreadsheet that I use when I'm writing two deadlines, which is, I know.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the thing that it tells me is whether or not I'm on target to hit the deadline.
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I know for myself that I lose track of time, that I am not a good judge, and so I have created a tool that allows me to externalize that instead of relying on my own impulses.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I can see, oh, you're dropping off, and that helps me do a little bit more early warning.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a great online tool for that as well.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to say, called Pacer.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, cool.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: That actually allows you to set like what your goal is.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you can set several ways.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can be like, I like to start strong and then finish whatever.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or this weekend, I actually can't work at all.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it will actually give you how much word count you should do each day.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my goodness.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Based on that system.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I just went to throw that out there.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really fun.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: So we've talked about finding work.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: And we've talked about finding yourself after work.
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: and you beautifully dodged the question of how do you actually work?
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, number two?
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, getting it.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: We lightening around these lights here.
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you see, we're going to go so fast.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I was like, I think we're just doing an extra long episode of this one.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm so sorry.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's do it.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, getting in and getting done.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So these are kind of two of the same coin, but getting in for me, something I've learned is I need to look myself into something in order to be able to write it.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, hooking a fish.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never gone fishing in my life, but I hear hooks are involved.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to use that.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not worth it.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So also like, save the fish at the end, I guess.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, so like, if it is a piece of prose, it is usually the hook of voice.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I don't understand the character's voice, it is really difficult for me to write the story.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of, I actually don't have that thing that Dan talked about on another episode about where the character is running away with you, but I do feel like if I can't feel like I'm listening to the character tell the story or I'm helping them tell the story, then it's just like words, and it doesn't have any meaning to it.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I spend a lot, a lot of time just trying to find the hook, rewriting the first page, rewriting the first page again, trying this other way.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I do a lot of work on the like early side of things, trying to get myself hooked in.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And at points, I was like, this is not, you know, why am I wasting so much time on this?
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it turns out that if I try to push myself past it, then I end up coming back to the end to the beginning, but just like 16 pages later, being like, I hate this whole story.
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: What I love about this is we talk a lot about trying to hook the reader and you're talking about how you need to hook yourself first, right?
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you're not excited about it, how can you ask anyone else to be excited about it?
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I love that that's a great place to start in terms of like how do you find the thing that's exciting to you and get you engaged with it?
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then that'll tell you what you need to know for down the line when you're like, okay, now how do I get readers excited?
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So do you have tricks or writing exercises or something like that to help you find that voice or find that hook that you love about the story?
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there are two things that I do.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: One is that I will often go back and write an earlier part, like a big moment in my character's life that doesn't appear on the page of the story because it will help me understand them.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your voice is strongest when I think when you're at a time of emotional crisis, but in a story, you usually don't start in emotional crisis because it's like, why, there's nowhere to go from there.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I will write the story where the person is like, if I'm like, this person is a,
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: kleptomaniac, well, like, well, when did they steal for the very first time?
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And why?
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, this person gets, has an anger management problem.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's a time they were really, really angry and like, what were they angry about?
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of times that will get me the voice and then I can take the voice once I have it and translate it.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also talked to my cat a lot and this I say this this helps me hook I think a little bit more when it comes to game writing and nonfiction where I'm trying to think of an idea so when I'm doing game writing and they're like okay write a city and
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I've read up the type of city that I'm writing.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will like bounce ideas off by just saying them out loud.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like, okay, what if it was a city where everyone was inside out?
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, that might be confusing.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if it was a city filled with geese?
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, oh, that might be cool.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what would that be like?
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll just talk to my cat and like try to explain it to her.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes when you say things that loudly, just don't sound as good as they did in your head.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as opposed to inflicting them on my friends, I will usually first inflict them on my cat.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: and then maybe a friend like I'll say I'm thinking about doing this idea if it's not something under NDA like and just say it to them and in the process of saying it I can tell if it's wrong or it's okay.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's there's this whole debugging method for coders called the rubber duck method which is explain the problem to something inanimate and you'll probably find the solution.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Honestly, the thing that I do when I need to rubber duck it is because I'm on the west coast, I'm often up after my friends are.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I would just pick a friend and text them a stream of ideas.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: You are a bad friend.
