Words to Write by

Week 9: Fear is the Block

10 Jun 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What causes writer's block? According to Julia Cameron, it's not laziness—it's fear. This week's chapter of The Artist's Wa...

Week 7: Perfectionism: An Expensive Illusion

20 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A funny thing happened while we were reading the latest chapter of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. She actually had some good advice. That...

Week 8: When Art Hurts

14 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Making art can hurt — even when you're fully bought into The Artist's Way. This week Cameron tackles criticism and toxic teachers, and we ...

Week 6: The Pampering Paradox

28 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The starving artist isn't a cliché for nothing — we've long assumed that art requires sacrifice, usually financial. But according to Juli...

Week 5: The Virtue Trap

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What gives? We hate this book but love talking about it.Week 5 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way returns to her insistence that belief in ...

Week 4: The Morning Pages Report

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Do morning pages work? Specifically, do they work for us. We begin this podcast by discussing our success following the advice by Julia Cameron in her...

Week 3: The Pushback

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Should you use anger to fuel your writing? Do you experience shame while creating art? Have you been keeping up with your artist pages?Week 3 of Julia...

Week 2: External Blockers (and Internal Doubts)

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're on Week 2 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, shifting from internal creative obstacles to external ones—namely our friends an...

Week 1: Let's Talk About Shadow Artists

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're officially starting our Artist's Way journey—Julia Cameron's program for unlocking creativity—and we're already running ...

The Morning Pages Experiment

16 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Three pages. Every morning. No exceptions. No mercy.We're going to unblock our inner artist using Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. For...

Starting The Artist's Way (Send Help)

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past few months, we've taken a deep dive into AI writing tools. Now we're coming up for air and trying to reconnect with our human ...

Robot Reporters Need Not Apply: A Journalist's Stand

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We've been looking at how AI chatbots have been upending fiction writing, but how about in news media? Today we talk with former Wired writer and...

Teaching Kids to Write in the Age of ChatGPT

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if chatbots result in the next generation never learning to write? It's a doomsday scenario that we keep coming back to in our series on AI ...

AI and Your Manuscript: Editor Kristen Tate's Honest Take

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In our quest to cover the mind-blowing benefits AND the nightmare scenarios that AI chatbots are unleashing on the writing world, we called in friend-...

What's Really Happening When AI Writes? An Interview with Bill Moore

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We've been putting AI chatbots through creative writing challenges, but what are these systems actually doing when they write?In this episode, we...

Not Your Usual Words to Write By: The AI Podcasting Challenge

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Is nothing sacred? After exploring how AI might steal our writing jobs, we're now testing whether these digital usurpers can replicate our podcas...

AI & Authorship: Where's the Line?

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We've explored AI as brainstorming allies, critique partners, and research assistants. Now we're tackling the most contentious question: sho...

Beyond the Book: AI Solutions for Author Marketing

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the current publishing industry, authors are expected to handle their own social media. If we wanted to be out there interacting with people, we pr...

Harnessing AI Without Losing Your Voice: A Talk with Kate Scott

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Can AI truly enhance your creativity without taking over? Our previous episodes left us wondering, but in this episode of "Words to Write by,&quo...

Brave New Workshop: When your Critique Partner is a Chatbot

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Submitting work to your first workshop or critique group is nerve-wracking - these aren't your supportive friends or family, but strangers with o...

Brainstorming with Bots: The Ethics of AI-Assisted Creativity

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Can writers harness AI ethically without surrendering the soul of their craft? In our provocative new mini-series, we're not just theorizing abou...

The Writer's Last Journey: Heroes, AI, and the Future of Writing

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we're finally putting the Hero's Journey to rest and bidding farewell to Christopher Vogler's "The Writer's ...

Getting to the Climax: The Anatomy of Romance Novels with Lia Riley

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey insists all stories follow the Hero's Journey template—but does this actually work for roma...

End of the Road: The Last Two Stages of the Hero's Journey

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just when you thought you had the Hero's Journey all figured out, we're back with a surprising twist! In our previous episode, we confidentl...

Lost in the Ordeal: Navigating the Hero's Darkest Hour

14 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Think you know where your hero's journey is headed? Think again. We're diving into the Ordeal - that gut-punch moment some people still conf...

