Stop Procrastinating and Finish Your Book (Writing Tips with Ghostwriter Chad Sanborn)

All right. Hello. How's everyone doing today? Wait for a few people to more people to trickle in. My name is Chad Sanborn, also known right now as Not Julie. Julie's at a convention, so she asked if I would fill in. And I thought, well, sure, and what can I talk about? And you know what? Procrastination seemed to be a pretty common theme that comes up with the work that I do with book launchers. So we'll, we'll get into that as a few more people trickle in. But, and of course, we'll be giving away some, some prizes and, you know, hearing from, from you, getting some questions, comments, feedback from you folks. And then we'll just, we'll dig in. But again, we'll wait a few more minutes, let a few more people trickle in, and then I'll start to spiel on who I am and why I am someone that you should listen to on this subject. See what I got. I've got arizona. Oh, there's angela. Hey, angela. Okay, A few more people still coming in, so we'll give it another minute or two before we jump in. Let's see, before we get started, I'll mention this again at the end, but also just to let you know that there's a this Saturday, from noon to 2pm Eastern time, we'll be having a book launchers deep dive. It'll be Julie with a few, few authors, a few book launchers authors talking about their process, their experience with book launchers. And so that should be a lot of fun, really. Kind of getting into the nuts and bolts of, you know, writing their book and how book launchers help them and gave them some shortcuts and saved them a lot of headaches and kind of how their books are doing now, now that they're out, whether it's the conceiving of the book or the marketing of the book production, the COVID and the internal design, all that stuff. So should be a lot of fun. You can learn a lot if you're curious about the book launchers process. But again, that'll be on Saturday. I'll mention it again at the end, but that'll be on Saturday. It'll be a deep dive. Be from noon to 2pm Eastern on Saturday. We got quite a few people here, so I'm going to go ahead and jump in now. Again, my name is Chad Sanborn. I am a writing coach and a ghost writer with book launchers, which means as a ghostwriter, I write people's books for them. Essentially. I work with them closely but help Them write it. And as a coach, I help people to write their book themselves, which is incredibly rewarding. It's one of my favorite things. It's something that I do did for free before I found book launchers. I'm a writer myself, and so I've sort of aggregated a lot of information about how you tell a story and how you just do things as a writer, one of which is deal with procrastination. So that's what we're gonna talk about today is, you know, it's something that comes up all the time. I was explaining to Angela earlier today. In fact, I don't. I certainly didn't think of it going in, but I don't know how many people realize, you know, how much of my job is helping people with procrastination and time management. You think it would all be, you know, outlines and transitions and things like that. And there's a lot of that, but yet so much of it, again and again is just, you know, procrastination. Life gets in the way. What do I need to do? So we're going to go ahead and jump in. Like I said, we will give away some prizes eventually, but let's go ahead and get started. I'll take some questions at the end because I do want to hear from you folks, because one of the things I found is everybody's procrastination is a little bit different. So at some point, I'll kind of throw the floor open and you can throw some comments in there. Feel free to throw them in now. Just know that I probably won't address them till I'm done with. With my spiel, because that's the way my brain works. You know, multitasking for me is a myth. So I'll talk to you a little bit about this. Keep your questions as they come up and then, yeah, look forward to hearing from you at the end. So I think the biggest thing is. Oh, thank you, Angela. She's going to keep a cue of the questions, so that's perfect. The biggest thing, the biggest way to avoid procrastination. And I shouldn't say that you're not going to avoid it. Is a daily writing practice. There is a quote from Muhammad Ali that I love. I have a shirt on the front is a picture of him, and he's just. He's running alone on a road. He's training. And it's those moments where you didn't see this person and the work that he put in to get the end result that we all saw, which Was, you know, the greatest. And on the back it says the will must be greater than the skill. And that is so important. The will must be greater than the skill. And I doesn't, I don't think he means willpower by that. But it doesn't matter how talented you are, if you don't put in the work, nothing gets done. And you have to want to put the work in. Unfortunately, willpower itself is limited. It burns out pretty quickly, studies show. So the best thing you can do, and if you've read Atomic Habits, you know, this is create a habit. Create a routine that more than anything will protect you from, you know, constantly battling with procrastination. Ideally, you write every day, or, you know, five days a week, six days a week. It's not a matter of how many days you write, although obviously the more you write, the more you'll get done. But it's really about a regular writing practice for some people. You know, for most of our people, you know, they're not full time writers. They have other businesses and jobs and things are trying to do this book. So it's really, that's why it's even more important to kind of create a set time in your schedule. I write at this time of day, every day at this time of day, ideally in this place. So it just becomes like a routine. You're not sitting there waiting for inspiration. Inspiration is great if it comes along, ride that wave. But just like willpower, you cannot count on it. And I know, you know, I don't know about you, but in my life, routine, habits, you know, the bad ones are hard to break and the good ones, you don't even think about. You just do it. So that's why we constantly stress daily, ideally daily, but a regular writing practice. There's another quote that I love. It's from Lorne Michaels, the executive producer, Saturday Night Live. And he says, you know, Saturday Night Live doesn't go on because it's 11 o' clock Eastern on Saturday. Or, you know, it doesn't go on because it's ready. It goes on. I screwed it up. It goes on because it's 11 o' clock Eastern on Saturday, which is like, this is the time that shows go. The show goes on whether it's ready or not. And that's kind of how you have to be with your writing. Like, I don't even know what I'm going to write today, but I'm going to sit down at my computer or if I write by hand with my notepad, because this is the time and the place where I write every day or regularly. And you'll find that if you do that, eventually you'll get into it, you'll start writing, and we'll get into some of the tips for those actual, you know, pen on paper, fingers on keyboard moments. But the biggest thing that you can do is set up a regular writing practice for yourself. And then one of the other things that you have to figure out is, are you a carrot person or a stick person? And by that I mean, do you reward yourself when you do sit down at your appointed time to write, or is it more effective if you punish yourself when you don't? And obviously, punishment, we don't want anybody to hurt themselves. But for instance, maybe you don't like push ups. So if you don't write at your regular writing time, place, or if you have a