PODCAST · technology
Write While True
by Lou Franco
Write While True is a writing podcast for programmers. Each episode is a writing exercise or prompt. Sit down at a keyboard and cue us up. When the show is over, it’s time to write.
Episodes
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57. Writing Tools for Publishing
Brian: And today, once again, we’re talking about tools, but this time focus on tools for publishing and collaboration in writing, which is all a bit more complicated than what text editor do you use? So, to start at the simpler end of the spectrum, though, there’s blogging and then there’s...
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56. Writing Tools for Drafting
Brian: I’m Brian Hall. And today, I can’t wait, we’re talking about writing tools, talking about your writing stack. And we’ll actually spread this out over two episodes. Today we’re talking about the idea phase, outlining, collecting notes, and drafting. So just the writing part. We’ll save...
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55. Reader Archetypes
Lou: Today, I would actually like us to look back two episodes where we talked about reader profile, so writing towards a specific reader, and to maybe double-click on that a little and talk a little bit more about the archetype readers that you might be writing towards. So a lot of the way I’ve...
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54. Negative Feedback
Brian: Today we’re talking about negative feedback. Lou: Oh boy. Brian: Yeah, yeah. No, this one’s gonna hurt. When you write something and you share it, and then somebody tells you that it’s absolute trash in some manner or another, and there’s really no avoiding it. Transcript
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53. Pick a Reader
Brian: And I’m Brian Hall. And today we’re talking about reader profile, the person or people for whom you are writing, which is a really powerful concept to spend some time on, preferably before you start writing, at least if it’s a big project. I think this came up in the last conversation and...
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52. Using Feedback
Lou: Hey, Brian. I wanted to start this episode by doing a little bit of a follow up to episode 48, where we talked about starting a collaboration. One of the things we ended with was doing a simple collaboration by just getting feedback on something you’re writing. And I wanted to talk to you...
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51. Phased Based Writing Goals
Brian: I’m building up my ability to do that by spending my mornings and my first sip of coffee, learning this framework. And at the same time, you got to watch out because learning a JavaScript framework is not writing per se. So that’s what I’ve been up to. And it’s felt productive and like it...
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50. Habit Troubleshooting
Brian: I’m Brian Hall. And today we’re talking again about habits. In the last episode, we both set out some intentions to change our writing habits and establish a daily practice. Let’s check in on that. Lou, how did it go for you? Lou: Not great, Brian. I did the habit none times. Brian: Okay,...
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49. Tiny Habits
Brian: And so just getting yourself in position and getting started in this way tends to lead to more powerful, robust output. I guess I’ve reached the point where just by starting consistently every morning, I was cranking out a blog post a day for quite a while. And I guess that’s the other…
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48. Start a Collaboration
This is the beginning of season five, episode 48, and I’m going to tell you about something that we’re doing a little different now. This has always been a podcast where I, a software developer, talks to you, who I think are also software developers, about what I write and I’m trying to share…
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47. Write Useful Books
It’s been a while. Episode 46 came out in late January of 2025 and I’m recording this now in mid-December, so it’s been about 10 or 11 months. When I last left off, we were in the middle of season 4, and I was telling you about all the things I was learning as I was writing my book, Swimming in...
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46. Write as Yourself to Yourself
This is the 7th episode of season four. I started this season in January of 2024. My intent was to document the process of writing a book. But even though this season is over a year long, there have only been 7 episodes, and that’s because I took a 9 month break. I want to talk more about what...
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45. Gather Your Work
But even with all of that new writing, a lot of the ideas and content are drawn from my blog. That’s what I want to talk about today — How I started this project by reviewing and gathering my work. My first step, at the end of 2023, when I decided that I wanted to write a book, was to immerse...
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44. Write in Public
My intention after episode 43 was to follow along the process of writing the book and share what I learned along the way. But, a few things happened that derailed me (in a good way). The Four Disciplines of Execution [affiliate link] Write While True Episode 23: Take a Break Taking a Successful...
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43. Accountability Groups
There’s a hole in this process, and we need to fill that right now. This only works if you’re doing the lead activities consistently, and if they really do build up to the end goal. It’s true that working on the book is intrinsically fun and interesting. And if that’s all that happened, I’d...
