Writing Excuses

One of my favorite authors is Brandon Sanderson, and for many years he, along with Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, and Mary Robinette Kowal, have been hosting a podcast called Writing Excuses, all about writing. I recently started listening to it, and I'm hooked.

All the authors are knowledgeable about their craft, and about others. It's amazing to hear how often they can quote other authors, without any hesitation or indication that they're reading off of anything. They also use their own works quite often, including stories about their own mistakes and beginnings. It's great to hear, to bring them back down to human level from where we placed them as gods of the writing world.

They give great advice, often addressing listeners as new writers, as most listeners probably are, or if not, they understand the challenges of a new writer. The speakers sound natural and humorous, so it's easier to listen to than a lecture. Each podcast is also only fifteen minutes long, so they pack each episode full of advice and anecdotes, and concentrate exactly on what the subject is for the week. It's like a concentrated dose of a classroom lecture.

Their main piece of advice is always "keep writing". Like any authors, they know that the only way to get better is to always be writing. They say to scrap almost everything you first write, either because it'll only be practice, or you'll be too attached to it to make the changes that need to be made. Maybe what you scrap, whether it's a plot point, a character or a witty line, can be used later in the series, or even in another book.

So far, my favorite piece of advice has been about beginnings. They say to not worry too much about your beginning, not when your first write it. Because that beginning that you first write will probably either get deleted, or get moved so that it's not longer your beginning. In fact, the beginning could be the very last thing you write. As someone who has always struggled with how to start, this is great. Now I just need to learn how to end things.