Write For Your Life

In the last ever episode of the Write for Your Life podcast, Iain and Donna talk about how they feel about the show ending and potential book titles for equally potential erotic novels. They also fill in a few gaps in both their writing stories. And that, as they say, is that.

Iain and Donna have an announcement! This is the penultimate episode of the Write for Your Life podcast, as your trusty hopes depart to focus on their own writing lives. You can also find out about Iain's pre-Christmas writing retreat and their ultimate writing aims.

Iain and Donna talk about Author Day and whether publishers really care about us writers, social media and its various pressures and problems, taking your audience with you on your journey, the idea of wasting time and being better at it!

A somewhat thoughtful episode featuring top topics that include the rise of the Instapoets, fiction that fits on an index card, the story behind the making of A is for Angelica the audiobook, Iain's newsletter for writers, and writing in partnership with a fellow author.

Topics include Donna's two-person book club, The Martian, Matt Damon's Face, Iain's favourite album, the concept of favourites in general, Game of Thrones (again), poetry and plagiarism, writing manifestos and reader entitlement.

Write for Your Life is back with a wide-ranging show that includes the end of nudes in Playboy, the end of e-readers, physiotherapy and daily exercise, being a different podcast, book clubs for two, and author parties and bowel movements. It's nice to be back.

Iain and Donna talk about live Periscoping and Clean Reader – the most offensive app of the moment. They then go on to share 10 things that you should all be doing while they take a little maternity/writing break. It's a bit like actual advice. You'll like it. Finally, it's podcast highlights time.

In episode 152 of the Write for Your Life podcast, Iain and Donna talk about focus and their plans for the next few months, the marvellous career of Kazuo Ishiguro, the death of Sir Terry Pratchett, and plenty more besides.

In episode 151 of the Write for Your Life podcast, Iain and Donna talk about World Book Day (in the UK and Ireland), where are all the grandparents in fiction, falling e-reader sales, and a controversial blog post by an ex MFA tutor who may or may not be talking nonsense.

In episode 150, Iain and Donna talk about measurements of success, how to approach the sheer endurance challenge of writing a book, where to go to fight the grammar gremlins, and the fascinating art of the chapter.

In episode 149 of the Write for Your Life podcast, Iain and Donna talk about the TV show, Vikings, and oversmizing. More importantly, they also cover podcasting woes and talk for quite some time about that wonderful phrase, authorpreneurship. Expect minor ranting.

In this somewhat delayed Valentine's episode, Iain and Donna talk about 'my Dad, the pornographer' and his incredible writing system, speech marks or not for writing dialogue, and various outlining techniques for writing a book.

This week, Iain and Donna talk about personality tests, Harper Lee's upcoming novel being published (finally!), testing a book idea before you start, A is for Angelica and piracy working on more than one project at a time, and a mischievous knight of the realm.

This week, Iain and Donna cover Helen McDonald's H is for Hawk winning the Costa prize; the harsh reality of publishing poetry; should you copyright your work before submitting it; robots and whether they can write novels; and stuff no one tells you about book publishing.

Iain and Donna talk about the latter's most loved and hated things of 1993, Mark Zuckerberg's lame book club, and then True Detective, the willies and the (mis)representation of women in film, television and literature. Oh, and how to start working on those second drafts!

Iain and Donna discuss the world's top sexy creative pursuits, writing myths and what not to say to writers, baby steps at learning Danish, and do writers repeat small writing exercises? Why yes. Yes they do. Like Morning Papers, Newspaper Blackouts and Index Card Shorts.

Iain and Donna talk about some extreme wind, what pages to include on your author website, Kickstarter and the Stacey Jay kerfuffle, Mark Zuckerberg's brand new book club and, seriously, who's controlling our channels?

In the first show of 2015, Iain and Donna look back at some highlights from last year and then forward to the writing changes ahead, including the idea of writing one novel instead of two, allotting tasks to physical space and making and sharing more of our work.

In this Christmas special, Iain says a few thank yous before sending you off on a journey with The Little Match Girl via some marvellous music from friends of the podcast, Native and the Name. Happy holidays folks!

Iain and Donna talk about Christmas cards, family holidays, Zoellagate (again), publishing short stories, style guides for companies, and creating a style guide for your fiction.

Iain and Donna talk about writers and mistakes in job applications, the huge fuss over Zoe Sugg's ghostwritten debut novel, changes to the Pulitzer Prize, and the importance of celebrating our small victories as writers.

In this week's episode, Iain and Donna talk about pronunciation wars, the #wfyl hashtag, performing at spoken word events, writing workspaces and Iain's new gold iPad, the problems with Kindle Unlimited for indie authors, and that voice in your head.

This week Iain and Donna again try to pronounce a dear listener's name, then talk about Iain's new job, the success and storytelling of Serial, and how to include simile and metaphor in your writing. Donna also reads a poem.

This week Iain and Donna cover Apple's App Store switch from 'Free' to Get', what we'd do if we had 10 uninterrupted days alone, and those crazy cats who still insert two spaces between sentences.

