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Writing Excuses 20.50: Dan Wells' Personal Writing Process

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-50-dan-wells-personal-writing-process

Key points: Writing with depression. Break it down into smaller pieces. Take a day off! Spectate, recognize when today is a bad day. Everyone's experience is different. Work with professionals. Classic conditioning works. Shape, capture, and reward behavior. Celebrate your writing! Change your venue. Be an active participant in your mental health work. Avoid the thing, or change the thing?

[Season 20, Episode 50]

[Howard] In September, 2026,  Writing Excuses will host an in-person writing retreat aboard Voyager of the Seas, where attendees can learn their craft and connect with fellow writers for a week along the coasts of Canada and Alaska. You can learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats. But I'd like to tell you about our scholarships. Scholarships are available. Applications are due by December 31st, 2025. Visit www.writingexcuses.com/scholarships. But don't delay, the deadline is coming right up. Recipients of these scholarships, the Writer of Color scholarship or the Out of Excuses scholarship for writers with financial need will receive full retreat tuition as well as travel assistance for our 2026 Alaskan cruise. Please, share this post with the writers in your life. The rules and application instructions are posted at www.writingexcuses.com/scholarships. And all scholarship applications are due by December 31st of 2025. Our scholarship program has introduced us to some outstanding writers and we're excited to meet this year's recipients.

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[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 20, Episode 50]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon]  Dan's personal writing process.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Howard] And I'm  an awkward pause.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] So. Um. We're going to talk about my writing process today. But what we're really going to talk about today is writing with depression. Because my writing process has changed drastically over the last 5 years. Covid hit, and changed a lot of things for a lot of people. I did not expect that it would have as big of an effect on me, because I work from home anyway. And so I thought lockdown would be easy. What I was not reckoning with at the time were, first of all, highly elevated stress and, second of all, I had six kids at home all day everyday slowly going crazy in the other room, which kind of changed a lot of things for me. And the one-two punch of that, plus my diagnosis of severe depression in 2023, really changed everything, and my writing process is basically something I'm trying to rebuild now. We hit the point in 23 when I realized, oh, I'd better talk to somebody about this. where I would just go into my office and stare at my computer for 8 hours, kind of screaming internally at myself to please, please write something, please. And completely unable to do it. Which turns out is one of the many symptoms of depression. And that inability to function. And so I... And I know this is not something that is unique to me. Many people on our podcasts also write with depression, and many of you listeners out there ask... There's been a massive spike in US diagnoses of depression and anxiety since Covid. It is up now to one in five Americans have some form of depression and/or anxieties. So, that's kind of what I want to talk about today. But first, because I want to know how other people pull this off, because I'm still learning, I want to ask the rest of our podcasters. Because I know this is something, Mary Robinette, that you have gone through a few years earlier than me. And have found some things that help you.

[Mary Robinette] For me, I found that it's breaking it down into smaller pieces. Things that I didn't realize about myself before I got diagnosed... I was 40, and at the time that we're recording this, I'm 56. So, in hindsight, I have done this pattern my entire life. But now I know why and can recognize the downward spiral. And I think that's been the most helpful thing with getting the diagnosis has been recognizing it and that I have... I can activate tools to kind of head it off before that. But what I realized was that when writing is hard, a lot of it is because, at its core, writing is basically a series of decisions and prioritizations, in terms of the mechanics of it. You're chasing an emotion, and all of that. The problem is that when you try to write with depression, nothing is interesting, there's no joy. And so what I learned was that I could... If I had to write, that I could craft my way through it, and that I could do that by breaking it down into smaller things. So, like, sitting down, it's like here's a bullet point list of the objectives that I need to accomplish in this scene. And just chunking through, piece at a time, really, really mechanically. That's the joyless way of writing. The thing that is better and healthier is that I treat it like an emotional injury, and I would not try to power through a physical injury, because I know that there will be consequences for that. And there are consequences when I try to power through an emotional energy... Injury. So unless it is... Unless there is, like, some really compelling reason that I have to write, I find that it is better for me to take a day off as a conscious day off, so that I'm not adding guilt and shame on to it. And I'm like, yep, you are injured right now. You're going to take a break, and you're going to go do something that makes you feel healthier. So to quote my friend, Margaret Dunlap, sometimes that means doing stupid exercise for my stupid mental health.