set amount of pages or words you want to get done and you don't meet it, you know, maybe you got to do 25 push ups, 15 push ups. Maybe you gotta, you know, go outside and run around the block, whatever. Or maybe you're one of those people that when you do sit down and do your writing in your regular time and place, it's nice to have a little piece of chocolate afterwards. I'm one of those people. I reward myself frequently with chocolate. When I do what I'm supposed to. I also punish myself. And, you know, especially that's why I like to do exercise, because then it's. Even though you're punishing yourself, you know, you're still getting something out of it. But maybe, you know, on the stick side of things, maybe you, you have a friend that's your, like, an accountability partner, and you have to give them $5 every time you don't do it or whatever. You can find all sorts of ideas out there on the Internet for both, you know, carrots and sticks and positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement. So, you know, you set up that writing practice, and then you kind of find a way to get yourself to stick to it, one of which is through rewards or, you know, mild punishment, so to speak. Because if you get tired of doing push ups, you will get your writing done. And that seems like a good place right now. I want to give away some prizes again. You folks can go ahead and type in some. Some questions and comments, and Angela's keeping track of them, but this is a Rand. This is one of the random winners that Julie pulled. And I'm gonna announce it in a second, but right now I'm gonna go ahead and tell You. When I announce the winner, the winner needs to get in touch with Angela at Book Launchers, and you can reach her@teamoklaunchers.com so our first random winner today is. I got to take my glasses off because I wrote it down at helmsman 22 h e l m s m a n 22. So that's our first random winter winner today. And that's a good way to, you know, this is a good little positive reinforcement here as well. Like Kevin said, you know, that's a. Wine is a great motivator. Winning is a good motivator. So all kinds of things like that. And just coming to one of these things, it's, you know, a good motivator to get you here is a prize. So definitely a lot of carrot people in the house today. I'm going to take a little sip here. All right, so that's the big picture thing. You know, how do I. How do I avoid not writing? It's simple to write. How do I write? On a consistent basis as best you can. Again, I love daily, but not everybody can do daily. And also, your writing session doesn't have to be three hours long. That's exhausting. Most people can't do that. I'm a professional writer. That's. That's. I'm burned out after about three hours. And life usually doesn't give you, you know, three hours, especially if you're doing other things. So don't feel, you know, don't feel like that daily writing session has to be a burden. Every day. It can be 45 minutes a day. You'd be amazed how much you can get done if you sit down prepared and get done in 30 minutes every day. The pages, the words add up, and then the pages add up. And I think a lot of people, that is part of the procrastination is they sit down and go, well, I got to write for an hour and a half or I got to write for three hours. And it's like, oh, that's just, you know, that's just daunting. And I'll talk a little bit later about removing barriers to entry. But. And that's one of them is like, just, you know, make it something that it's. It's bite size. But I, you know, let's see. Let's go ahead and talk at this point about some of the. The tricks when you actually sit down. Like, you know, you've done it. You've set your time and your place, and then you sit down and it just takes you Too long or you never get into, like, the flow. You just. You can't just actually start working on it. You know, a lot of times that's basically telling us we don't know, you know, what we want to say. And at that point, I always say, go back to your outline. We, you know, we're big believers of outlines at book launchers. And again, don't think that I'm talking about that sort of, you know, Roman numeral A, B, C, double I, triple I, you know, in that, you know, you had to do in high school for research paper, it's really just like, what are the topics you want to talk about? What's, you know, what teaching points do you have? And then what order are they in? And that's. Outlines are great because, A, you're going to think of things as you're going along. You write it down. But also when you're, like, not sure where to go next, the outline is like, okay, what was I? You know, you go look at your outline and it tells you, what was I trying to do here? That's, you know, that's the first thing because, you know, as I sit down, I go, I'm not sure what I want to do. Go to your outline. What were you thinking? Try to go back to when you wrote that on your outline. What is it that I wanted to talk about? Now, obviously, most people, they're very familiar with their topic, and they just kind of. You just. It's that. It's that act of sitting down and facing the screen or looking at the blank page that just overwhelms people. And it's normal. It happens to me. That's how I developed this was like, you know, you sit down and go, okay, what am I going to say? It's much better if you know what you're going to say when you sit down. At least you know a general idea. And that's what outlines are great for. This is a little trick. This next one is a little trick that I learned from. I read it because Hemingway did it and it's good enough for him. Right? But I think it's also. Stephen King, another great one, mentions it in his book. And this is the stupidest, simplest little trick. And it's amazing how effective it is. And that is that when you finish writing for your session, write half a sentence, leave it unfinished, so that when you come back next day at your regular writing session, you just sit down and finish that sentence, you know what you're going to say. It is so deceptively Simple. And it is so incredibly powerful. I'm not sure if you're familiar with flow states, but that's when you're sort of like you're in it. You're not even paying attention to what's around you. You're like on the screen, you're in whatever you're trying to write. I find that's the quickest way to get back into a flow state within, you know, two, three minutes. It's like, just finish that sentence. I already know what's going to come after that. It's a ridiculous trick and I love it. I love telling people about it. And it will work, I promise you. You know, another thing and we talked about this is, you know, the hour and a half to three hour writing session. This is sort of like tricking yourself into doing it. But just, you know, just give yourself five minutes, just say I'm. And set a timer on your phone or on your oven or whatever and just, I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna write for five minutes. And at the end of that five minutes, if I don't feel like writing anymore, I'm not gonna. I'll just come back to it tomorrow. But what I found is that if you do the five minutes or 10 or 15, you know, just something that's just acceptable to you, not something that's not daunting to you, you go through it and then at the end of that five or 10 or 15 minutes, your buzzer goes off and you're like, I'm going to keep working. You know, and to be fair, there are days when you go, that's it, you know, I'm done. I'm just. And that's usually a sign that you kind of need to refill the creative well, that you're maybe getting a little burned out and maybe need to take a day or two off and we'll talk about, you