Writing the Return Home: More Than Just a Victory Lap

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Remember family road trips? When you're finally past the halfway point and it's nothing but "Are we there yet?" from the backseat?...

Empowering the Powerless: Tim Waggoner's Tips for Keeping Horror Heroes Active

01 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Horror stories and the hero's journey - a match made in hell? In this insightful workshop episode, we talk with award-winning horror writer Tim W...

The Road to Armageddon: A Workshop with Summer H. Hanford

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do you craft a journey worthy of an apocalyptic showdown? Epic Fantasy author Summer H. Hanford reveals the art of preparing characters for those ...

Get Thee Characters to the Cave!

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Remember how we've occasionally side-eyed Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey? Well, today we fully roast this bewildering mess, ...

Fixing the Saggy Middle: A Workshop with Kristen Tate

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Looking for help with your novel's middle section? While countless craft books offer guidance on crafting gripping openings and satisfying ending...

Tests, Allies, and Enemies, Oh My!

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What really happens between "accepting the call" and facing the big bad? Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey skims through t...

Crossing the Threshold

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After the hero finally accepts the call, it's onto the next stage, crossing the threshold, provided they have some helpful mentor guidance.Rememb...

Writing Your College Application Essay

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we take a break from discussing and analyzing creative fiction to examining possibly one of the most important, and certainly ...

Answering the Call to Adventure

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do you shift your book's hero from their nice, cozy ordinary world into the adventure. According to Christopher Vogler in his book, The Writ...

Workshop: Plotting a Murder with Colette Clark

29 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Does the mystery genre follow the Hero’s Journey? According to historical mystery writer Colette Clark. Not so much. Join us for our discussion abo...

You are Now Leaving the Ordinary World

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you have read even just the first part of a blog post on the hero’s journey, you know the hero starts off in the ordinary world before embarking ...

Boy Bands & Archetypes

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our regular podcast, we’ve successfully made it through all of Vogler’s archetypes (from his book, The Writer’s Journey). Armed with this kno...

The Role of the Trickster and Other Archetypes

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are we done with archetypes now? Almost!There are just three more archetype chapters in Christopher Vogler's book, The Writer's Journey, and...

Workshop with Madix: Writing and Revising LitRPG

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What if writing the first draft was the easy part? Every week on serial writing websites like Royal Road, hundreds of authors will upload 5, 10, 20,00...

Female Shapeshifters and Other Questionable Archetypes

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone who's read a blog post on the Hero's Journey can spot the Hero and Mentor archetypes, but what about a Threshold Guardian, or Heral...

Workshop with Elana Gomel: What to do if your Hero is a Girl?

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In response to Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousands Faces, aka The Hero's Journey, folklorists and academics (many of them female) counte...

The Mentor Behind Every Great Hero

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Mentor -- Arguably the second most identified archetype from The Hero's Journey (after the eponymous hero). In his book, The Writer's Jo...

Workshop: Renee Creates a Monster-Hero

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last episode we explored the concept of the hero archetype as presented in Christopher Volger's The Writer's Journey. But analysis is one th...

What Makes a Hero

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Whether every protagonist is a hero is open to debate (and debate it we do in this episode) but it we can agree that the vast majority of protagonists...

Workshop: Mapping Kim's Novel to the Hero's Journey

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last episode we mapped all 12 steps of Christopher Volger's Hero's Journey (as presented in his book, The Writer's Journey) to J.R.R. T...

Mapping the Hero's Journey

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We've officially started our new book, Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey. And boy is there a lot in the first two chapters!Firs...

The Writer's Journey. Let's Do This.

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're on the last chapter of Judith Barrington's book, Writing Your Memoir: practical advice on critique groups, plus the dos and don't...

Remembering the Day When...

17 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Your memoir is about you (obviously) but it’s not just about you. In this episode we cover Judith Barrington’s chapter on how (and why) to bring e...

Workshop: Naming Names in your Memoir

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For this week's workshop episode, Renee wrote about the brief time she spent as a child in Pacific Grove, CA, taking care to identify specific st...

Let's Not Get Sued (for Writing a Memoir)

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Writing (and publishing) a memoir can be nerve wracking. What if the people you’re writing about don’t like your portrayal of them? What if they h...

