Expert Panel for the Start a Book Challenge: These Hand-Selected Experts Share Why You Should Surrender To The Story As You Start A Book

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. All right, you guys, I have another expert panel for you today, and this time, my expert panel is for the do the thing start a book challenge. It's amazing to me how these things start, because I didn't even have a thought of doing a do the thing start a book challenge until I was running the find your voice challenge. And one of the dares in the find your voice challenge was, if you were to write a book, what book would you write? And so many people are either in the middle of writing books or that want to write books or didn't even think that they wanted to even think about a book or. But there was just such amazing. Just thoughts and feelings, and they basically put their voice into the group through videos and voice notes and typing, and just the passion and what this one dare gave for them got me to be really excited to be able to. To do this challenge. And then one of our community members, Pamela Nichols, actually stepped up and said, hey, listen, I've written a bunch of books, and I'd love to help. And so she's going to be helping us do this challenge. So I put this expert panel. I always love how I get the experts because it always just happens in a way that's serendipitous and perfect timing in the way things work. And so I'd love to just go through and tell you guys who's here. So I have Andres Gamboa here, and he is the host of the Ponytails podcast. And it's so cool because I know him through a shared experience that we didn't do at the same time. We did it decades apart, but we both sold books door to door for a company called Southwestern. And his podcast is where he interviews people who have sold books door to door. And so he was on my podcast, and I was on his podcast, and he also wrote a book, which was basically. I think it was a biography. Right, Andres? Yeah. Cost of citizenship Basically, I was muted.

Yeah.

Going through his journey of coming here to the United States. And so what an amazing example of someone that's lived an experience and then able to share it through the words on paper. And then I have Henry Evans here, who is actually someone I've known for such a long time. He's actually the. The person that runs my mastermind that I've been a member of for ever. And I've known him for more than 10 years and he's helped me with a lot of things. Even when I purchased my first house on my own, he helped me make the decision on that. So he's just an amazing person to be able to give so much wisdom. And he also wrote a book, the Hour a Day Entrepreneur. And he also is a marketing and business consultant. And then I have Wendy Sterling here, and she helps people find their superpower on the other side of divorce. And she has a divorce rehab program. And it's so cool because she just published her book, what this week.

And it's called, it's called Divorce Sucks now what? The Five Steps to Find Yourself and Heal after going from I Do to I'm Divorced.

Amazing. And so it's such perfect timing because you just published it here. You are joining the start of book expert panel challenge. And then I have Jane Borden here, who is an author and culture journalist. She contributes regularly to the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and Southern Living, among other places as well. And her work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and all kinds of amazing outlets. And she also wrote another book called I Totally Meant to Do that. And I'm so excited to have her here. We had an amazing episode where she talked a lot about how she even got into writing in the first place. And so it's amazing sometimes how things start and where portals can open up for you. And then Rennie Saunders I heard about from a friend of mine who was in the middle of writing a book and she mentioned she goes to these both online and in person events through an organization called Shut up and Write, which I love the name of this. And he basically curates a space for writers to connect and provide goals and accountability, which is exactly what do. The thing is all about surrounding yourself with my people. And he's built this community of over a hundred thousand members. And so that's super exciting to have him here. I have Laura Carney here, who' a writer and copy editor in New York and she's been published by the Washington Post, the Associated Press and Runner's World, People magazine, all kinds of amazing stuff. And she just recently wrote a book called My Father's List. Do you mind kind of sharing about that, Laura?

Sure. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. It's coming out in June. Actually, it's the subtitle of the book is How Living My Dad's Dream Set Me Free. Basically, my father died when I was 25. He was killed by a distracted driver. And 13 years later, just after my wedding, my brother found what appeared to be his bucket list, which nobody knew about. And I just knew in that moment we had to do it.

Amazing. I am just so happy to have you guys here. So welcome.

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Thank you. Great to be here.

Yeah. And I'm just so glad you guys said yes to doing this because this was just, again, just something that just came up two weeks ago as an even idea. And here we are with an expert panel. And it's just such an amazing synergy to have you guys here. So I wanted to start off and just ask you the question for the listeners that are thinking about maybe joining the Start a Book challenge. What do you think that they would get out of starting a book? And we can say starting a book, writing a book, whatever makes more sense for you or feels right for you. What do you think they will get out of that experience? Andres, why don't you start since your. Your resident expert panel.

First of all, thanks for having me. This is. I feel humbled because everybody else has done so much more cool stuff. I feel like. So I'm. I feel like I'm gonna. I have my pen out so I can learn here. But starting a book, writing a book. I have a really weird experience in writing a book. For me, it was more of a two month beginning to end, beginning to like, published journey. So to me, it was all kind of all felt the same. And so that's probably what the advice I would give is just momentum when riding is, at least in my experience, is very important. And to get a good start just to jump in, even if you're nervous, scared, it's going to be scary pretty much the whole time. So don't worry, that doesn't go away. You just get better at dealing with it. But the momentum that you can grab right from just going in and diving in is very much on your side. So jumping in and starting is probably the best thing that you can do if you're. If you're really nervous. But I just do it scared. Using that momentum is probably the answer to me.

Yeah.

And. And I would love to just go a little deeper than that, because when you wrote this book, this is about your family history. So I'm just wondering, just from a deeper level, from a personal growth perspective, what did that give you that you think other people, if that's what they choose to do, would. Would help them?