know, that, that a little bit later too, but. But it's amazing how when you're feeling that resistance, that's what Steven Pressfield calls it. Great book on procrastination, by the way. If you haven't read it, it's art. And it's all about that feeling of just resistance, of like not wanting to do the work that you know you want to do and why we don't do it. But. So if you just set a little timer and just go, I'm just gonna do this for five minutes. It's a. It just kind of gets you into it. It doesn't feel like, oh, I gotta do three hours of this. So that's a. That's a handy little trick that works really well. I mentioned outlines earlier, and one of the problems that with outlines is that we think we're supposed to follow them exactly. And that's not the case in, especially in, like, your first draft, which is just the process I work with writers with, is there are basically two versions. There's the first version, which is just like the dirty draft, which is like you're just getting everything out. You're not worrying about how it sounds. You're worrying about what is it you want to say. Then once you have that complete. Once you have all the clay on the table that you're going to sculpt, you know, then you go back and you go, okay, I know what. I've got everything out that I to say what I want to say. Now how do I want to say it? So certainly in that first version, that dirty draft, and even as you're taking your dirty draft to rough draft, because you have it all there, it's easy as well. Just jump around, go to what excites you. Just because you finished chapter two doesn't mean you have to finish chapter three next. Or do chapter three, even if you haven't finished chapter two, but you're really excited about the middle part of chapter five. Go do that. Ride that. I mean, again, that type of inspiration, don't count on. It doesn't come along. But when it comes along, jump on the back of it and write it as far as you can. Know that it's going to go away. And the next day you're going to have to get up and you're going to have to go, okay, it's time for me to write. Let me set my timer. Let me do my five. Oh, look, I didn't finish that sentence. I remember what I wanted to say. Yada, yada, yada. I know it sounds like I'm oversimplifying. I'm really not. If you really want to get some work done, these little things are deceptively powerful. But, yeah, so feel free to jump around and start and go work on the thing that excites you. You can always come back to the boring work later sometimes. And this is key to dancing, as I like to call it, dancing with procrastination. Sometimes you got to switch it up, and sometimes that means starting with the part that you really don't want to do so you can get it out of the way. Over time, you'll learn yourself and work works for you. And how you have to change things. So, yeah, most often it's, I want to write the thing that excites me. But there are some people who's like, I can't write the thing that excites me until I get something on paper about this thing that I am not looking forward to working on. And that's great, too, because you're just getting things on paper. It's not the final version. So just, you know, vomit all over that page whatever it is you think you want to say, and then you can go work on the fun stuff in your next writing session because that's behind you. And, you know, this stuff that you know, again, this is nothing great that I've come up with these, you know, people who make lists. Some people do that, like, do the first thing. The first thing on my list is the thing I do not want to do that day, because they get it out of the way. They're not sitting there dreading it all day. So, again, here's another quote that I love to use when I'm working with writers, which is, I can't think of his name, but the quote is, he's a. He's a big game guide, and he's big conservationist, too. I know that seems odd dichotomy, but. And his quote is, as you know, he always tells people, I don't know where we're going, but I know exactly how to get there. And that's kind of what writing a book is. A book is going to be its own thing. We kind of shape it. We know what we want to be, but eventually it's going to be its own thing. So there's no wrong way or one right way to get there. So you find yourself switching up different processes, different techniques. Like I said, sometimes you start with the thing that excites you, and at some point you may find you're a little dull to that. It's not getting you excited. Like, I thought I wanted to work on that, but I don't. Then maybe you need to switch it up and go, tomorrow I am going to work on that thing that. The part that I've been dreading getting to. Maybe it's the dread that's holding you back. So I think the main thing is kind of, you know, we'll get to this soon. But just being aware of, like, what's kind of driving your procrastination, like I said, we'll dive into that a little bit. Another thing is just kind of. It's. That goes back to that idea of I don't know what I want to say in this session, in this writing session is just kind of make a little sticky note that has your intention for this session. Maybe it's just, I just want to write 300 words or I want to talk about this subject or, you know, I want to make it. I want to write so many pages, just whatever sort of an intention and a goal is for that particular writing session, write that on a sticky, stick it next to your computer, and then, you know, jump in and start working toward, toward that goal. Just for that writing session. Doesn't have to be the big picture. It's one of those things where it's, you know, again, you're making it bite size and it's, it's, that's the, you know, writing a book is climbing a mountain. It's running a marathon. Whatever long, you know, drawn out, painful metaphor you want to use, it is best done in small bites. You know, daily incremental progress is something that I always preach. Again, that's why I'm a daily writing session. I think you definitely, though, it helps to just sit down and go, what I want to do for the next five minutes, if that's what I've given myself. What I want to do for my next, for this next hour, this next three hours, what is my goal? And just write it down and just, you know, that way you kind of have it there right in front of you. Can be, can be quite a motivator in terms of handwriting. Also, another thing to do is just kind of write out what you want to write that day. And I know it seems kind of weird. This is fiction technique that I've learned, and it works really well for nonfiction as well, which is to just go to get a legal pad or whatever type of paper you want and a pen and just handwrite. And you're not writing the chapter, you're writing what you want to say in that chapter. So, you know, this chapter is going to be about that and I'm going to tell a story about and I'm going to have a case study that includes. So you're not actually writing the chapter, but you're just, you are taking an inventory or setting down an inventory of everything you kind of want to talk about, but not in terms of, you know, this is the right word, the certain word that I want to use. That's incredibly, been incredibly helpful to me on the fiction side. And I've had some success with it on the nonfiction side too, because it just again, answers that question of what am I going to talk about in this writing session? What am I going to do today? What are my intentions? And it's just, you know, it's low risk, low stakes. You're just writing it on a piece of paper that you're going to, you know, recycle when you're done. But it just helps you to kind of go, oh, I guess. Yeah, it's not. It's not as daunting as I