Wherever you are on your book writing adventure, you’ll find what you need here…
What to do if you’re just starting out on your Author Adventure: planning, preparation, and dealing with your Inner Dickhead
If you’re considering not writing your book this year, think again. If you’re tempted to put it off for any reason—please think again.
The world needs your story.
If you are any kind of a misfit—if you don’t fit into the straight, white, male, cis-het, neurotypical, elite world, or if you have a message and a mission that challenges the status quo—there will be others like you looking for someone who looks like them. Maybe your book will rock their world.
Let’s talk about running.
People think, because I am a trapeze performer and I am slim and have defined muscles, that I am also fit. They think I have good stamina and can do things that fit people do, like stride up a mountainous slope without getting out of breath.
If only...
The truth is, my cardio fitness is utter balls.
Protests vs riots. Assertive vs angry. Passionate vs emotional. Confident vs up-herself. Speaks out vs rails against.
How much attention do you pay to the language that seeps into your brain every day, through the radio, newspapers, social media?
How much do you understand about the effect it has on your thoughts and beliefs?
When I were a lass, Enid Blyton carried me away from my bedroom with tales of adventure and whimsy.
And also tales of schooldays that were so far removed from my own, I could barely imagine what it must be like. Mallory Towers and St Clares boarding schools, for one, a world where tuck boxes were a thing, and nobody seemed to mind that their parents had sent them away.
The short, sweet, and comprehensive guide to choosing a book coach who understands how to get your Big Book Idea out of your magical brain and onto paper
Around 3,775 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, a man utters the words, “What do you take me for!” thus demonstrating that humans don’t change.
Nanni was angry. So angry, he went to the trouble of seeking out a scribe to write a letter of complaint for him — quite possibly the oldest letter of complaint we know of. Nanni had been cheated by a copper merchant, Ea-nasir, who had taken Nanni’s money and provided inferior copper in return.
Are we asking the right questions?
I don't always ask good questions. I ask obvious ones. Like, "Why do I always procrastinate?"
When I ask myself a question like that, my brain comes up with answers like:
Because I'm lazy
Because I don't know where to start
Because I have too much to do
And I start to believe it. Do you know how unhelpful that is?
The more I learn about anything, the more I realise I don't know much at all.
Learning is bizarre because our brains get everything barse-ackwards.
When we know nothing at all about a subject, and we know we know nothing, that's cool. But if we learn a little something, then we become dangerous.
We get all overexcited in this first flush of learning something new and we think we're experts. I look back on myself years ago, when I first started my business, and cringe: I had a little knowledge and I thought I knew it all.
Your book is just the beginning...
It's not enough to have a book out there (although that is AWESOME obviously) – it needs to work for you.
For a lot of people, this is the perfect time to try something new: bright hair; experiments in makeup; painting; learning a language or an instrument; baking bread; patience.
And I've had a lot of emails from people who've bought my book saying they're using this time to write their books (and I'm so bloody excited for them!)
Don't let anyone shame you into ridiculous productivity.
Don't be pushed into doing more than you want to.
It's okay not to be okay.
It's incredibly tempting to throw everything you have at your courses and products and articles... but how about, instead, you go deeper and narrower?
