Improve Your Writing and Productivity with Podcasts and Audiobooks

As a writer, I’m always looking to improve my workflow and channel extra productivity from somewhere. I added a commute for work a few years ago, and I started to stream writing content to listen to in order to get more out of my drive time. 

Outside of audiobooks, podcasts have really become a go-to move for me. There’s a ton of fresh, free content that surfaces regularly. Here’s a list of my favorite writing podcasts. I was going to try to order them by my preferences, but man, the top 3-4 podcasts are really close. In my opinion, these are the best out there:

1. Writing Excuses

This is a superb podcast consisting of four writers with vast / varying writing experience across different genres (even comic strips.) This really comes out in their writing tips and techniques. They’re pretty good to keep the episodes to 15 minutes, even though I wish it went longer. Their humor, experience, and real interest in helping the writing community shines through in this podcast.

This year’s theme is particularly interesting as they are going over “elemental genre” by breaking down and defining genre expectations in a way I’ve never heard before, exactly. This is an amazing podcast. It’s always easy to listen to.

Here’s the link: Writing Excuses. 

2. The Story Grid Podcast

The goal of this podcast was really an experiment of sorts. Could you take a serious veteran of the publishing industry in Shawn Coyne and pair him up with an amateur fiction writer in Tim Grahl, and make his writing a hit? This podcast is hosted by two writers, veteran author Shawn Coyne and amateur writer Tim Grahl. Their goal? Help writers create great stories. The twist? These hosts put their own work up for critique.

This podcast truly covers A—Z as they brainstorm his book and get to work. Shawn gives him amazing feedback. If you’ve ever wanted to be a fly on the wall for a conversation between a professional writer and an amazing agent, this is the closest thing to that out there. This is an absolutely fabulous podcast. I could literally listen to Shawn Coyne non-stop. His feedback and insights are stellar. 

Here’s the link: The Story Grid podcast. 

3. Odyssey Writing Workshop

This podcast consists of excerpts from an exclusive, annual writing workshop. The frequency with which they post these podcasts is only once or twice a month, which is far less than I would rather, but the quality is stellar, and there is a huge backlog you can download with whatever podcast software you use.

The authors and topics covered on this podcast are vast, and without fail, each one I’ve listened to has been useful many times in its own right. The quality is A +.  

Here’s the link: Odyssey Writing Workshop podcast. 

4. Helping Writers Become Authors

K.M. Weiland is has produced a high quality, buttoned-up podcast on all things writing. After listening to an episode, I often find myself wondering how one person can put together such great content, and produce it with such high quality at such a high rate.

Like the podcasts mentioned above, it’s just top-notch from a content perspective, but she also produces them frequently.

Here’s the link: Helping Writers Become Authors. 

What are your favorite podcasts?

Did I miss a great podcast? Post a link in the comments and give us the 411, por favor.