thought. It's all right there. Now I just got to go over here on my computer or whatever and, you know, kind of. Kind of write that out. And again, you're doing, you know, if you're doing your first draft and you're just saying whatever you want to say just to get it out. If you're doing your rough draft, you already have your dirty drafts. Now you know what it is, but you kind of want to shape it. You know, I talk about this a lot, but that's. It's important to keep in mind that those are two mindsets when you're different mindsets. When you're doing the dirty draft versus your rough draft. The dirty draft is, I want no criticism. It's no self criticism, I should say. It's just you're getting out everything. When you're starting to do your rough draft, then you're approaching it with a little more critical mindset of like, well, this is what I want to say, but this is how I want to say it is the best way I can say it. And again, with book launchers, you know, once you get to that rough draft, you're not done, but you've got a thing now that can be shaped even further. And once you get to that point, to that rough draft phase, where it goes for a content edit, you got, you know, up to this point, you've had a writing coach like me or some of the other folks we have helping you along the way. Once you get to that content editing phase, like, you got a whole team that's working with you, you'll be working with the marketing folks ahead of time early on in your draft just to make sure that you're, you know, everybody's on the same page knowing what you're, what you're doing with your book. But once you get to that content editing phase, you got a who team that comes in of copy editors. And, you know, you're gonna have the production people, and then the marketing people are gonna jump back in and have a lot of suggestions and stuff. So once you get that rough draft, you know, There are many opportunities to keep shaping and figuring out exactly what it is, but it's, it's. It's. You definitely know what it is at that point. You're just sort of refining. But back to the idea of, you know, what is it that I want to say? That mindset should not be critical? That mindset should be everything I want to say in this chapter or in this writing session, just get it out on the page. I know I'm going to go back and shape it later. If you stop to go, oh, well, maybe I should rewrite this, or rewrite. That's actually a form of procrastination, and it doesn't seem like it. Some people have to work that way, but most people don't actually have to work that way. It's just a little way that we trick ourselves because that thing that's next is a blank page and it's unknown. And the unknown is scary. Even if I know what I want to say, it's still the scariness that I was dealing with when I sat down at the beginning of what is, you know, what am I going to do with this? You know, once you have something on the page, it's so much easier to go, oh, I should tweak this. I should fix that. So that's why I always say, you know, don't go back and edit until you have that first dirty draft. And that idea of handwriting beforehand, what you want to say in the chapter is a good way to kind of get around that. It is a good way to not worry about, like, oh, that critical mindset. Am I sure this is what I want to say? It's like just, this is what I'm going to say, and then I'm going to go say it. Many processes, you know, go through many revisions before you get it to where you exactly want it to be. You know, some other quick things in terms of ways to get yourself going in a writing session. You know, quotes that motivate you. Again, I'm not a big quote guy in books for a host of reasons. You know, a lot of people like to start their chapters with quotes, and it's fine. I'm just. I'm not a huge fan of it just because there's a lot of validation of quotes. You find a lot of quotes out there on the Internet that aren't actually real. But also, I feel like that quote is a motivator more for the writer than it is for the reader. Now, again, I've told you some quotes of this, but it's you know, they may resonate with you, but they resonate a lot with me. And so that's why I share them. But those quotes, a lot of times, maybe that's just what you need to get yourself going. Is the quote that you're thinking, I'm going to start my chapter with this. Maybe that's just for the sticky note and for you. And you just kind of go back to that for that chapter again and again every time you sit down to write. Maybe it's just a motivation quote in general, has nothing to do with your topic, but it's just one of those things. Like that quote really resonates with you. And again, just like with everything else, you're gonna have to switch it up. The more you use it, the less effective it is. You're gonna have to find new quotes. You know, don't let finding quotes be a form of procrastination. But it is, you know, you do have to have those things that kind of give you a little zing, make you go, oh, yeah. But I find that those things come to you more than you have to go look for them. That's what I found, is if you're kind of paying attention to what's going on, somebody will say something or you'll see something. You'll be like, oh, that. That's odd how that fits in with what I'm thinking about at the moment. Those are. Those are little gifts. Take those, write them down, keep them. And then another thing, just real quick. And then we're gonna do another random prize winner is to read, like, passages from your favorite writers, writers who've inspired you. And again, you may be writing a book on selling real estate. Doesn't have to be, you know, a passage from a book that inspires you about selling real estate. It can be, you know, something from Harry Potter, or it could be something from Ulysses or whatever, you know, whatever you like. But that's kind of a good way to just, you know, sit there and go like, oh, you know, spend. Read a couple pages of somebody who you enjoy reading. And that can make writing that much more fun. When you sit down, do it. It really helps you kind of, like I said, you know, dance with the procrastination. So I'm gonna take another little sip, and then we will go ahead and give away a second prize. Random drawing. How we doing? Okay, so our winner is random number two. Okay, this is an interesting one, so bear with me. This is Kevin Hall-UX9HN. Again, that's Kevin Hall-UX9HN random drawing winner again. Get in touch with Angela@teambooklaunchers.com and she'll tell you which prize is and how you can get your prize and all that stuff. So we thank you for, for showing up. Okay. We talked about how you got to change your processes up again and again. This is, you know, really gets to the point that I'm trying to make about procrastination in that it's not going away, it's always going to be there. And some, you know, that's why it's important to figure out, like, what's behind it and obviously how you can confront it. But I kind of want you to think of two things about procrastination in that. A, it can be your friend. Get into that in a minute. And also that you're not fighting with your procrastination because when you fight with it, it just gives it energy. It just feeds off of that resistance that you give it. Seth Godin has a term that I like to use in terms of procrastination where you're sort of dancing with procrastination in that, you know, you're kind of mirroring it. It steps forward, you step back, you step forward, it comes forward, you know, and you're just kind of like following each other to a certain degree. One, it, like, reduces the stakes. You know, procrastination is my enemy. Is different than procrastinations here. Wish