[Howard] The step that was unspoken there, Mary Robinette, is a step that a lot of people don't even realize it's a step. It's a cognitive behavioral therapy technique that expands out into spectating, but it is the ability to recognize when today is a bad day. It is the ability to look at your emotional state and say... And interrogate the circumstance and determine is today awful because I read about the dumpster fire of the world, or is today awful because something biochemical is wrong? And it is very difficult, at first, to make those sorts of determinations. I think of spectating like there's a guy up in the nosebleed seats who's watching the game, and he's me. I'm also on the playing field, but he's the me who doesn't take the hits and who doesn't have to do any of the exercise and who is just back there spectating, just watching, and will, every so often, tell me, hey, you know what, today is one of those days where you don't go shopping and you don't make big decisions because right now you're not thinking clearly. No, I can't make the decisions for you. That's all I've got. That's all the spectator does is tell me when things are going to be bad. And that's, for me, the first step. Every step thereafter is built out of coping strategies.

[DongWon] Yeah, I mean, in my process episode, we talked a lot about my [informatic] needs and sort of these kinds of things. A lot of that is rooted in stuff I learned from my own journeys through mental health stuff. And I want to flag a thing at the top here about everyone's own experience of depression, anxiety, other mental health issues, other types of neurodivergence, is going to be distinct and unique. I spend too much time on TikTok or whatever and the thing that I see on there is a lot of people saying,, ADHD is like this.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Autism is like this. Depression is like this. Right? And I think there are so many different reasons from biochemical ones, situational ones, trauma-oriented ones, to be in a certain mental health place that some tools will work for you, some tools won't work for you. And that always starts with what Howard is saying in terms of that self-assessment, being able to check in, what am I feeling, where am I at, what do I need right now? And, at the end of the day... Or not at the end of the day, at the start of the day, the thing that I would recommend above everything else is work with professionals. Get a mental health professional, get a therapist, preferably not just like better help or something like that. You know what I mean? Like, an actual licensed therapist that you have a relationship with, that you're talking to on a regular basis, and a psychiatrist if you need one. right? Now. This is difficult to do, insurance in our country is the way it is, mental health support is the way it is, I recognize all the barriers because I've had to claw my way through them myself. Right? But I think a lot of writers have this idea of if I'm unhappy, if I'm miserable, it's going to make me a better writer. My pain and suffering will make me a better writer. And, in my experience, unhappy people, they don't write bad books, unhappy people don't write books. Because they're blocked. Because they're letting their mental health get in the way. Their anxiety's too high, their depression is too deep, they're ADHD is helping,,, keeping them from focusing or whatever it is.

[Mary Robinette] I'm going to correct one thing that you said.

[DongWon] Yeah. Absolutely.

[Mary Robinette] You said they're letting their mental health get in the way.

[DongWon] Correct. Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] It's not that. Their mental health is getting in the way.

[DongWon] Yes. Yes.

[Mary Robinette] And they're not being able to address it.

[DongWon] 100% agree.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Letting is absolutely the wrong word choice there. But my central point is if you work on your mental health, if you pursue therapy, if you pursue these things, it will make you a better writer, I promise you. Every time I've worked with a writer who has been on that journey, they just get stronger and stronger.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things I was talking with my therapist about, and it... I frequently am talking to my therapist and she'll say a thing and I'm like, hang on, let me write that down, because that's going to be really good for characters.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But we were talking about... She was asking me how I felt when I went to go sit down to write, and I was like, this sense of avoidance and dread, and she said, "Those are trauma responses. We can do trauma therapy on writing." And what we realized was that I had inadvertently trained myself to dread writing. And some of it was because of circumstances that were not in my control, and some of it was because, as humans, we tend to focus on the negatives, and some of it was practices that I was doing that were like, you have to sit down and you have to write this much, and then if I didn't, I felt like I had failed. So we started doing trauma therapy, and it was kind of astonishing, because... Like, I went from having really a lot of difficulty getting anything done to this period where I wrote every day for like 3 months straight and wanted to. It wasn't the I had a goal for it. But I think that that's one of the things that a lot of people... That, like, I know myself, and I suspect that this happened to you, Dan, when you were talking about screaming at yourself internally, that's months and months of punishing yourself for writing. Or for not writing. So, when we come back from our break, I'm going to briefly describe how you are like a dog.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] I don't think that's a brief conversation.

[laughter]

[Howard] I think it's going to take about 10 words.