It was the hardest thing I've ever done to write this book for, for context. My family moved from Colombia to Nebraska when I was seven years old, and we were going to be murdered by FARC terrorists in 19. The late 1990s. And so it was one of those situations that you hear about all the time where families have to really seek asylum elsewhere. And so we moved to the United States, had no English, no money, no background, no family, nothing. And that, at the time, had been the hardest thing I'd ever had to like. Just becoming a US Citizen was. I always said, what was the toughest thing? Someone asked me, what's the hardest thing you've ever done? It was becoming a US Citizen was the hardest thing I've done. Now it's writing about becoming a U.S. citizen because I had to relive a lot of these memories. I had to relive some trauma that I hadn't dealt with. So if you're sitting there listening to this and you're like me, where you're writing a little bit more personal story, there's all sorts of different books, and there's no shame in anything. There's nothing. There's no right or wrong book to write as long as it means something to you. But if it's more like a personal story where you're exposing yourself and sharing to the world, this isn't just a Facebook post. This is something I really care about that's deeper than just politics, is deeper than anything that you think is important. And it's just me putting myself out there. It's scary. On the other side of that, when you do something that challenging where it's not going to hurt you, it's just hard for it, because it's scary. The reward from the liberation of that fear of knowing that you have done something that's greater than yourself. Because my family, even if nobody reads my book, but just my family, that legacy down the line, they'll know that what my family struggled to get us here to start from in the land of opportunity was worth it. And they'll know what we went through. So it's not forgotten what my parents did for. For the generations to come. So that that was what I got out of it from a personal standpoint was it's just like therapy. It was so therapeutic to just get it out there and release that part of my life and kind of move on in a lot of ways. So.

Yeah, and thank you so much for sharing that, because what I didn't mention is the group. So the startup Book Challenge will actually be held in our singles community, which is people that have come from just hard situations after having been divorced or widowed or a variety of things, and they're in this reset of life. And so for some of them, they just might want to start the book, maybe not finish it, but just start it just for a personal growth experience. And then some of them might want that legacy left behind of the lived experience. And then I think, you know, who's coming next, Wendy, because this is kind of where we're going now is I'd love to have you share a little bit, kind of like what Andre said about kind of what drove you to it and then what you think people will get out of being able to. To write and whether it's nonfiction or fiction, but just that idea of using it as that personal growth experience.

Yeah.

You know, thank you again also for having me here. My book is a little interesting because I started it a year before I actually started it. So what I mean by that is I had a vision for what my book was going to be, and then my mom got sick. And I talk about this in my book. My mom got sick, and she had been fighting ovarian cancer in parallel with my divorce journey. And then she passed away, and I stopped writing. And I didn't pick a pen back up or my laptop back up for about nine months. And what. How I want to answer that is in this way, which is that I was trying really hard to write a book that I thought people wanted to hear. And it wasn't until I realized that that wasn't the way to do it, that it was the story that I wanted to tell. And that is when everything just became so much easier. If you are thinking about a book and you're thinking, God, this is where my heart is, but, oh, I really think it should be this. Go with what your heart is telling you to do, because it is going to fly onto the pages for you. It is going to flow through you. When I. I actually, I wrote my book in five days. Once I finally surrendered to the story and I let myself go there, it. It was hard. There were stories that flooded back that, honestly, I had forgotten that Just came through and I put them to paper. It's really about just allowing your thoughts to flow through your fingers and just put your words on paper. You can always go back and reread and edit and fine tune and take out or. But just get out of judgment and just let yourself free flow. And the best way that I found to do that was. Was actually not being in my house, not being in my office. I actually wrote my book in Sedona, which is a very magical place for me to be. I had a lot of spiritual, Spiritual moments with my mom, honestly, you know, in her spirit coming to me and helping to guide me through and just getting out of the monotony of every day really made a huge difference for me. So I really would just encourage everybody listening to really follow your heart. Get out of your head and just let your heart write your story so.

Good and surrendering to the story. I just. I absolutely love that. It's amazing. Perfect timing for you, Laura, because your. Yours came from such a de heart place.

Thank you. I feel like I want to show everybody something. You can't really hear this on the podcast, but I'm holding up a green heart right now. This is a green adventuring stone that I got the first year I began writing my book. And I actually started seeing hearts every day when I began checking off my dad's bucket list. Not every day, but most. Most days I'd see at least one, which to me always felt like breadcrumbs because I was filled with doubt constantly while taking on this crazy mission to add a little bit to what everyone else was saying about how important it is to lean into the fear. I think I had a little bit of a unique situation in that I was going after my dad's dreams. So a lot of the things I was doing on the list were. I was a copy editor at a magazine in New York, so kind of like a little bit of a mousy job. I wasn't a huge risk taker, but I would do things like swimming across a river or jumping out of an airplane, and I suddenly would have this confidence that I would be able to do it. I would be able to finish it just because I was doing it for him. So similar to what everyone else is saying, I was doing it for love. So I would often feel like I couldn't fail. And then that started to apply to the writing too. And I mean, the writing, that part of it, that's something that I actually wanted to start when I was 25, after he passed away. Because I had also just had this really crazy year. I was diagnosed with depression in college. I spent five days in a hospital withdrawing from medications I didn't need. Then I moved to New York City for a magazine internship. Then I met the man who would be my husband. And then my dad died, and I'm from Delaware, so that was like a big difference. So all these little things kept happening to me that I felt like this is like a. I'm living in a movie. Like this isn't real life anymore. So I think something in me knew this was a book, but it would take me 13 years to have enough courage to do it. And this might sound like a weird answer, but I really do believe, even before finding the list, the thing that actually nudged me towards starting a book was exercise. I had never been real into that. I kind of gave up on sports when I was 16, but my job at Good Housekeeping, I was just surrounded by people who were training for the New York Marathon. They didn't do happy hour like I was used to doing. So I thought, okay, well, if I'm going to make friends, I better become a runner. And there was just something about the discipline and the regular routine of going out there and running. And I would usually do it at night because one thing that I noticed that started happening to me was I would start crying when I would run. Because I think what had happened was this story wanted to come out of me, and my grief wanted to come out of me. And I had been sort of bottling it up for 13 years. So as I would run, I would find myself finally giving it some movement. And I think there's something. I haven't studied it enough yet to know, but there's something about exercise and moving your body that makes you connect with your subconscious, that removes this part of your brain, and you're now here. I mean, I assume that's where the subconscious is. But anyway, I mean, you know, that's what the writing is, right? You're. You're in another language.