it wasn't. But, you know, I'm going to deal with it. I'm going to dance with it. I think just that mindset helps it be less imposing. So just think of that like, yes, I am flawed. I am human. I am procrastinating. I'm just dancing with procrastination. That's so much different than, I am human. I'm flawed. I can't believe I'm doing this again. And then you go into the shame spiral, and then next thing you know, you're eating a whole bag of potato chips and you're not doing the writing. It's just, you know, it's, you know, all these things are linked and that's why it's kind of important to figure out, you know, what is behind the. What's the why of the procrastination. And that just a lot of times that means sitting with the procrastination for a while. It's not fun, but you kind of sit there, you know, when you sit down and maybe you've tried some of the tricks and they're just not working. And you're just, just, you know, the procrastination is really feeding off of you. You have to think, why am I doing this at all? Because nobody really has told me I have to write this book. This is something that I want to do, right? So why am I resisting that? Why am I fighting that? And, you know, we'll cut to the chase. It goes back to fear. Some kind of fear. Fear of failure. Fear that you're not good enough, you know, fear that it's been said before and all these things are just. They go back to that little voice in our head that also never goes away. It just says, you know, you know, what makes you think you're good enough to write a book? People who've written numerous books, myself included, you sit down and some days you just hear that voice and you're just like, go away. Just, you know, I know because. And you said what you do is you. Because you've set up a process, a regular writing routine. You just trust that process. You hear that voice? Yep. There you are. There's my friend, procrastination. There's my friend, self doubt. We're going to dance a little bit. I'm going to go ahead and write while you guys are yammering in my ear. And then lo and behold, you're focused on the writing and those voices and the procrastination go away. It really is a lot about just sort of relaxing into it versus fighting it. These things are easier said than done, granted. But they're like any practice. The more you do them, the more. The easier they are, the more effective they are. Some days it may not work. If you get a string of days that it doesn't work, that may be when it's time to switch up your process. That's what I mean by being aware and in the moment of like, what's behind the procrastination? And just really sitting with it for a little bit and going, what's really behind this? Because that's your key to going, you know, oh, you know what the procrastination is? This routine is stale to me. I've been doing this for six months the same way. And I just need. I need to switch it up a little bit. And lo and behold, you're not procrastinating anymore because you've jumped around to a different section or you're trying the handwriting or you were handwriting and now you're just jumping in and you're jumping in the middle of a paragraph. Just, you know, over time, you'll learn I gotta change my process once. And it's also frustrating because you find a process that works for you and you think I've cracked the code and then they go and change the code on you. So. But that's part of it. So these are, you know, like I said, these are some of the things that can help you deal with procrastination. You know, specifically, like when I'm sitting at the computer, but also just in your head, I think that's the biggest thing that you can do is kind of be nice to yourself a little bit. You know, don't necessarily give in to the procrastination, but don't fight it. Just realize that it's there and it's never going away. It'll lessen. There'll be some days when it's not there, but overall it's not going to go away. I mean, let's just be honest with ourselves. Some days you're like, I just feel like procrastinating, but I can't because it's 10am and it's Thursday and I write every Thursday at 10am for an hour and a half. That again will take. Make procrastination go, okay, well, I'll just go sit over here in the corner while you do your thing for the next hour and a half. Let's see something else you can do. And this is really effective because again, you know, like I said, we ask you or I asked you, what's the why behind your procrastination? Also, think about one of the first questions we ask you when we start working with you at Book Launchers is why are you writing this book? And that can be really helpful when you're feeling stuck or you're just out and out. Procrastinating is sort of envisioning going back to that change that you envisioned to begin with. You know, what's going to happen when I finish my book? And you don't want to get caught up in hours of daydreaming, but it's okay to kind of pause every once in a while and think about, like, what's going to happen once your book is published. You know, you've written a book and it's a pretty book and it's a pretty ebook and working with the marketing folks. And so you're telling people who need to hear about this book because you have something to offer. And that's a key part, by the way, is the marketing part of, you know, people. A lot of people want to write a book, but they don't want to do the marketing, myself included, the marketing seems like it's not going to be a lot of fun. It actually is a lot of fun. Once you start doing it, once you come to terms with it and do it sort of your way and you're not trying to do everything, you're just trying to do the things that you're comfortable with. But if you don't market a book, you're not publishing a book, you're printing a book. And that's a completely different thing. So even if you're sitting there right now going, I really not into the marketing side of things, there are things in marketing that you will enjoy, I promise you. And just remember that if you want to just print a book, that can be done a lot cheaper than publishing a book. So, you know, that's one of the reasons we work with you at the beginning. From a marketing standpoint of what's the hook of your book? Who's your audience? How is this going to change them? So when you're sitting down, you've been through that process with us, you're sitting down to write your procrastinating. It's nice to think about sometimes. How is publishing this book going to change my life? I might feel better about myself. It's not going to solve all my problems, but I can say I wrote a book. And not a lot of people can do that. And a lot of people do want to do that, but not a lot of people can say it. But even more so than that, keep in mind that you are writing your book for someone else, your reader. You're not writing your book for yourself. It's for them. Take care of their needs in your book and you will be rewarded. And so sometimes it's really more effective when you're facing procrastination to think about how you are going to change the life of your readers by writing, printing and publishing this book. That can be incredibly powerful motivation when you're feeling like, I don't have anything to say, whatever, and just don't listen to those voices and just envision who your reader is and how they're going to change it because of how they can change anyway based upon what you're going to share with them. Whether again, whether it's how to be a better salesperson or it's how to overcome trauma or anything, it's just think about how someone else's life is going to be different. That's the best way to get out of your own head, is to think about helping someone else and that's true