[Mary Robinette][largely inaudible] One of my favorite things to do when I'm writing is to talk to subject matter experts to kind of get new ideas, or just to dig into a topic more deeply. So, I was watching MasterClass, and they've got this class by John Douglas called Think Like an FBI Profiler. And just in the first few minutes, when he was talking about being a young field agent, story ideas just like started to unfold in my head. A lot of times, as a new writer, you don't know where to go to get access to subject matter experts, someone who can tell you this kind of story or introduce you to the sort of skills that this Thinking Like an FBI Profiler is introducing me to, and MasterClass offers that. With MasterClass, you get thousands of bite-sized lessons across 13 categories that can fit into even the busiest of schedules, like, if you're in a hurry. It turns your commute or your workout into a classroom. With audio mode, you can listen to MasterClass lessons anytime, anywhere. Just like you listen to us. Plus, membership comes with bonus class guides and downloadable content to help you get even more out of each lesson. MasterClass always has great offers during the holidays, sometimes up to as much as 50% off. Head off to masterclass.com/excuses for the current offer. That's up to 50% off at masterclass.com/excuses. And, yes, I am going to say it one more time. And, yes, I am going to say it one more time. Masterclass.com/excuses. And then maybe you too can think like an FBI profiler.

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[Mary Robinette] So, before I said this... Before we took our break, I said that I was going to explain to Dan why he was like a dog. We have this puppy... Guppy is now an adult dog, and so we've been working with a trainer, and one of the things that I've realized, or I keep realizing over and over again, is, like, oh, right. Humans are mammals, and classic conditioning works on us. So a tool... You ask what tools we were using to rebuild. One of the tools that I use is the tool that he uses with Guppy when he's trying to get her to do a thing. He shapes behavior and he captures behavior and he rewards it. So if I sit down to write spontaneously, when I finish, and I feel so silly every time... If you are ever in a coffee shop with me, you will see me do this. But I disguise it as a stretch. Inside, what I am doing is that I'm flinging my arms over my head like an Olympic gymnast and internally I'm going, hahaha, victory! The victory is mine!

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Hahahaha. So that's what's happening. And in a coffee shop, it looks like a very gentle stretch. But my internal landscape is doing that.

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] And it is... I found that that, finishing writing and saying out loud, good job! You sat down to write. Good job.

[Howard] Who's a good writer?

[Mary Robinette] Who's a good writer?

[Howard] Who's a good writer?

[Mary Robinette] [garbled] so good. Did you do that? Did you do some words? And I feel silly, but I also feel better. And that it's... I talked in my episode about how building up, like writing 5 minutes... But that's shaping behavior. That's rewiring my brain to remember, oh, this is joyful, I love this.

[Dan] And that's such an important thing to do, because you have spent, at that point, months or years shaping a different behavior. It took me so long to take my own diagnosis seriously.

[Mary Robinette] Yep.

[Dan] Because, like DongWon said, it's different for everybody. I've got a brother with depression, I have three kids with depression, mine didn't look like theirs. So when a doctor told me, I think in 21 or 22, that I had depression... Meaning the year, not my age... I was like, sure I do. Okay. That's fine. I can still function, I can still work. Whatever. And then it took a couple of years before it got bad enough that I had to take it seriously. And at that point, I had already shaped all of these avoidance behaviors and  isolationist behaviors. Which is what all authors do anyway, isolating themselves...

[laughter] 

[Dan] And so, yeah, a lot of what you're talking about with trauma rings very true. I have found, for my current writing process, it works best to get me out of my home office. I've got a great office at home, many of the books that you have read from me and love were all written there. The modern stuff usually isn't. Because I have to go into my Dragonsteel office, or I go to the library, or I just have to get out and move to my kitchen table instead of my desk. Because there are all of these feelings of guilt and trauma and whatever wrapped up in that location. I've also found... I've been working on a project for Dragonsteel for quite a while. Which has itself become a depression and anxiety trigger. And all of these bad feelings are tangled up in it because it's overdue. Because I haven't been doing what I wish I were doing on it. And when I finally decided, you know what, I'm going to back burner this, I'm going to put it on a shelf and work on something new. I was 10 times more productive then, because I was not dealing with that trigger.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. With dogs, going back to mammals again, a lot of times, one of the things when they have a bad response to something and you're trying to desensitize them to it is you remove them from the stimulus completely. And then you give them lots of other activities and give some space in between, and then when you introduce the thing, you reintroduce it slowly and with a lot of treats. Like, for instance, Guppy loves doing agility, and so we have a backyard agility set, and one day she went over the hurdle and at the same time she saw a squirrel, which is very exciting. Squirrels trump everything else. And she knocked the hurdle over and frightened herself. And then didn't want to go near any of the agility equipment. And so I just packed it all away. And then later, we brought it out. Like, waited a week. We brought out one piece and just gave her lots of treats. Didn't try to do anything with the agility set, it was just there. It was just there, and then she... Then we were like, you want to do a hurdle? And she's like, oh, yeah, I love hurdles. But if... I know from experience that if I had tried to push her to go over that hurdle, that would have become more and more and more terrifying.