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42. Keeping Score
As I mentioned in the past two episodes, I’m trying to write a short book, and I want to share the process as I’m going through it. For example, to help me structure my time, I’m using the book The Four Disciplines of Execution. In the last episode, I shared how I’m applying the second…
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41. The Lead Measure
My wildly important goal is to publish a fifty page book on a topic in my industry by the end of 2024. I defined it using the SMART goal format (S. M. A. R. T.), which means it’s specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This is a good way to define goals, but the issue with…
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40. Let's Write a Pamphlet
For season four, which I’m starting right now, my plan is to take you through my process as I try to write a short, focused book. I expect it to be about 50 pages. I call this kind of book a pamphlet. 4DX: Applying the First Discipline Write While True Episode 13: New Ideas In Praise of Pamphlets...
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39. Dark and Light
The white pastel can draw white on top of the charcoal, so now I can make white marks, which can also be smudged and mixed. It’s giving me a range of values I couldn’t get before. Throwing white highlights onto a dark drawing is a way of directing attention and makes it more interesting. Black…
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38. Content-free Sentences
I’m reading a book by Stanley Fish called How to Write a Sentence. I found this book by Googling that exact question because I wanted to find anything that might be a fit for what I’m podcasting about this season. How to Write a Sentence [amazon affiliate link] by Stanley Fish The Tools and...
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37. The Passive Voice Was Used
Today I want to talk about one of the rules that’s in Strunk and White. It’s actually in almost every book about writing, which is to use the active voice and to prefer it over the passive voice. Larry McEnerney analyzes the Gettysburg Address [YouTube] The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln…
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36. Stack of Paragraphs
The advice applies to any kind of writing. It resonated with me because I feel like I might be having that problem in my written work. That sometimes my writing feels like a stack of paragraphs. I am feeling the lack of propulsion that John and Aline described. Scriptnotes Episode 60 (transcript...
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35. Zombie Nouns
I recently came across the phrase zombie nouns, which was coined by Helen Sword. She’s an author and currently runs a private consultancy to help writers. Back in 2012, she was teaching at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and she wrote an article for the New York Times called Zombie...
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34. Word of the Day
What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to learn how to recall fit words when we need them in our writing. To get better at that, we need to be exposed to more interesting words and to practice using them. Imagine situations where they would be perfect. Making it memorable and ridiculous might…
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33. Collect Sentences
The idea of collecting quotes is not something new. I think that’s the way most people think of note taking in general. There’s even a style of journal some people keep called a Commonplace book, which builds on this idea. In a Commonplace book, you are mostly collecting the thoughts of others.…
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32. Paragraph Checklist
I think one sentence from David Lambuth really sums up what I want to say about paragraphs. Here it is. There is no absolute rule for paragraphing. Your own feeling must be your guide. The Golden Book on Writing [amazon affiliate link] by David Lambuth The Elements of Style [amazon affiliate…
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31. The Order of Words
I’m going to use these three books again for today’s topic, which is the order of words in a sentence. I love that these books tackle mundane topics, things that seem innate, but aren’t. I mean, we can order words into something grammatical without much thought. Even though a ten-sentence word…
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30. Finding Nouns and Verbs
Every book on writing tells you to avoid adverbs (and even adjectives). I find that hard to do in first drafts, but I do try to remove them in edits. You can tell that I haven’t done enough editing if you see that I “really like” something or that a new programming language is “pretty good”.…
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29. Loose Sentences
Last week, I spoke about something very fundamental—how to write complex sentences, and I’m going to continue along in that theme for what I’m now calling season three, drawing lessons from some of what I consider the greatest books about writing, and picking out ideas related to using words,...
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28. Complex Sentences
I like to sketch, mostly with pencil and charcoal on paper. One of the first things I needed to learn was how my drawing tools and the paper interacted. What kind of mark did each level of pencil hardness make, and how was that different from charcoal? What kind of paper worked best? I did…
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27. Writing is Ordinary
This is the fourth and final episode in a series I’m doing about the book Art & Fear [amazon affiliate link] by David Bayles and Ted Orland. In this, the final episode of the series, I’m going to tell you what they think you need to be in order to be an artist. Art & Fear [amazon affiliate link]…
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26. Making Makes a Maker
I decided to do a four-part series on the lessons I learned from Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. This week, in part three, I want to talk about a quote about what art means to the maker. Art & Fear [amazon affiliate link] Write While True Episode 24: Thousands of Variations (part 1)...
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25. Stopping vs. Quitting
I reread the book Art and Fear by Bayles and Orland and they had so many ideas for how to get people to make art, that it worked for me to start my blog going again, and then ultimately restarting this podcast. For part two of this four part series on Art and Fear, I’m going to share the what…
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24. Thousands of Variations
One of the things that got me back to podcasting after a two year break was rereading Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. This time, while I was reading it, I kept a lot of notes and found four themes that resonated with me and helped me get going again. The first theme is very practical....
