18.31: Getting Personal: Mining Your Life for Themes
Writing Excuses
Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In our final episode diving into how and why Dan wrote “Dark One: Forgotten,” talk about how you can take something personal and mine it for fiction. We also tackle the complicated question—Why should you be the one to tell your story? We think about the personal touches that you can add to your writing, and how people can hear when your story is personal.
Homework:
2 things!
1. Have you watched Criminal Minds? If you haven’t, you should! Next week, we have a special guest—Kirsten Vangsness who plays Penelope Garcia! Explore her other stuff (like her web series and podcast), and get ready for an INCREDIBLE conversation with her.
2. What's the thing in your real life that you keep thinking about when you aren't writing? Can you give that feeling or theme to a character? ALSO, prepare for our next Deep Dive, by reading through Howard Tayler's Schlock Mercenary. And feel free to re-listen to our interview with Howard earlier this year,
Thing of the Week:
Everything Everywhere all at Once
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This year my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner. |
| 0:04.8 | It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me. |
| 0:08.8 | The entire family shows up. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm talking fourth cousins once removed and this is not an |
| 0:15.1 | exaggeration which means that during the lead up I don't have time to menu plan or |
| 0:20.0 | cook anything else. That's when I turn to prepared meals like Factor, America's |
| 0:26.0 | number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Factor can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietition approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. |
| 0:37.0 | It allows me to save time and not eat garbage while tackling all my holiday to-do's. |
| 0:42.0 | So if you want to cross meal prepping... while tackling all my holiday to-do's. |
| 0:42.6 | So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list |
| 0:45.8 | this holiday season, consider factor. |
| 0:48.4 | You can skip the meal planning, grocery shopping, |
| 0:50.9 | shopping, shopping, prepping, and cleaning up, and get factors fresh never frozen meals delivered |
| 0:55.8 | to your door. |
| 0:56.8 | They're ready in just two minutes, which my dad says is the appropriate amount of time to cook |
| 1:01.4 | a meal. |
| 1:02.4 | He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy. |
| 1:07.0 | And if you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor isn't just for dinner. |
| 1:15.1 | Count on extra convenience any time of the day with an assortment of 55-plus add-ons to suit various |
| 1:20.8 | preferences and tastes. |
| 1:22.8 | So you can carve out some writing time in the morning by choosing quick breakfast items, |
| 1:27.2 | lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat cold-pressed juices, shakes, and smoothies. |
... |
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