You're.

You're connecting with things that are in the spirit world in a way that you might not notice every day. So I think that was really the gateway for me to take on 54 items in five years. And also simultaneously writing a book. And not to mention that one of the list items was write and have a few novels published.

Yeah. And I love that idea of, for those of you that don't know, so do. The thing has a formula. And part of the formula is my people is one of the is one of the pieces of it. And my people is giving you the community and the connectedness you need with people that are doing the same thing as you. And I love the idea of you just being around these people and then running, which then led to another thing, but it opened up your mind to this whole other thing. So I think that's actually perfect timing to bring on Rennie, who's creating this space for people to be able to write, start and do this with books. I'd love you just to kind of share your thoughts on this as well.

Sure. Thank you for having me. And really, I'm going to add expert to my vita now because I've never been an expert before. So I started Shut up and Write because I had a career change. I was a graphic designer and a creative director, and I do marketing and technical writing. But I've always had these stories bouncing around in my head and limited his success getting them out. So when I made this career change, I read all the books I read, I took all the workshops. I traveled in San Francisco, so I got to go to lots of different writing groups. And I learned a lot. And the one thing I found missing was the structure that would get me to actually get my butt in chair. And so I started a meetup. I called Shut up and Write. And I was like, it's on the calendar. I'm going to go. It's Tuesday evening, 7pm at Crossroads Cafe. I'll be there. Anybody else wants to come, fine. And I sat there by myself for, I think, two weeks by myself. And then within a month, I had 16 people. Because the simplicity of it, people say, what are we going to do? I said, we're going to. You're going to tell me what you're going to write. You're going to make that intention. And this is really important. You're going to make the intention. I'm going to write, and then we're going to go around the room and hear what everyone else is writing. And then we're going to do this really crazy thing. We're going to just shut up and write for an exact hour. And then at the end of it, we're going to just say, how did it go? But at no point will we. Will we do. Not within this structure do we do prompts or read backs. Because my research has led me to realize that if I'm going to tell you about it when we're done, I'm going to write it differently. And it's. So I'll shift to another thing That I discovered that I sort of uncovered in myself is. And this goes. We're talking about fathers and family here. I'm from the Ozarks in northern Arkansas, and my father actually went around in his youth and researched the way people speak and wrote a long list of the funniest sayings, none of which I can say on air, about how people describe things. You know, it's like, it's as cold as. Or I'm as tired as. And he had just this volume of stuff. And it made me realize that. And then in my travels, I started noticing. That made me notice as I traveled all around the world over the years that everywhere we go, humans like to tell stories. We are storytellers. And there's some disconnect that we have that writing is something different than what we should naturally be doing every single day anyway. So coming back to Shut up and write, I set it up so that I go, minimum one hour a week. You're going to sit down with a group of people that will become your. As you say, it's your mastermind. It's your writing group, it's your people. And, you know, it rotates different. People come and go, but you, you. You get a group going and there's no expectation. There's no rebacks. There's no. You're allowed to be vulnerable. You're allowed to. You're given permission to just do an hour of writing. And then out of that, if you just do that once a week, you've got a rough draft of a novel in a year, and then you can allow yourself to go, oh, editing is different than writing. I'm going to edit this. I'm going to sit down with the red pen and edit this. Then when I sit down and write. So anyway, that's sort of the story of how I came to this. And it's. I am so driven that everyone should tell their story, that I spread it. People go, how can I do this? I'm like, here, I'll make you a host. And so we have people in Japan and Kenya and Mexico City and Paris, France. And so that's. That's sort of how we've grown and.

Amazing.

Yeah.

I've written several novels and now I'm working on Shut up and Publish. So that'll be a different.

I love that. That's great. Have you seen the. When the people. Have you seen it to fruition with other people where publish their books after and like what that's given them? Have you seen that process?

Absolutely. On regular basis, actually, One of the best ones was my wife is a doctor, and one of her colleagues needed to write a book on counseling in the women's health clinic that they run together. So she started coming, and she came for four months, published the book. It is now the book on counseling women when they come in for health care.

Wow.

Amazing.

