Before we kick off the show on November 4th, I wanted to take a moment and explain why I decided to start another writing podcast in the first place.
On this first Monday Motivation, I want to talk about our inner critics.
Hello and welcome, this is Show #1! TODAY IS LAUNCH DAY!! Huzzah! I am so excited and thrilled and out of my mind.I’m kicking off the podcast with a really special interview. I spent the afternoon recording with the one and only Ann Hood in her Greenwich Village apartment. From the moment I met Ann, her warmth was so apparent. Ann has had times of great joy and great sadness in her life, and we talk about all of it in this interview.We dive into Ann’s working habits. How she wakes up. When she writes. How she comes up with ideas for her work. Ann’s written 14 novels. She is just a true powerhouse. And she just drops so much wisdom.Ann also discusses her research method that left me nearly speechless. It seems as if the more authors I interview, the more I see how unique each writing process is to the writer.We talk about Ann’s journey after the death of her five-year-old daughter, and how it impacted her writing. I was so moved by her story and her deep courage to share it with ...
I am soooooo excited to share some news!This week, the How Writers Write Podcast broke into the top 50 Fiction Podcasts on iTunes! We hit as high as #26! We are closing in on 1000 listens in just a few short days. Thank you to everyone who is supporting this podcast. I am out of my mind excited! But, I still need your help. If you haven't yet, be sure to rate, subscribe, and share this podcast. We're just getting started!Today's interview is with an author who I have admired and widely read, Victor LaValle.As I was preparing for this intro, I found it so hard to pick a few highlights from this episode. Victor is a wealth of knowledge and a model of what it is to be a writer. This guy is a true professional. I loved my time with him and before we go any further, I want to send a huge thanks to Victor for his time.That said, here are a few things that really stuck out to me.At the beginning of our talk, Victor details his development as a writer, and how he started writing stories. Th...
Have you read the story Ming Lo Moves a Mountain by Arnold Lobel? The story goes like this…Ming Lo and his wife live in a shack right next to a mountain. The roof has holes from falling rocks from the mountain, vegetables don’t grow because the mountain is always blocking the sun. One day his wife has finally had enough, and she tells Ming Lo to go to a wise man and ask him how to move the mountain. The wise man tells Ming Lo and his wife to try all kinds of things, like ramming a tree into the side of the mountain, banging pots and pans to scare it, and finally bringing cakes up to the spirit who lives on the top of the mountain. Nothing works.So finally, after Ming Lo has tried to push the mountain, scare the mountain, and ask/bribe the mountain to move, the wise man tells Ming Lo to do the special mountain dance. Pack up your house stick by stick, and all your possessions, the wise man says, and then close your eyes and then put one foot forward, and then take two steps back. D...
If you’ve ever thought about giving up, just throwing the towel in, this Michel Stone interview is for you. This is our third author interview and there is a theme already bubbling up— indomitable writing grit.
Today, I’m inspired by a few pages of “Oh the places you’ll go!” by Dr. Suess. Anyone with at least one child has this book on their shelf.I’ll read the pages…You can get so confusedThat you’ll start in to raceDown long wiggled roads at a break-necking paceAnd grind on for miles across weirdish wild spaceHeaded, I fear, toward a most useless place.The waiting place…… for people just waiting.Waiting for a train to goOr a bus to come, or a plane to goOr the mail to come, or the rain to goOr the phone to ring, or the snow to snowOr waiting around for a Yes or NoOr waiting for their hair to grow.Everyone is just waiting.Waiting for the fish to biteOr waiting for wind to fly a kiteOr waiting around for a Friday nightOr waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle JakeOr a pot to boil, or a better breakOr a string of pearls, or a pair of pantsOr a wig with curls, or Another Chance.Everyone is just waiting.------------------------------------Six months ago, I read these pages to my daughters. At the time, I was in the waiting place. I wanted to jump out of my corporate life and into this project, but I was waiting for more money, I was waiting for more experience speaking into a microphone, waiting to get the right skills. I was waiting for something, and if you would have asked me at the time, I doubt I could have even told you what I was waiting for.The waiting place felt like I owed someone a debt that could I never repay; but until I paid in full, I’d never get out. I was convinced. CONVINCED! That there was a good reason why I should just keep waiting.There wasn’t.I was waiting because I was afraid. Of course I was. I was afraid of failure. Maybe of success. I was afraid of losing more time, of making a complete and total fool of myself in public. I was afraid of financial collapse and having to again, for the third time as an adult, live in a relative’s basement. I was afraid that what I didn’t know would cripple me. I was in the waiting place, and the waiting place felt safe. It is warm. I was in a line with people in front and behind me, and it felt good to know I was in line. The line was going somewhere important. It would end somewhere.Who else is waiting for more time to write? Or waiting to learn how to write? OR how to plot, for a writing group, for more inspiration, for a little more energy?So many times we want to write when the time is perfect, and so we wait for perfection. But, to move forward, you have to write through the imperfection of your life. You will have imperfect time, imperfect skill. You will make mistakes.But, your imperfection is what the work needs. Writing doesn’t need perfect, writing needs human. It needs fear and hope and disappointment and hurt. It needs things you have, not the things you think you need to get started. Your story is not perfect. Your writing life won’t be either.What are you waiting for? What are the things you think you need to write? 99% of the time, the things we are waiting for are just excuses. They are the sanction word for excuses- pragmatism. But, pragmatism is just fear in disguise.Take a step today. It can be anything. You can write for 15 minutes. You can share your dream with a loved one. You can edit that manuscript that has sat in your desk for years. &nSupport the show