The Secret to Getting Your Short Stories Published

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Okay, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole, but not by much. In this stand alone episode we talk with Erik Klass, the entrepreneurial editor behind th...

"Workshop: Analyzing How Time Works in Memoir

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last week we covered time in memoir, specifically how the writer can jump back and forth in time and the reader can follow along easily.  In this epi...

Time Travel in Memoir

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Memoirs are rarely straight chronological narratives, what with the musing we talked about last episode, and they almost always jump forwards and back...

Musing: Memoir's Secret Ingredient

13 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve gotten to the part of Judith Barrington’s Writing the Memoir  where she covers the actual writing of in a memoir, the words on the page. In...

You CAN handle the truth (in your memoir)

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Readers seek out memoirs because they want true stories. But the truth, according to Judith Barrington in her book Writing the Memoir, is more than us...

Finding Your Memoir's Form

14 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chronological, essays, skipping through time, interspersed non-fiction — there are so many forms that memoir can take. Judith Barrington covers seve...

Making Your Memoir Matter

31 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Baring one's soul in a memoir is hard work. Convincing others to care, to engage in your life story may be even harder. In her book, Writing the ...

Truth VS Narrative in Memoir

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We’re starting a NEW BOOK - Judith Barrington’s Writing the Memoir. And what better place to start than by discussing what a memoir is, and what m...

Bye Bye Birdy

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How do you tackle one of the most famous writing craft books, you take it “Bird by Bird.” That’s what we’ve done with Anne Lamott’s book ove...

Why Do You Write?

01 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Well,  why do you? The answer for most authors is to get published. But is that the only reason, or even the best reason? As we near the end of Anne ...

What To Do When You Have Writer’s Block

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Anne Lamott (in her Bird by Bird book) says the dreaded writer’s block isn’t about being blocked, it’s about being empty. In today’s podcast w...

Writing Groups: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

20 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Behind most successful authors there is a writing group (at least according to their novel's acknowledgment section). But how does one find a wri...

Writing Advice from the 90s

06 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Some advice is timeless, some is not. In this episode we evaluate  writing techniques from Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird and see if they still...

Shut (those voices in your head) Up & Write

02 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes just showing up isn’t enough. You’ve set time aside for writing and instead of your story unfurling on the page (or screen) other things...

Beyond Butt In Chair

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We're onto the second section in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird -- The Writing Frame Of Mind -- and it's getting a bit nebulous folks. In ...

What to do when your Novel is a Beautiful Mess

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Even published authors have problems getting the magical stories in their heads into finished manuscript. But Anne Lamott’s account of how, over the...

Getting Your Novel Right -- Scene Setting and Reworking

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We’re covering two different topics from Ann Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. First off is scene setting, both their importance for your characters and...

Character Driven Plot, plus Dialogue!

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve gotten to some hearty chapters in Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. First up is plot, which “grows out of characters.” We discuss what th...

Tilling Your Characters' Emotional Acres

22 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

So you’ve committed to Anne Lamott’s daily writing practice (as discussed in our previous podcast), good for you. Now let’s find out how to turn...

Shitty First Drafts and Beyond!

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How does one write an entire novel? It’s a bit like the advice for eating an elephant, one bite at a time. In this episode we cover Anne Lamott’s ...

And now for something completely different ... Bird by Bird

22 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s time for a new season and it’s time for a new book! We’re starting Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. This is the writing process book that ever...

ChatGPT, Write me my Novel

18 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Think ChatGPT can finish your creative writing exercises? Let’s find out!In this episode we’re testing the cutting-edge artificial intelligence on...

Bend It Like Bickham (the scene, that is)

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We’re on our penultimate episode for our reading of Jack Bickham’s Scene and Structure. So, what does the bullet point Meister have to squeeze int...

Dramatic Principals & Devices FTW

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Every composition teacher will draw out a rising action graph on the board (yes, we're old school). But how do you  translate that diagram into ...

Common Scene Errors

10 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today we tackle Jack Bickham’s Common Scene Errors, and boy, are there a lot of them, 14 to be precise. According to Scene and Sequel, these simple ...