You know, so seeing that, I mean, I've seen that dozens and dozens and dozens of times. Everything from, it's just important to write. You just need to write your get the thoughts out of your head to, oh, my goodness, I've got a screenplay here. I've got a novel.

I've got a. I'm so glad you said that. Because the reason why it's start a book also is because you might be in the middle of it and decide, okay, the book isn't what I want. I want to do a blog or I want to do a YouTube video. It's. You're. You're giving yourself permission to free your mind of whatever it is you want to get out. And then who knows where it could go? It could go into a published book, or it could go into any of these other things. I noticed that I have a beta podcast that started with the start a podcast challenge, and she's decided, for now, she's turning it into a blog. But she wouldn't have done that had we not set this catalyst of the podcast. So people always ask me, what's the thing? Do the thing. It's really about the do. It's like, focus on the do. The thing will evolve as it comes. And so, on that note, Jane, I would love to hear from you on this, because what I didn't mention is you not only have are writing this book, you've written another book. You're helping people write books, too.

I just thank you for having me. And I'm so enjoying listening to all of you and learning from you. It's so true that we are designed to tell stories. We evolved to tell stories. I mean, before humans were able to write stuff down, when you hear a story, it's more easy to remember information. And that's part of why we evolved to tell stories to one another. And what's so special about the book format is how incredibly intimate it is. I mean, you know when you've read a book, how connected you feel to the author and to what Wendy was saying about how you have to tell your own story. If you try to write for everyone, you wind up writing for no one. But the more specific and authentic that winds up being the Most universal. And it's such an act of self growth, or at least it was for me. I sometimes compare memoir writing to art criticism. So the way that when you were in high school, you would write a paper about a novel and you would kind of say, oh, well, you know, this is what the themes are and this is what it means. And I feel like writing a memoir about a life is the same thing and gives you an opportunity to look back and to make connections and derive meaning as a result. And that was so exciting for me and that was definitely the most rewarding part. But you know, the more rewarding parts are just the minutiae, the day to day. I mean, the art and craft of putting a word together and thinking about the rhythm and thinking about the language. It's joyful and it's. My current book is about religion and so maybe it'll make sense that I'm thinking about this, but I feel like writing is in any kind of art form is. Is an opportunity to commune with the divine, to. I mean, and I think when you're in the flow, when you get lost in it, I think that's part of what's happening. So even if you don't finish the book, just, just the writing itself is. Is beautiful in that way.

So good. And Henry, I'd love to hear from you, especially because you went a different route on the business side and basically took these golden nuggets of learned from working with all these people.

Sure. Yeah. This is. It's such a refreshing change to be with so many people who are so present on a zoom call. This is really refreshing. So thanks everybody. This is, this is really nice. So, yeah, I was kind of taking some notes. I loved what everybody said, by the way. A couple things that really helped because I've coached and trained a lot of people who've written books also is to start with the why there's no need to necessarily publish it. I love what you were just saying, Jane, about it being your kind of communing with the other side. I think there's. There's a lot to that. It's a very therapeutic individual experience for some people. It's way out of their comfort zone. So there's benefits there.

I wrote a book. It was.

It was a marketing specific book. So it was. It was a marketing book. So some of the benefits from that standpoint, if you do it for a business or for potentially increasing your credibility and authority, it can get you on stages, it can make you an expert. There's a lot of benefits you can get there. And it's not just what you do, but it's also who you are. So if we had somebody come on here and give us relationship advice who'd never written a book, and then we had pick your favorite online personality, Dr. Phil, come on, who's written, I don't know how many books we're going to assume, and a lot of psychologists will tell you, don't assume that because he doesn't always know what he's talking about. We would assume that Dr. Phil knows what he's talking about because he's written a book. So there's assumed authority there, which is really valuable. A couple of the other things, too, I think it was Andres was touching on this, this idea of legacy. I mean, the book that he wrote is a legacy that will extend way beyond when he's not here. And I found family members of mine have read my book and given me feedback that, you know, I've never talked to about this stuff. And I actually wrote kind of about my faith in the last chapter of the book and how important that was to me. And it's. I can tell people who read the whole book because I change gears because I'll always make sure to say in that last chapter. And then you get a really large sense of accomplishment when you do it. And a lot of people, well, I can't do it. Well, it's just your story, I think Renny was saying, like, take that. That hour a day or hour a week. I think you said, that's huge just to get started. And nowadays there's this Great thing called ChatGPT I'm sure you've probably heard of. It can help you get a first draft going very quickly and easily. I actually dictated a lot of my book. And so if you're able to communicate to another person, don't sit down with that blank word doc or blank Google Doc. It's very intimidating. What I tell people is start going around, have your phone with you, and to start dictating into your voice recorder. And it's a great way to be able to get a lot of content very quickly. And one last thing I'll just mention is when I got my book done, it was only like 180 pages. I was short. And I'm like, I don't know what else I'm going to talk about. And somebody had this great idea, which was, why don't you have somebody interview you about all the questions you think would be good for the book and then transcribe it and put it in as an appendix and it's just boom, instant 60 pages or whatever it was. So you can just literally. And I've actually coached people, just go get interviewed or go interview people and get it transcribed and that can become a book. Also, if you look at the chicken soup for the soul, we think of, oh, those guys are such amazing authors. They didn't write that book. It was written by people who contributed stories. So there's a lot of different ways to kind of go about it other than just the traditional sit down and start writing it out. So I just wanted to share those.