• 24:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's they have to read that.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Then at the end and say ignore all this, you don't believe me.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but they've already read the rest of it.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I also, I do a similar thing, but I will interrogate it on the page.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I start talking to Elsie, she will start talking back, and that's not useful.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that's why I didn't teach my cat to tell you, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes, this is exactly the way this person talks like it's like talking it's kind of like when you talk to a friend and they're like, oh, this is the way that they're speech goes and you're like, oh, yes, I'm in it again and then I can usually hurdle myself forward headlight writer style for a while until I run into like,
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is no plot or like something needs to happen and like at that point a lot of it is just like trying to think of like eight different things that could happen or I actually have a lot of tabletop solo role playing games that are about creating interesting ideas or like What could possibly happen in the world and sometimes I'll use those just as a prompt and even though I don't keep what I came up with like
• 25:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: sometimes even reacting and being like it couldn't be that will help me to figure it out.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of things I also do to keep myself engaged is whatever the premise was of the story that I found was really interesting like this is a world filled with geese like I'm like oh yes it is a world filled with geese what else do geese do like let me go read up on geese oh they honk a lot and chase you oh I don't have a chase scene and hit this I should have my character chase by goose this is great like this will give it something to do
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if I go back to the origin story of my story, like a lot of times, that's a way to kind of keep me going.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then to kind of get into the third one and the final one which is getting done, it can be, if you're somebody like me, I like to revise as I go.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to get stuck with like the perfect story in the front, like business in the front, not party in the back.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's bad, you know, so it's like, don't pay attention yet zoom here Yeah, exactly like it is like zoom out figure like it's great from the waist up
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: figuring out like how to keep going and that is where deadlines are helpful because sometimes the perfectionism of wanting to get the exact right cadence of one sentence is holding me back from finishing.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So having some sort of deadline, this is why I like applying to fellowships because fellowships are an artificial deadline that want your work.
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you should have to be recent work.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll be like, oh, I would love to go to McDowell.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, let me see what their deadline is.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually put that on my spreadsheet with everything else so that I know what that deadline is and treat it the way that I would treat an employer so that that way I'm finishing my story like at a good time.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the last thing that's a random writing process of mine is having Microsoft Word read my stories to me because downside of being a voicy cadence person is I can talk myself into liking a story more than it should be liked by like doing that spoken word thing or you just make everything sound really deep, but it's not not that all spoken word is that way, but we've all been there.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know that thing about words where they're stupid.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's true.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a narrator.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like one of my jobs is making bad things sound good, and sometimes it's unfortunately true, but I have learned that I can... Yeah.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: There are books that you have not told us about.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Microsoft Word Lady won't do that.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's horrible.
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her sense of when to put a pause in is bad.
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she still sounds friendly.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's like friendly but badly reading your story.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I love to put her on as I go like if I finish the section, I'll go get a snack while I have her read the whole story to me in the background and here like is there something that I feel like I'm bouncing off of it could just be that she didn't do a great job but a lot of times it's that there's something there that isn't quite working and then I can identify it and when I get back to my desk fix it and then have her read it to me again.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I could get my cat to read my stories to me, that would be ideal, but there has not happened yet.
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: He can cats to read.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think would be a mistake.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, I think.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now this episode has gone on forever, so.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: I hope we've all enjoyed this stealth announcement for Untadled Goose Game 2.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: homework, put geese in it.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, that's a little more.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for letting us know about how you don't have any process at all.
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel very reassured about that.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you have homework?
• 29:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do have one more, which is I think what really helped me in sounding like I have more process and I feel like I have is writing down all the tips and tricks that are things that I do.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the one last one I didn't mention is sometimes you just need to go to sleep.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to sound weird.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're not the lead.
• 29:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: trying to work on something, like I find sometimes is better to nap for two hours and come back to it than attempt to push through, because your brain just shuts down.
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's so like, your brain's like, nah, just give me a rest.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think right down things that you do, things that you are like that have worked for you any tip or trick that is ever resonated with you, put them all on a page and then see, like, is there anything cool about that page?
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if nothing else, at least now you've got it all written down somewhere.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: This has been writing excuses.
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're out of excuses.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now go organize your writing process.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe with a spreadsheet and a goose.
• 30:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Writing excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons and friends.
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: For this episode, your hosts were Mary Robinette Koal,
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: This episode was engineered by Marshall Card Jr., mastered by Alex Jackson, and produced by Emma Reynolds.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: For more information, visit writingexuses.com.