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Season 19, episode 2.

This is writing excuses.

Q&A on a boat.

15 minutes long because you're in a hurry and we're not that smart. I'm Mary Robinette. I'm dung one. I'm Aaron. I'm Dan and I'm Howard.

And this is the Writing Excuses Workshop and Retreat.

We are coming to you from the past 2023

with a room full of writers.

And they have some questions for us

and you all get to join in learning about their questions.

Alrighty, so I'm Chris and I was wondering what, how do you keep motivation going for long-form projects and don't say money?

Money.

I'm glad you don't want us to say money because this is not an industry in which you make money.

And it's shocking how ineffective that isn't motivating you in the middle of the

project. I think that can be very exciting in the beginning, but you get paid on signature and then you get paid on

delivery. So when you're in the middle, you're at the farthest distance between the times that you get paid at that point. So it doesn't

feel very exciting and doesn't keep you in the

moment. So I think you're right to think that that's not going to be the answer.

One of the things that I like to think about is that this isn't the first long-form thing you've ever done in your life, probably.

And so a lot of it is figuring out what motivates you generally.

...