Yeah, and I love that you said that because my, so my North Star is for people to start a podcast and again start, because for me, I love my podcast and it's given me. So I've literally had a life reset when I started my podcast. And so. But there were so many people in my community that were like, I'm not ready for that yet. It was way too far outside their comfort zone. And that's when I started the find your voice challenge, which was perfect for them. And they're loving it. We're on the last day. Tomorrow's the last day. And they're sending in videos and recordings and just all the stuff on the different dares that we're, we're sending. And then that's where the start a book challenge came up. And so, so now we're going into this recording idea, which you mentioned, with that dictation and being able to flood your mind with things by not even having to write if that doesn't work for you. And so I'd love to. Now I think this leads us into the next topic, which is the dares. So this is going to be a 14 day challenge unless I change it. Because everything and do the thing is built in public and it can evolve. But in my mind right now it's 14 days and basically I'm going to be giving them different dares to do each day to get. I mean, honestly, Wendy, what you said do it in seven days, you know, and be able to like speak from the heart and have it come from you. If, if that works, great. If it's just them starting it and, and writing it, then that's, that's great too. But I'd love to get ideas of dares. And I think Henry said one already idea of just getting even, maybe interviewing someone could be a way to. That could be a dare. And then I also wanted to mention I do like for the singles group. It is fun because I am Trying to get them off of dating apps. And so if they get an opportunity to meet people and just like talk to people they don't know, I like that because a lot of people aren't able to do that. So if you have any ideas that incorporate all of it with the book and then also the dating component, I'm here for that. So I'd love to just hear what you guys and just see the listeners know. I am totally putting these experts on the spot. I don't give any, any pre thing because I like to just have it come naturally as we're doing the panel. So anyway, I just wanted to let them know that you guys didn't have anything prepared. We're just going off of what we feel alive for us right now. So who is ready to. To give a dare?

I'll do one. I teach memoir and storytelling classes from time to time. And in the when the classes were live, I would always have people surprise, hop up on stage and tell us a two minute story. Just two minutes. Not a big deal about anything at all. Sometimes I would give a suggestion if people couldn't think of an idea. And I think that's really helpful because when you're sitting down and you're looking at a piece of paper, it's hard to think what's the beginning, what's the middle? Where do I start? What pieces of information are important. But when you're telling it to someone else, your mind just naturally knows and you're also getting feedback. Oh, I see. I didn't explain that part. Oh, wait, let me tell you this. And then people are asking questions, which leads you to other things. So long setup. But the dare is to tell a story to a friend, over the phone, over a coffee, a stranger you meet. It could be anyone. Doesn't have to be a long story, but it'll really kind of get the, get the gears spinning and help you in naturally understand what the important parts are.

Yeah, and I thought I'd mention too, for people listening, it's. You might even decide you want to do a fiction book. And just from doing that, telling a story, what if it's coming up and it's not even about you? It's just something that is fun for you. One of the people in the group actually said her book she'd want to write about her inner child, but it was a fiction book on the inner child of the way things maybe could. Could go. Which I thought that was an interesting spin on it. Or someone else said she wanted to write a book about her do and what she imagines them doing through the day. And so this idea of telling a story and talking to someone either that you know or don't know you're not, we don't know what that's going to be yet. You'll know as you're. As you're doing it. So that could even help the idea of the book come alive for you as well.

So.

Okay, I got one too, Stacy, that kind of piggybacks on Jane's, which is. So I did Toastmasters just a few years ago, and the very first speech you give is you telling your life story. Because everybody likes to talk about their own life story. And so if you can, you can kind of do Jane's and then do another one with a life story, like, hey, just, you know, what's. I mean, it's actually one of my favorite interview questions when I interview people is tell me your life story station.

Just one to two minutes.

I mean, how'd you get where you are? What do you like about where you are and where are you looking to go? And everybody can answer that. I think that's a good one. And the actual assignment for Toastmasters is a. I think it's a six to eight minute speech. And you just tell your life story leading up to today. And so it's, it's an easy one that anybody can pretty much answer. So.

So good. Wendy, did I see your hand raised?

Yeah.

So mine's kind of a double dare. That's how I roll. So my double dare is twofold. It's to announce on social media that you are writing a book, and the double dare is your publishing date. So this was what put my hand to the fire, truly. When I announced to the world that this was actually happening, it. It made it real. And then putting a date against it, it held me accountable. I mean, part of this process of writing is holding yourself accountable to deadlines. Either deadlines that you set for yourself or deadlines that you verbalize to somebody and you ask them to hold you account it. And there's nothing more accountable than social media. So that is something that I would throw out to your audience at the. At the least, tell the world that you're writing a book. You don't have to tell them what the story's about. You don't have to tell them the name of the book. I don't think I released the name of my book until a week before it was coming out. But I kept teasing it and talking about it, but it makes it feel more Real. And it adds a level of excitement to want to get it done.

Yeah. And thank you so much for bringing this up. So I want to be the person now hearing that, and I want to say. Here's what I want to say and see what you think. But what if I don't finish it? I.

Or what if.

What do I have to say that someone's going to be interested in or whatever that insert excuse there. What do you say to that person?