Dispatches from a DIY Writing Retreat

04 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What writer hasn’t dreamed of leaving behind the stress and obligations of their day-to-day lives for a quiet, secluded space where they can just wr...

The One Where We Go on a Writing Retreat

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we’re taking a break from our usual craft book analysis and writing exercise because …Kim and Renee went on a writing retreat! W...

Getting Wild with Scene and Sequels

12 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After 70 pages of Jack Bickham’s Scene and Structure we feel we’ve got a pretty good handle on how to break our stories down into action-packed, d...

Speeding Up and Slowing Down your Novel

28 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How do you take a ponderous story into a page turner? How do you take a Michael Bay paced novel and make it about more than one disaster after the nex...

Sequels: the Glue that Holds Scenes Together

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When you’re bored with action-packed scenes and want to dive deep into the mind of your protagonist, maybe you should try a Sequel. In today’s epi...

Tactical Disasters, Meaningful Change, and More Scene Rules. Oh, My!

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After last episode’s deep dive into scene structure, we thought we’d ask a few published novelists and professional editors if they use scene goal...

Making a Scene

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If stories are made up of scenes, what are scenes made up of? According to Jack Bickham in his book, Scene and Structure, scenes start with a charact...

The Cart Goes After the Horse - Getting Cause and Effect Right in your Story

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is all about cause and effect, what it is, why it is critical in fiction despite being largely absent in real life, and how it works line...

Starting your book off right

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast we give our first impressions of our new book, Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure, and, being the enthusiast students that we are...

Auf Wiedersehen, Bradbury, and onto Scene and Structure

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we bid a fond farewell to Bradbury with one last conversation about his book, Zen in the Art of Writing. We discuss what's in the...

Work! Relax! Don't Think! No problem

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we dive into the final chapter of Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing, titled: Zen in the Art of Writing. So what is Zen, an...

So you want to be a screenwriter

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In todays episode, Bradbury tells us how loathing Ireland pushed him to becoming a playwright/screenwriter,  why these absurdest plays are no good, a...

Five People a Writer Needs in their Career

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

No one succeeds all by themselves, and that includes Ray Bradbury.  In his book Zen in the Art of Writing, he credits several individual who were cri...

Writing Marathons and Playing with Memories

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

According to Bradbury’s retelling, it took him nine days, a library typewriter, and a pocketful of dimes to crank out his first version of Fahrenhei...

How to Feed and Care for your Muse

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Oh Muse, well-spring of creativity, why are you so unreliable? How can we entice you? In this episode, we discuss what the muse is and get some advice...

Writing with Gusto

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ray Bradbury shares his secrets for how he wrote so many unforgettable short stories in the first two chapters of his craft book, Zen in the Art of Wr...

Goodbye Gardner, Hello Bradbury

23 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Thinking of reading The Art of Fiction, "Young Writer?" Listen to this podcast first.Despite dying in a motorcycle crash in 1982, John Gardn...

Come for the Plot. Stay for the Stripper.

08 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Wow! We've gotten to the final chapter of John Gardner's book, The Art of Fiction and it's all about plotting your short story, or nove...

Techniques

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Gardner promises to show us the proper way for the young writer to achieve artistic mastery. Doesn't that sound marvelous? We take him to task on...

Common Errors

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Enough with the theoretical, in this episode we get some practical advice out of Gardner's book, The Art of Fiction. Specifically, he tells us wh...

Metafiction, Deconstruction, and Jazzing Around

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After last episode's mother of all chapters, we get a reprieve - a much shorter and  lighthearted chapter devoted to those weird genres of metaf...

Interest and Truth

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Moving along to Chapter 3 inThe Art of Fiction. We go to war over the  Gardner's dichotomies that (he claims) make for great fiction, his vehem...

Basic Skills, Genre, and Fiction as Dream

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Onto Chapter 2 of John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction. We begin with Gardners’ opinions about grammar, and our opinions about those opinions, then ...

Aesthetic Law and Artistic Mystery

21 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We're starting our first book - John Gardner's The Art of Fiction.  Let's find out why writing instructors and blog keep recommending ...

Trailer

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to Words to Write by - a podcast where we discuss, chapter by chapter, those wonderful writing craft books purchased with the best of intentio...