Writing Excuses Love?

I have a love- hate relationship with the podcast Writing Excuses.  I love that their topics and discussions are always interesting and often I find myself adding books recommended by the hosts/authors to my books to read list.  I hate that they give, what seems to me anyway, an overwhelming list of “to don’ts” with regards to writing.  It feels so vast that by the end of an episode I’m ready to tie a white flag to the end of my pen and wave it in the surrender of all hope that I will ever be an even mediocre writer.  Their latest episode giving writing “advice” left me smiling and I listened to it a second time just to partake in one more good laugh.  I thought I would share some of their brilliant pieces of “advice”.

-          Spend at least 40 years world building before you start your novel.

-          During those 40 years be sure to spend a lot of time watching TV shows and YouTube videos (for research of course)

-          Grow a beard because that seems to make you a better writer (Bearded women have proved to be excellent short story writers).

-          Do something different-write a novel that uses no pronouns or plurals.

-          Do something that stands out-make up your own alphabet and then use it to write your entire novel.

-          Re-write your first page at least 50 times.

-          When re-writing your first page, be sure to swap out all of your ordinary words with fancy words from your Thesaurus. 

And my personal favorite

-          Be sure to take time to vacuum your cat or else all that hair could clog up your keyboard.

Sadly this is not a picture of my cat.  My cat is extremely afraid of "Mr. Dyson."

If you are a writer or even an avid reader the podcast is worth checking out (It mainly deals with the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres).  If you are a writer just keep in mind that no good writer ever thinks their own writing is good, or at least that is what I tell myself when I listen to the podcast to make myself feel better.