Well, that's why the deadline that you put for when your book is going to be published is in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, let's be honest. You can't. Yes, I wrote my book and five days, but it doesn't mean that the book was published a week later. I mean, I wrote my book in the end of October, beginning of November, and it just came out in February. There were edits that were made, artwork that had to be gathered. So give yourself a reasonable amount of time in what that is, because, yeah, you're gonna have inner critics and doubt creeping in. I mean, Lord knows I did. Is this good enough? Are you sure this is the story you want to put out there? Did I. What are people gonna say? And part of that process is you standing in the power of trusting. Jane was saying, I'm very much a divine believer and just trusting that what you put to paper is there for somebody to read. It's gonna. It's gonna resonate with somebody. But also, don't set yourself up for failure. I mean, I think so many of us have very unrealistic expectations of. Of what we. What we can accomplish in a short period of time. And as long as you are giving yourself a little bit of leeway, but you're still holding yourself to the fire, those types of questions you can be coached through or talked through with friends or mentors or whoever it is that you have in your life that that's there. Nobody writes a book in a silo. I mean, let's be honest. I. I didn't write my book in a silo. I, I was. And when I say that there was divine that was involved in my book writing, so it doesn't have to happen by yourself.

Yeah. And with that, actually, Rennie, this. This will bring up you too, because I think this might be something that we can coordinate is where they could go to shut up and write and be able to help them in that way. But let's go ahead and let's see if you have a dare.

The. The. The. We'll. We'll get to the advertisement for shut up right later, which is. There is no. It is a nonprofit. It literally is just meant to. To find your people. But the challenge I have is a fun one, because I think you should have fun because you're. Especially if you're digging in the dirt, if you're. If you're rummaging around in there, you. You want to have some fun with it and. And a challenge. This is something I do with every project. I write my first page, I sit down, I do a session, and I go, okay, this is. The story is starting to come out. Then the next time I sit down, I change perspective. If I wrote it from third person, then I'll try it from first person. I'll try it from second person. You did this, you did that. And that's just a really fun challenge because then it lets you kind of escape your. Get outside of your voice a little bit. So then you can see this is. It allows you to kind of hone in on how you want to write this and what your voice will be. So that's the one I would offer is play around with respective. Right in the beginning. Right in the beginning.

Love that. And Laura, how about you for a dare?

This might be kind of strange, but I would. It's not even really the writing part, but before you start writing, I would recommend writing down a list of values. One thing I did, just by coincidence, a couple years before my dad's bucket list showed up, was. I guess it was an article I was copy editing for work, and it was talking about these women who had sat down, and for 15 minutes, they wrote down everything they valued in life. Life. I actually honestly think it was for weight loss. But anyway, I thought, well, I'm gonna try that. I'm about to get married. I could lose a few pounds. I. I think it's very helpful because if. Particularly for memoirs, if you're a person who's now writing about your life and you're also going to be delving into parts of your life that are painful and traumatic that you don't really want to revisit. Beyond the gremlins of who do I think I am writing a book, you have the fears of, who am I going to be once this is over? Is this going to change me if I bring that out into the light? So for me to have that list of values that I had already made that I could be revisiting all the time, it just helped me be grounded in who I was, and I could let go of that fear element. Of it a little bit. So I would recommend that. The other thing I would recommend is rituals. I held up a stone earlier that was a green of entry and I became a very woo woo hippie ish person when I became a book author. Just collecting crystals everywhere I went. And I started a routine where I would smudge them and I'd have like five of them. And I had two rules for myself which were always be kind and always tell the truth. So as I would smudge the crystals like the heart shaped one, for example, I would say I love the truth. I have a lapis lazuli which is for the throat chakra. I'd say I speak the truth. I think it doesn't matter what it is. If you have something you do that's the same every time before you start writing, I think it does something to your mind where you're almost conditioning yourself to be in that mode and then it's like, no, this is my writing time.

So good. On that note, and Andres is so excited. I love you Ad.

I just love that idea. I had my own. I live in Portland. So certain. Let's just say I had a beer every time I before I started writing. But that's not what I wanted to add. My entire. It could. The, the, the blank page thing is so real. When you're staring at it, you're like, I don't know what the heck to write about. So for me, I had wanted to write this book for a while and I would always say get run into this blank page. So to entirely avoid that I. And this might sound super technical and super simple, but it took me back to third grade. But outlining, honestly, just take a day where you would just outline your book. It's super technical. But I would say double outlining. So what I did, especially if you're writing a memoir, like I know the story. This isn't one of those books where you, I mean you might have to do some research, make sure you get some of the facts right if you're filling in context. So like Colombian heritage and stuff. I had to double check. I was getting right. But for the most part it was my story and I knew exactly what it was because it's my story. I'm not writing a fantasy or something or a fiction book. I don't have to like try to come up with what's going to happen. I already knew what beginning in the end was. So I'll take outline. So, so literally for this challenge, for this dare, just put a timer on your phone. Just tell Siri. Or if you're not an Apple fan, nobody's perfect, but just set a timer and for 15 minutes, just do not do anything else than just write. And I mean, literally, there shouldn't be a time you stop. Just. I would. I would continuously just write words down. Words, words, words, words, words. Then for the next 15 minutes, I would look and go of everything I could remember of my moving here. United States passports, all this other stuff. And then I would go, okay, this. I would start circling. Okay, a highlighter. Okay, this one has to do with this one. And this is when I moved here. And then this is when I actually got the citizenship. And so then I started kind of grouping them, and then I took those groups, and those became my chapters after that. This is the trick. This is why I said double outlining. So then I would go back through each of those clusters and then do it again, but with just that group of clusters. And more stuff came out. So when it came time to actually sit down and type this thing out, there was no blank page because I would literally have. I have pictures of this I should send you. And I would literally have, like, all these little circles. And I'm like, okay, here's the circles. I wrote them down in a list. And then when I would ever get. I would get stuck. I would look at the nesting that was supposed be to just write about. And I just wrote it. And the next thing, I wrote it and I didn't worry about it. Then later on, my editor came back and was like, hey, there's a chunk you missed here. I don't know what this transition was about, which is what your editor is really good for. And I would go, oh, crap, I gotta fill that in. But don't worry about that until later. Just write it. Never did I have any writer's block after that. Like, I just literally would sit down, look at my list, type it out, write the thousand words for that day, and then move on to the next day. And every. To me, that was the only way I was able to do it.