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23. Take a Break
We just passed the second anniversary of the break that I didn’t come back from right away. I know exactly what was going on. I had a lot of travel to visit family and for work and it was just hard to find the time to plan and record podcasts. Well, since it’s exactly two years later. It’s summer...
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22. Harvest Your Journals
When I was done with a journal, I’d put it on the shelf with others. I do a good job of making sure to transfer anything important to a real tracking system at the end of the day, so there wasn’t much in the journal that I thought would be useful. At some point, though, I picked up an old…
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21. Dedicated Journals
I’ve been using a paper journal for years. Even when I worked on big teams, I still kept a separate journal with my personal daily tasks and schedule. For years, I just used a single journal for everything. I’d just go through it and then start another one when I hit the last page. Any kind of...
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20. Extemporaneous Writing
When I was 13, my mom got me an electric typewriter for Christmas. She was a secretary, and she taught me how to touch type, and she wanted me to have something to practice on. But unfortunately, when I opened it up, it didn’t work. Write While True Episode 1: Training to Unblock Yourself Write...
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19. Prompt Your Morning Pages
If you are just coming to this podcast on this episode, I have to tell you that I talk about Morning Pages a lot. It was the subject of Episode 1. Listen to that for the full description of what they are or read the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron [amazon affiliate link], which is where I...
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18. Taking My Own Advice
I thought it would be a good idea to re-listen to all of my podcasts from season one. Each of them is only about 10 minutes and there are only 15 episodes, so it doesn’t take too long. This had two effects. First I realized they weren’t as bad as I thought, which made me feel better about...
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17. Make Art with Friends
I thought about things that were going well, where I had a lot of output, like my programming projects. One thing I realized that helps a lot is that I am proud of that work. Doing it is a self-esteem builder, and I have a lot of confidence that I can meet my own standards. I’ve been programming...
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16. Try and a Teacher Will Appear
I did season one of this podcast a couple of years ago. I did 15 episodes. They were about some of the basics of building up a writing habit, and then I stopped. In this season, I am going to explore how to restart projects in the context of restarting this one. I want to talk about one of the...
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15. Combine Identities
I made this podcast, but I wanted to self-host, so I learned how to do that with s3 and wrote my own way to get analytics. So, Podcasting leads to programming. And then I wrote up a blog about that program (so it led back to writing) and now I am telling you about it on this podcast. Round and...
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14. Spaced Repetition
Last week I encouraged you to collect general knowledge. Viking trade routes, anime, Rothko paintings, architecture, typography, bluegrass standards -- where ever your interests lead you. For these kinds of things, it may be hard to write a note though. You could certainly write down something…
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13. New Ideas
New ideas are combinations of old ones.
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12. Keep a Topic List
In the past, when I set goals to write more frequently, I was always stopped by not having ideas ready for what to write about. Or when I got one, I didn't have a systematic way of collecting them. I would sit down to write, but getting started on a new piece was too difficult. My ONE thing is…
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11. Quantity and Quality
I know that a lot of my episodes are variations on the theme of quantity. In episode one, I asked you to write morning pages every day. In episode 4, I asked you to make a schedule where you write multiple days a week. I've talked about the importance of producing many first drafts. In episode 8…
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10. Finding My Why
The exercise this week is to think about your "why"? I don't think it's wrong to write for money or fame, but if you're an amateur like me, I'd find something easier to attain.
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9. Deprivation
I don't use a lot of social media, but if I don't plan my time intentionally, I'll find myself watching a lot of YouTube. It's not that I think that my life should be 100% dedicated to making new things or in solitary contemplation. But, there are times when I notice that level of output isn't...
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8. Lower the Bar
This episode is about lowering the bar, and I'm tempted to just say go do it and sign off. That would be the ultimate lowering the bar for this podcast. I won't do that, but I am going to keep the bar on this episode pretty low. And, you're probably thinking -- Lou, I thought the bar for Write...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Write While True is a writing podcast for programmers. Each episode is a writing exercise or prompt. Sit down at a keyboard and cue us up. When the show is over, it’s time to write.
HOSTED BY
Lou Franco
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Write While True have?
Write While True currently has 57 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Write While True about?
Write While True is a writing podcast for programmers. Each episode is a writing exercise or prompt. Sit down at a keyboard and cue us up. When the show is over, it’s time to write.
How often does Write While True release new episodes?
Write While True has 57 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Write While True?
You can listen to Write While True on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Write While True?
Write While True is created and hosted by Lou Franco.
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