Before we get started, have you signed up for the free webinar this evening, November 21st on how to crush your 2020 writing goals? If not, it isn’t too late. The webinar is at 7:30 pm ET tonight, and I will run through how you can set meaningful writing goals in 2020, how to stay motivated, and how to love your work along the way. I also have a few templates to download along with the webinar. Registration is open! Go to www.howwriterswrite.com/crush2020 to reserve your spot.I love this interview with Omar. He is such a wealth of knowledge, he is so encouraging, and down to Earth. We met digitally over a video conference and Omar shares his insights into the writing life. This interview is packed, but here are a few of the things that stuck out to me.1. Omar describes how he overcame shelving three novels. We dig into this point because as you know, writing one novel takes a lot. But I wanted to know how he shelved three novels before American War and didn’t quit or pull out all of his hair. There are some incredible lessons he shares for anyone in the middle of the writing journey.2. Omar also details how he wrote American War while he was working as a journalist while covering stories about the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, and Guantanamo Bay.3. Last, Omar talks about how he worked through the ups and downs of the writing life. My favorite quote from this section is “don’t rage delete your manuscript.” I’ve been there, and Omar offers some wonderful writing advice on how to work through it.Thank you to Omar for his time and for sharing so much insight.Support the show
Welcome to Monday Motivation – Maximize Your EnergyHave you heard it said that “Time is your most valuable asset?” I won’t argue that maximizing your time on this Earth is critical, but I wouldn’t say that time is the most valuable. You have all the time in the world, but if you don’t have the energy to write, if you are physically, emotionally, and creatively depleted, you’ll show up to the desk with nothing to give. As we come into the holiday season, I want to share a framework of how you can maximize your writing energy. Self-care, when there are parties, family obligations, and work, is so critically important. In your self-care toolkit, balancing your energy is one of the most powerful tools.What do I mean by balancing your energy? First, let’s define energy as usable power. It is the vitality and resources you bring to writing. We use and replenish energy. An easy example is sleep. You wake up in the morning (hopefully) feeling awake and full of physical energy, and then by the end of the day, you are tired and need to replenish that energy bucket. There is a constant flow of energy. We use energy, and then we need to add that energy back.When you are writing, I believe there are five energy centers: physical energy, emotional energy, creative energy, intellectual energy, and spiritual energy. Let’s unpack this a little bit more.Physical Energy is the backbone of your energy buckets. Without physical energy, you can’t do your work, because you are not awake enough to focus and feel as if you need to nap or rest. When you are low on physical energy, you feel slugging and tired. When you are filled with physical energy you feel alive, vital, and full of excitement.Emotional Energy is the balance between positive and negative feelings in relation to your work. Positive emotional energy powers your work. You feel as if your writing has purpose and meaning, whereas negative emotional energy leaves you feeling as if you either cannot complete your work or if you do, it won’t be important.Creative Energy is the source you draw upon to power your imaginary worlds. When you are full of creative energy, you find creative inspiration in your life. You are full of ideas. The universe speaks to you with story direction.Intellectual Energy is used to focus and do the “thinking work” of writing, such as ironing out character details, heavy research, or intense plotting. The brain-intensive work of writing.Spiritual Energy is the belief that your work fits within a broader tapestry of art. When you are filled with spiritual energy, you see yourself as a vessel for art. While Emotional Energy is cultivated within the self, Spiritual Energy exists outside of the self.We use all five of these energy buckets when we write, and yet we don’t always intentionally fill them up. What happens? When one of these buckets is empty, we get to the page and feel exhausted and we need to fill it up.The motivation this week is to take care of yourself by taking care of your energy. I’ve built a tool to help with this. I call it an energy audit—side note, if you can think of a better name, please send it across—but the audit is a way to evaluate your current energy level, and identify ways to fill your energy buckets when they get low. The audit has a key question to ask to query your energy level—such as with your physical energy, “Am I physically and mentally alert when I sit down to do my work?” a scoring on how much energy you have, how it feels, and a place to brainstorm ways to fill up each energy bucket when it gets low.But, even if you don’t download the energy audit, focus on keeping tSupport the show
Welcome to Episode 5 – How Brian Platzer WritesAs I’m sure you can see, my goal in these first interviews is to show how authors have worked through the ups and downs of life to create. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone’s journey is unique and at times challenging and at times wonderful; but, the goal for writers is to write through all of it. This interview with Brian spans the distance of challenge, joy, and so much in between.I spent a few hours with Brian in his home office and we discussed the writing life, but also about working through challenges. Brian has an undiagnosed neurological disorder which limits the amount he can write, but he has responsibilities like a family, job, and a second job, and yet Brian still finds time to write and tell his story.Some things I really loved from this interview is Brian’s candid humor. I found myself laughing through so much of the interview. The topic—and I see now how this has come up on the past few interviews—of writing cu...