It.

I'm not a writer by nature. I didn't go to school for writing. I don't have awesome stuff about writing as my second language even. So that's what I did. That worked for me. Don't know if it worked for anyone else, but that would be my challenge is double outline.

Amazing. I'd love to hear from you guys. Next is what would be one thing that they could do just every day that could help them be able to start this book. And then for those that want to publish it and actually take it to the, to the end, what would be the one thing they could do every day that would really move the needle? Jane, do you want to start on this?

My strategy is to break the work down into hours instead of pages or goals, even markers of achievement. Because I know if I'm going to work a certain number of hours a day that some of that time will be more productive than others. Sometimes I'll spend a half an hour on one sentence, sometimes I'll spend the whole time reading as research. I know it's going to vary so much that if I can just focus on hours and not worry about anything else that I'm not, that I'm constantly moving forward, even if I can't see the work moving forward, I know that it is because I know I've met my hours. And so if you have a full time job and a family, maybe that's just one hour. Maybe you wake up before everyone else and you have your coffee and you work for one hour. Eventually over time it's really going to add up as other people have, have sort of spoken to as well. But that's what works for me.

Wendy, did you want to.

Yeah. And it ties into exactly what Jane just said, which is time blocking, blocking timeout on your calendar to commit to either brainstorming, writing an outline or putting your words to paper. It does, you don't need to block hours on end. It can even be a half hour. I mean there were times where I would actually I would go take walks just to clear my head and on those walks I would get downloads or just things would pop in my head of ideas and then I would just pull out my phone and on my notes in my app just start putting some things in there that I wanted to go back to, but just to really give yourself that time. Because if you're not separating yourself from your day to day and really allowing your mind to just be in that free place for ideas to flow, you're doing yourself a disservice and it's going to make the process that much harder.

This is all such good stuff, you guys. Wende's whole thing, I just kind of unplugging and getting away from your normal place. I did a lot of writing, you know, going to coffee shops, things like that, which really helped. And then there's, there's something to be said for baby steps. There was a woman that taught voiceover, which is, you know, doing. She was the voice of @&t. And that was one of her, one of the voiceovers that she did and she taught voiceover and she finally boiled it down. Day one, go buy a microphone. Here's one of the five mics you can buy at Amazon. Everybody can do that. Everybody got that day one done. And then her steps were so little. So to, to kind of back it up to the book would be write one sentence today, Just one sentence. Or write five sentences. I mean, I mean, whatever. Just something so bite sized. I love Andre's the 1000 words, which I think is a great goal for some people. But if they're having a tough time getting started, just. Just write one sentence a day. I think the key thing is that that daily part of it, something you do every single day. And then one thing, I just want to share that. And I had to think back on this. So I was able to get my book, call it 80% of the way done. And I couldn't finish it. So I think there's the starting issue, which is the writing it, and then there's the finishing it issue, which is kind of phase two, and then there's the publishing, which is phase three. So I actually hired an editor. And when you spend a lot of money on a professional editor, guess what? I got that thing done fat. There was, it was no five days, but I got it done fast. And it's funny how attention goes where your money flows also. So if you, if you put a bunch of money up. And you can also do fun tricks too, like, okay, I'm going to give Stacy a thousand dollars to my least favorite political candidate. And if I don't get this done by this date, guess what? You get to mail it in. Little tricks and acts like that work really well if you're not able to just push yourself over the edge.

So I just wanted to confess that I also too worked with a book editor for my proposal. I did that actually, and it's because my agent needed to save me for myself. As a copy editor, I'm a very detail oriented person. And I had 54 list items I was writing about. So I had numbered at the start of each chapter, list item 23, list item 46, like that. And the editor was sort of like, nobody wants to read this, you know, and she helped me really streamline it into 14 chapters. And I was so resistant because it was just like, this is my story, it's my dad. Once I realized, hey, I'm paying this person and they know what they're doing, it really, it helped me get get in line. And the other tip I would offer is you have to let your story be what it is. I think someone mentioned this earlier when they were talking about surrendering to the writing. I mean, it is almost. It did feel to me as well, like I was downloading information and I was. I was just having to let go of what I thought. Thought things were. And I mean, even now, I've shown the memoir to a couple family members just to get their feedback and to be fair to them. And I think they had this idea like that I'm God or something, and I'm writing the story of our lives, and that's not what it is at all, you know, And. And. And I don't blame them for thinking that way. I would think the same way if someone wrote a story that I was in. You want them to get it exactly right. With memoir, they're not. You're not just not gonna get every detail. It's just whatever story you're sitting down to tell, that's the story you're supposed to tell, and you just have to let it be told.