[Howard] Before the break, I joked that describing Dan... How Dan is like a dog, 10 words. Eight words. Puppy training techniques will work on you.

[Mary Robinette] Yep.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] There you go.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] Um.

[Dan] Darn right. There's your other two.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I do want to flag again, that there's a lot of different approaches.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Howard] Oh, yeah.

[DongWon] A lot of different techniques. Right? There's a lot of people for whom these techniques are not helpful.

[Mary Robinette] Right.

[DongWon] You know what I mean? And so, just like [Flanagan] there's lots of different schools of thought, and a lot of what is, is you... There's a saying that comes from a particular program that's... It only works if you work it. You know what I mean? And I think it's something that I really want to get across here and sort of take the note about, like, letting it be a cautionary note here. But there's also a thing of actively pursuing how you engage with your mental health is really important, I think. I see a thing sometimes where somebody's like oh, I'm in therapy. I get medication. It's all better now and that is... Those are the tools that are helping, but you sort of need the two parts of it, of also the active participation in the process alongside the support from a mental health professional and medication, if that's what you need.

[Mary Robinette] I'm going to support you, and perhaps retract a little bit of my objection to the word let. Because I have a family member who has the same diagnosis that I have, and it presents in very much the same way, depression and ADHD. But I look at it, and I'm like, okay, so that's the way my brain is wired. I don't think of it as a disorder. I mean, depression is annoying and I don't like it, but I think, okay, so that's the way my brain is wired, what are the coping mechanisms and workarounds? And my family member looks at it and says, I can't do those things because of. And I'm like, I want to do those things. How do I do those things, even though I have this thing happening in my brain? So I do think that what you're saying about being an active participant is like... With my mom and Parkinson's, the thing that they found was, again, stupid exercise, that exercise was one of the biggest predictors about how someone's Parkinson's would progress, but that a lot of it was also that it was an indicator of who was being an active participant in the disease instead of letting the disease define them by their couldn't do's.

[Howard] I have a question, Dan. You say you gotta write outside of the office, because the office now has... And I'm paraphrasing... Your office now has baggage.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Howard] If you were to remodel, repaint, refurnish, re-whatever the office, all the way down to the sight lines, desk goes in a different place, eye lines are different, everything. Would that fix it, or is it just the process of walking through the door that...

[Dan] I think that would definitely, I don't know, fix it or change it for the better. Because it would be different. A lot of it is just the memory that comes from sitting down. And a lot of that is just your muscle memory. Because it's... The desk has been in the same place forever, and moving it to a different place would change that. Yeah. So. Did you have a further point to make on that?

[Howard] The question is related to the point which is sometimes the solution... That may not have occurred to you. To me, it feels obvious. The room is broken. Can I change the room to unbreak it? Rather than abandoning  the room all together? And I just bring it up because any time you're running into a case where your process is broken because of a thing, there are two approaches. Approach number one is go around thing. Approach number two is change, modify, morph, break, whatever, the thing.

[Mary Robinette] I have done the changing of the room, but I've also found that if I move from one place to another, like, this is the place that I do my email, and this is the place that I do writing, that my brain makes those connections. Speaking of connections, it is, I think, time for us to connect to homework.

[Dan] Ooh. That is quite a segue.

[laughter]

[Mary Robinette] No. Listen...

[Dan] I now diagnose you as homework.

[laughter]

[Howard] It's terminal. Sorry.

[Dan] There's two parts to the homework today. Number one is I want you all to just be very kind to yourselves. This is something that I am struggling with. Clearly from this episode, it's something I'm still trying to figure out. And if you are dealing with this, be kind to yourself. If you know someone who's dealing with this, be kind to them. And I guarantee you know someone who's dealing with this, because, like I said, it's one in five Americans deal with this every day. If you don't know who  that is, figure it out.

[Chuckles]

[Dan] And be a better friend. The other point of homework is some actual working homework. We've talked a lot about changing venues. I would like you to try to figure out what your ideal is. This is a process that I went through years ago, and that I'm redoing now that my brain has changed. Figure out what times of day you are most productive. Figure out in what locations or circumstances you are most productive. Often, what these questions come down to is just circadian rhythms and physical environment and all of these other questions. Is there a type of music that you should or shouldn't listen to? Is there something else you need to take care of before you can feel good about yourself writing? Just take a good look at your life and your schedule, and try to identify those moments of when you are best at getting work done. And then try it and see how it feels.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.