in everything, not just writing a book. And I know this as someone who's always up in his head. That can be incredibly powerful. Just take a couple minutes and think about, like, envision someone in another state who's got a problem and your book is the solution. And they come across some way. They find out about your book, whether it's an ad or somebody's talking about it, or they hear you on a podcast and they think, huh? And they check it out and they think, that's for me. And they read it and they put it into place, the things that you share with them. And then they think, oh, my life is better. This problem is solved. Or, I know how to deal with this. I've got to tell other people about this book. And so then they go and tell other people. That can be really motivating when you're sitting there staring at a blank page. So, you know, again, not talking about 30 minutes of daydreaming, but a good, you know, two, three, five minutes of just like, I could have a really positive effect on somebody's life, but it's not going to happen until I write this book. So that can. That can really help you get there. And now, we're not going to give away a prize right now, but I want to set up our third prize. And it depends on all you folks. This one's not going to be random. I'm going to be judge and jury on this. But I want to know your favorite way to procrastinate. And I've heard a lot of different ones, but I want to hear, like, when you're in that procrastination, I need to write, but I'm not going to write. Some people, they fool themselves by doing productive things like housework or whatever, and other folks, they don't do anything but just let me know. I want to hear what you think are, you know, what are your favorite ways to procrastinate? And then I'll pick one that I think is. Is, you know, fun or crazy or never heard of. I don't know. Don't know what my criteria is going to be. That's completely subjective. But so feel free to go ahead and drop those in the comments and we'll keep track of those and we'll circle back in a bit. I do kind of want to just kind of wrap up. We're going to get to some questions soon, but I just want to go back and kind of touch on these things of, you know, this bigger idea of, you know, if you take away anything from this session. It's, you know, regular writing sessions, obviously. But the idea that procrastination is not going away, that you're never going to defeat procrastination, all you can do, as I say, is dance with it. And sometimes procrastination, like I said, is a good thing in the sense that it's a signal coming from you that you're not quite ready yet. I don't know exactly what I want to talk about. Maybe you need to go do some more research. Again, you have to be completely honest with yourself, which is, am I really needing to do more research, or am I wanting to do more research so I don't have to write? At some point, I can't help you. It all comes down to you being completely honest with yourself. And a good litmus test for that is, if I don't include what I think I need to go find out, if I don't include it, will the book suffer? And if I do spend the time and the effort, what's the return on that investment? Is the book that much better for the three days it took me to go look that up and not make any progress? Is my book that much better? If so, by all means, go do it. Or, you know, leave a hole. After you finish your draft, come back and do it then. That's what I would recommend. Because once you're in that mode of just getting words on page, just do whatever it takes. You can always go back and fill in holes, leave notes to yourself. But like I said, sometimes procrastination is. I'm just not quite ready yet. I need to know more. I need to do more. That does happen, but you have to be really, really honest with yourself. And then it's like I said, other times it's just, there's my old friend procrastination. There's my old friend, that voice in my head. Once you come to view them like that, you'll win. Because there is no winning at that point. It just is. And you just sit down and write and you don't listen to the voice. And that's really the big thing. Like I said, regular writing session. Some of these little tips and tricks, when you actually sit down at the computer and just, you know, accept that procrastination is going to be there. Accept that there will be days when you really don't do what you're supposed to do. The other thing is, don't confuse procrastination with life getting in the way. You know, oh, I sat down to Write. My mom called. Talk to your mother. You know, talk to your mother or tell her, hey, mom, can I call you back? I'm in my writing session right now. I'll call you in three hours because it's a three hour writing session, even though it's hour and a half. But don't confuse life getting in the way with procrastination. Life getting away is just what happens. Procrastination is something that we manufacture ourselves, which is why we can get past it. But it is always going to be there. So I hope that helps. So I guess that's kind of all I have for now. Let's go ahead and take a look at. We'll give away the third prize for the best way to procrastinate. See here. Oh, Suzanne, with your Tara from the Gone with the Wind tomorrow. Tara. Yeah, I'm a huge Gone with the Wind fan. So organizing is good. Oh, yeah, organizing is great. Oh, you're so productive when you're doing that, aren't you? Living on my planet. Yeah, research. Like I said, research. You know, there's a time and a place, but you have to be careful. Lori Clemens is eating chocolate. I have a feeling that's a reward, not a procrastination. Go for drive, watch tv. Social media. Social media is. Oh, yeah, that's the worst. It's just right there in the palm of your hand. You know, there are apps that you can get to like, shut that stuff down on your computer so that you can only write for a certain amount of time or, you know, take your phone and it can, you know, shut it off on your phone or whatever. If social media is a big, you know, tool for you in terms of procrastination, I would definitely look into getting some of those apps that can kind of make your computer like just a writing machine for that writing session. Yeah, I always have tomorrow. Yeah, that's what Suzanne's saying. That's true. But then you have tomorrow. But then think about how far along you be. You know, this is another little thing. It's like some days, maybe I don't get to do anything, but I try to write at least one sentence, like make some incremental progress that day. That's another trip trick that I should have thought of. So, Suzanne, when you're, you know, you're tired and you say, like I said, you always have tomorrow. You're saying you retired. You always have tomorrow. But I know some people are like, I can do it tomorrow. And what I'm saying is, go ahead, do one Sentence or one paragraph today, that'll take you five minutes. And then tomorrow, you know, leave that sentence half finished. And when you sit down tomorrow for your writing session, that's a great way to kind of jump in and go, okay, boom, back at it. Who else? Okay, I think, I think, I think my favorite one in terms of the. Oh, you eat chocolate to procrastinate. That's good. That's good. I think I like Stella's the best, though, because that's so insidious, because you feel like you're being productive. You're like, oh, I'm doing good things. I'm. I'm making progress. But you're. You're just avoiding it. I think. I think Stella. Stella wins again. Team@book launchers.com get. Reach out to Angela. She'll tell you what you want. But I just, you know, that's, to me, is. Is. Is the perfect. You know, like I said, it's so insidious that