Yeah, the. It's huge. And what you're making me think is what Jane was saying earlier with that divine. Once you're activating your voice in a way of. However it is, whether it's through the book, through the podcast, through whatever medium you choose, it flows out of you in a way that's. Yeah. That's just unlike anything else that you can experience.

Can I share a couple of heads up? Yeah, heads ups. First, you.

You.

There will be times where you do not know where something is going, and that's normal. Don't think that that means you have to stop and then figure out where it's going, because that's not how it works. Sometimes it is. And sometimes you can turn to your outlining, as Andre said, which is a great tool. But there will also be times where you just don't know, and that means you're just supposed to keep going and figure it out as you go. So don't know that that's normal and that's part of it. And the second thing to know that's normal and part of it is the self criticism that Woody touched on earlier. It is a roller coaster of. I mean, it's like being manic depressive. It's like, this is the most important story that's ever been told.

And they're like, oh, my God, what.

If I'm an idiot about idiot? And it's just back and forth and back and forth. And every single writer experiences that. It doesn't matter what kind of book it is or what kind of writer they are. It's totally just part of it. So when it happens to you, be like, hey, I'm a real writer now, instead of.

I love that. Totally.

Good.

Yeah. You're acknowledging the fact that it could happen, so then you're not feeling crazy when it does happen.

Yeah.

So good.

I had two points that I wanted to answer as far as strategy goes and, like, routines and stuff to do. One, this is really helpful for me. I. And I sure people with shut up and write probably would be perfect for this, but just pick an accountability partner. Have someone who to hold you accountable to things. I know this sounds super basic. We. When I wrote my book, it was the beginning of the year. It was three years ago now. And we started this habit share app. There's a bunch of apps to share habits, but basically it's public when you write down. Our rule was that you could only check off the mark, not at the end of the day, but as soon as you got that habit done, you check it off. And for me, it was, I wrote a thousand words a day. No matter what, I had to write a thousand words a day, and I always wrote them at night.

It.

For me, it just worked out to write at night. So that was my routine. Pick a time of the day you're gonna write and stick to it if you can. Just so that way, your brain's always getting creative at that point. I'd always outline, and then it was always at night when I was the most creative. So that worked. But anyway, what was fun for me was because a lot of my friends were supporting me. And so after it became, I never missed a single day, but, you know, it became a thing where at the end of the day, almost people were staying up to seeing if I would actually do it or not. And so we had a group text and this going. And so as soon as I hit and I would look up a thousand words or twelve hundred or whatever I wrote, I'd go, oh. And to hit that green check mark, it was better than popping a zit that's been in your back for, like, a couple weeks. It was amazing. And people literally, they would get like, the t. The text chat would blow up going, oh. And just to have that support in that wave of people help that you want to stay accountable for, it became a game, and it started becoming less about me and more about just making sure I stuck to my word. I know that might mean Nothing to some people listening. But to me, that was a big deal to have my friends just really cheer me on that way. And so, yeah, and then the other thing that I would say is outline before you write every time. So that second outline, I would go, oh, okay, chapter four today, here's what I'm gonna. I looked at those words, redid that outline, and just wrote what I. It took 15 minutes to do the outline and 45 minutes to type. And it usually took me an hour to do a thousand words that way. That was just me and Renny.

You're the finale here.

How do you got it? I'm gonna say that Henry, Wendy, Laura, Andres, and Jane said it all exactly right. And I've stolen all your ideas and called it Shut up and write. It's all about habit building. It's all about ritual. It's about accountability, buddies. It's about giving yourself permission to just write, just crap and know that you can come back to it. Right? Because I call it attending the muse. And in Steven Pressfield's book, the War of Art, he talks about, we're trying to overcome resistance. And the way you start my ritual is always, I go, muse. I am here for you. Because once you start writing and your muse, whatever that is, whether it's the divine, your, the spirits of all of your ancestors, it doesn't matter, because they will all show up and go, keep talking. Keep writing. For me, it becomes a storm. Sometimes the real advice I want to give is time and place. Set it aside. Mark it on your calendar. Give yourself that hour. Jane is absolutely correct. We work in hours in our heads. Seth, this is an hour. I'm doing this thing and do nothing else but that thing. Even if you're just sitting there polishing your stones right, that it counts, because the muse hears that and the muse won't respond.

And we're totally doing a dare called Write Crap. It's gonna be. It's gonna be the dare because it gives you permission to write whatever comes to your mind, and you're not stuck on that perfection.

Well.

Oh, my gosh, you guys, thank you so much for doing this today. I just am blown away with the amazing feedback that you were all able to give. And I really appreciate each of you and your contribution. And thanks for encouraging people to do the thing.

Thank you, Stacey.

Thank you.

Well done.

Stacy, thank you so much. Nice to meet you all.

Thanks for making. Letting me meet all these wonderful people.

Yeah.

Good luck, everybody.

Yeah.

You just made me think. For everyone listening, we will have the links of everyone that's on this this call today. It'll be in the podcast episode, and then we're also going to have a packet with all the information of how you can get in contact and get the books and all that stuff for everyone that's on here and shut up and write. All right, thanks. Bye.

Thanks.

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