This week Iain and Donna talk about abandoning your muse, the importance of typography when reading and writing, how to handle insecurity as a writer, a new novel writing app called Novlr, and the listener's question Christmas single.

This week Iain and Donna talk about writing and wellness, how to get on to an MA or MFA writing programme, and whether NaNoWriMo is a good thing, bad thing or neither here nor there.

Donna and Iain tackle the fine art of dealing with negative reviews online, consider the astonishing number of books published in the UK every hour, and whether or not writing is an act of compulsion.

Iain and Donna talk about the former's return to YouTube, the Booker prize winner 2014, a sort of defence of Amazon, how to perform your fiction, and what a role an author plays in contract negotiations.

Donna is back to talk about some exciting news; more on fictional animals; meeting other writers; censorship, politics and books as life teachers; royalties and discounts; what to look for in a writing group.

Iain is joined by Sanne Vliegenthart to talk about Youtube and the marvellous Booktube community, working in publishing, favourite fictional dogs and a new episodic e-reading platform called The Pigeonhole.

This week Iain is joined by Write for Your Life stalwart Manuela Boyle to discuss feeling obliged to blog, Hilary Mantel and the fuss over her story about Margaret Thatcher,measuring how 'good' you are as a writer. They also try and answer the question: should some subjects be off limits?

This week, Iain and Donna talk about whether you hear characters' voices in your head when you read and write, how to balance light and dark when your book is rather on the sad side, and then the age-old issue of daily word counts and how long what we write should actually be.

Iain and Donna talk about sliding doors moments as a writer, Super Thursday when all the books in the UK are published, remembering to write for your own special group of readers, and the many advantages and disadvantages of side-projects.

Iain and Donna talk about Amazon's newly launched Kids' Book Creator; picking names for characters; Eleanor Catton's grant for writers to read; and just how useful are writers' notebooks, really?

An action-packed episode that covers Roald Dahl, children's fiction and how much is too much, too young; choosing cliche-free titles; being addicted to our phones and tackling writing distractions.

Iain and Donna talk about Hanx Writer, the new writing app co-launched by Tom Hanks, why teenage girls love Wattpad, Facebook the destroyer, and then much more about the literary technique of foreshadowing.

Iain and Donna return from holiday to talk about the email Amazon sent to its KDP authors, some tips on how to approach the revision process, and a little about the death of the great Robin Williams.

Iain and Donna talk about having more than one string to your writing bow, services Video Scribe and Voice Bunny, then a lot about feedback, making money as a writer and classic author envy.

This week it's all about Donna's finger, the Man Booker Prize 2014 longlist, the trailer for the 50 Shades of Grey Film, the process of planning and creating characters, and the rest of those reasons editors put down your manuscripts from last week.

Topics this week include planning your writing, putting your words under pressure, JK Rowling's 'Potter Plotter', Overcast and how to listen to podcasts, and finally a look at why editors stop reading manuscripts.

Iain and Donna talk about the recent press coverage of author earning, including how authors might need to think outside the box to fund their work. They also look at the real-life pomodoro productivity technique and a great piece of screenwriting advice.

Iain and Donna talk about Wattpad, rejections and how many agents to submit to at a time, whether a career in writing now is more tricky to come by than it was 15 years ago (it is), and how to explain why things are the way they are.

Iain talks about his time at the Coventry Book Awards; quantifying your data and writing 400k words in a year; different types of criticism and how to handle it; one journalist's experience of digital publishing.

The just-announced Amazon Fire phone launched from the Amazon Deathstar; the new American poet laureate and the idea of 'representing' your genre; self-deprecation, confidence and talking about your writing in a positive way; writing lyrics versus writing poetry.

James Franco's short story; a new web-to-print service called Paper Later; Iain's new fictional podcast project and the screenwriting apps he's using; book endings, including how important they are and how to write them; allotting reading time.

Iain and Donna talk about the great Amazon-Hachette battle and the former's grip on the book world, Eimear McBride's stunning achievement in picking up the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, and writing those all important openings (as in first lines and pages).

The selfie that made the national news (in Denmark), great writing epiphanies, treating creative writing like a job, performing your work off by heart, poetry podcasts, and the literary critic versus the average reviewer.

Iain and Donna talk about selfies, Jedward, social book-selling, crowdfunding, book launches, and knowing what type and genre of book to write.

Iain and Donna talk about Eurovision and Miley Cyrus (naturally), Studio Ghibli and writers' influences, keeping up with the internet and staying close to our stories, plus whether translators are writers. Also: part three of the publishing process!

This week, Iain and Donna talk about the death of the novel and the trials and tribulations of working from home. You can also listen to the second part of our look at the publishing process, this week focusing on what exactly it is that agents do for writers.

This week, Donna talks about pressure and what it must be like to be both a poet and the daughter of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Iain talks about how we faff around deciding what tool or writing app we should use instead of just getting on with it. Then both of them begin the long journey of explaining the publishing process, including the hows, whats and the are you sure about thats? Finally, the listener’s question, which is about experimental fiction.