it's just like you don't even realize what's going on. And maybe even if you do, but it's, you know, the laundry's got to get done, doesn't it? Right? So nobody, you know, I don't have to. Yeah. I've got tomorrow to write the book, so I'll do the laundry today. Yeah. Sometimes you really just have to put a stake in the rear end and go, no, this. You know, the papers can wait. You know, there's something to be said for. I can't write until I'm organized. Okay, fine, organize it, but keep it organized. Don't sit there and organize every day. You know, and there is something to be said for, you know, that regular writing session of having, you know, I like to have a cup of tea. I like to have a chocolate or whatever. Make it comfortable, make it fun. You know, make it something pleasurable. That definitely helps with the procrastination part of it. But I think those are the main things. It's just, you know, how. How can I make it something that, you know, I do on a consistent basis? And how can I not trick myself into not writing? We do it a lot of different ways. So. Okay, I think that's that part. Now we got about quarter, 15 minutes left. Something like that. We're going to give one more prize away at the end. Going to be. I think I'll reveal what it's going to be because it's going to be based upon, you know, where you are and when you offer things up in the comments. But let's Go ahead and jump into. Let's see what some of the questions are. Where should I look, angela? Let's see. I like that, Stella. I'm sitting down and writing. That's good. It works. I'll write this book before I write. Nice. Tom, What's a rule or tip you had to learn for yourself about writing for others, that the first draft is mine. That is to say, I'm not worried about capturing their voice. I want to talk about what they want to talk about. But I'm not like a parrot or a minor bird. Some people are. I mean, and there's nothing wrong with that. I just, I don't have that skill set to go like, oh, you know, I can make it sound just like what they sound like. So I just, again, I get down what I want to say and then I go back and make it sound like how I want it to sound. Some people, you know, like I said, have the skill to be able, like their first draft sounds like the person wrote the first draft. I don't have that skill set. So I really just kind of go, well, this is how I would say it. And, and then go back and go. And it's never going to be perfect even if I did. So it's going to go back to them. They're going to go, oh, I'd like to change this. We should change this to this. I was thinking more along that that's the process. So my first thing is I don't spend a lot of time trying to, you know, hit a home run with the first draft. I'm like, you know, I just want to get the words on the page and then if I can hit a double, great. And then I'll work with my, you know, with the client and we'll get it to where it needs to be. Okay, hope that helps. What else we got? I write at night and I want to write full time. But are the hours, what are. But are the hours at night should I write? Are you asking, I think you're asking, like, what hours you want to write at night or what hours should you write at night? I don't know because I haven't written at night for years. I'm old, so I'm a morning person now. But it's, you know, there's no right or should say, there's no wrong answer to this question. It's really about what you're most comfortable with. I mean, there are people who are night owls and like, they don't even get going until 11 o' clock and that's great. You know, just an experiment, jump around. I mean, I certainly hope you're not a 3am is my best time to write person. But if that's what it takes to get the book done, do it. You know, hopefully it's not. It's. It's not something that you think, you know, oh, it's got to be. I have to be right in the morning because that's what other people do. Yeah, just whatever works for you. Suzanne says whenever you're motivated. And I would say Suzanne was not paying attention, because motivation is not. It's going to fail you. You know, get your writing time, sit down to write at your writing time. That'll solve all your problems. And if you. Again, if your writing time is 3:00am and it's for an hour and a half at 3:00am God bless you. More power to you. And if you have a day job, you're gonna have to factor those two things. Like I said, life gets in the way. Do not recommend quitting your day job to write a book if you're looking to make money with your book. There are better ways to make money than writing a book. Unless, of course, it's to promote your business, which is what we do at Book Launchers. But if you're looking to just write a best seller and make your money that way, you know, there are better ways to make money. But, you know, motivation is great. Like I said, write it when it's there, write it when it pops up. But you can't count on motivation. You can't count on inspiration. But what you can count on is yourself to have your regular writing process and to sit down and do it on a consistent basis. Any particular rituals you have before you start, anything that gets you into the zone. Like I said, I'm a big, happy, finished sentence person. I've recently been a big. Like when I started a new chapter, writing out by hand, because I'm not a handwriter, but writing out by hand what I want to say in the chapter, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. You know, even with my ghost writing client, you know, I know what we have outline. We've had a conversation. I have the transcript from the conversation. And so I just kind of go, I'm going to write about this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. At this point, I'm going to talk about this. And then I turn to the computer and start, you know, just working my way through that. It's essentially kind of like a list. Although I don't write it as a list. You certainly could. There's nothing that says you can't, but that's, you know, that and just knowing like this, like I very seldom meet with people in the morning because that's when I do deep work like writing. So it's kind of like, okay, you know, I've checked my email and I checked Slack, nothing I need to address right now. Boom, this is my morning, it's time to write. That's what I do. Again, I'm just creature of habit, can't help it. Kevin Hall. I can write no problem, but all the mechanics afterwards that I procrastinate at any advice. So yeah, like this, you know, you're sort of the anomaly, Kevin, in the sense that I think most people having the most trouble with the first draft or whatever, like once they have something on the page and like you said, the mechanics of it afterwards, the editing, all that stuff, it's a little easier because it's something to react to versus something to create. In thin air, out of thin air. The great thing is working with book launchers is honestly, you don't have to worry about spelling, you know, grammar. You're gonna go through a couple round of copy edit, copy editing, A couple rounds of copy editing. I can speak. And so you know, you want to, you want to, you don't want it to be completely sloppy, but just know that you've got people that are going to be backing you up. I mean, if you're, if I'm working with you, you're going to send me something to read, I may catch a few things. Again, a writing coach is not an editor. We don't spend a lot of time fixing things. We'll fix some things if we see them. It's going to go to a content editor. They're going to be focused on some bigger questions about your book and things that work and might not work, but they'll fix some things as well at the grammatical and the spelling level and the mechanical level. And then you're gonna go through copy editing and possibly fact checking and all these things. So you got the whole team behind you so you don't really have to worry about, oh, you know, these things. This needs to be perfect from a grammatical sense. You know, it's amazing how you kind of like, just as you're going through things, you may see something. I'll go fix that. Another great thing is if you have the time, you know, you have your writing sessions and then maybe you have a half an hour later that day or first thing the next day, where you do go back and you fix some of those little things. I find that that type of work works best when I'm mentally exhausted after, you know, the writing is mentally taxing. So maybe in the afternoon or even in the evening, then I'll go back and like, check spelling and again, using, you know, Grammarly or something or, you know, whatever. Spell checkers in the in word just do a little things like that. They're just kind of mindless, mechanical little tasks. So. But again, you don't have to worry about it greatly because like I said, you gotta. You got a team with you at Book Launchers who's gonna. Gonna help you there. Any other questions? Yeah, like Suzanne says, you know, you don't have to worry about not being good. You can just worry about what you want to say because nobody's gonna. That's the other thing is like the old I'm not good enough or who am I to write a book? It's not about good enough or who are you? It's about your point of view. Whether it's your experience or your education or whatever. No one's gonna write the book that you would write. There may be other books on that topic, and we'll work with you to figure out how can we differentiate that. But nine times out of 10, the differentiation is going to come down to you. It's going to be your point of view, your voice, the things that you bring to the table that are going to make that book uniquely yours. Yes, that's a good point, Suzanne, as well. I use audio to read my stuff back to me, whether it's stuff I'm doing for book launchers on my own, read back to me all the time. Because they always say read it out loud. And it is a great way, but I hate. I just get tired of reading out loud. So you go to like one of these free computer voicey things and you just drop your text in there and it reads it back to you and you go, oh, that doesn't sound quite right. Or, oh, there's a. That's missing a word, obviously. So. Yeah, another good point, Suzanne. That's a great way to kind of, you know, when you're in. At the phase of checking your work, just kind of drop it in. One of the audio readers. Let's see, as a ghost, this is a question. As a ghostwriter, do you feel. You get a feel for. The client would write if they had the skill, time, patience, or more like you piece everything together like a criminal sketch artist. It's more along the piecing things together. Again, finding a voice is a tricky thing because it all kind of starts with an interview. I do get a sense of how someone talks. Now, obviously, the words on the page are not exactly how someone talks, but you get a sense for, like, tone. You know, does this person, you know, does a little humor work here? You know, is this something the person would say? You know, a lot of times, I think a lot of times I spend more time streamlining things because, again, these people are not writers. And they want to say things like. Just little things, like, in order to. It's like just say two. So little things like that, where it's like, they may speak that way, but I'm not going to put that on the page. It's more about the bigger picture in terms of tone and voice. And again, I'm not doing it in a vacuum. When you hire a ghostwriter with book launchers, you're very much involved in the process. You're not necessarily writing, but you're doing a lot of reviewing. You're giving a lot of feedback. I mean, I have weekly writing sessions or weekly meetings with the people that I work with. And so, you know, to keep that process moving, you're the expert. You know what's right, you know what's wrong, you know how you want to sound. And so it's not as if you just go, here, go write this book, and I'll be back in, you know, three months or four months. Like, it doesn't work that way with books launchers. Even at our VIP level, they're still. They're very much involved. Let's see, what genre author am I currently reading? Well, in the morning, I read nonfiction. Right now I'm reading a book about. It's called into the Woods. It's about story and storytelling by Tom York. Or that. The guy from Radiohead. Jonathan York, I think is his name. He's. He's a. Like a TV producer. Broad Church was one of the shows he did, which is a great show. So in the morning, I read nonfiction. In the evening, I read fiction, usually crime fiction. Right now I'm reading a great. A great book called Mrs. Plasky's Revenge. Is that the name of it? It's a wonderful book. It's about this retired woman who gets scammed on a phone scam and decides to track down the people who did it. It's a lot of fun. It's a really good book. Thank you, Bill. Anything else? Any other questions? Okay, Angela, we have one more prize to give Away. Oh, wait, I got one more question. We'll leave time for one more. How quickly or slowly were you able to find your audience? Took about probably my second book. My first book was spending a lot of time making mistakes, even though I was studying what other people were doing. You just kind of figure out, how do I. Who am I? I think it was by the second book that I figured out who I was writing for. And it was based on feedback and, you know, having my email list based upon my first book where I went, oh, I thought I was writing for these people. I'm actually writing for these people. Which, as it turned out, you know, shockingly, women over 40 like crime. So, yeah. And, you know, to a degree, that shaped what I was writing. You know, so much. The topics, not necessarily how I wrote, but the topics like, okay, what's going to appeal to that audience? Because I'm writing just fun stories. I'm not trying to change anyone's life writing fun little crime stories. But it's like, okay, well, if this is the bulk of my audience, what are they going to be interested in? So anyway, there's answer to that question. Let's do the. Angela, we got one more prize to give away. Let's do the third comment from the very beginning, after I started with. I can't remember the first thing I mentioned. Oh, yeah, I started talking about daily writing practice at the very beginning. So, like the third comment after that, we'll just say, that's the random winner. We'll try that. And let me know if you need any help with that. So anyway, that's, you know, we're at an hour here. I'm gonna let everyone go in a minute, but obviously you can leave whenever the heck you want, but that's funny. But I do want to remind you that on Saturday again, From noon to 2pm Eastern, there'll be a deep dive with Julie and two, maybe three of our authors who've gone through the process. They can talk about, you know, putting their book together, working with book launchers to market their book, create their book and all that stuff. So really informative. They'd be able to answer any questions that you have about that. And I think unless there's nothing else, no more questions or anything like that, I think. I think we're good. So I appreciate everyone coming out. I appreciate all the comments and questions, and I hope you got something out of it. And, you know, good luck with everything, good luck with the writing, and just keep, keep on daily incremental progress. Keep on keeping on, so thank. You.