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
Writing Your Book Already?
Want your book to be as good as it can possibly be? These articles are all about writing skills, editing like a pro, and how to write with a little more outrageous flair.
Writer’s Block Is A Big Hairy LIE
Have you ever been stuck? Staring at the Blank Page of Doom in despair?
Yep, me too.
Have you ever blamed it on “writer’s block”?
Yep, me too.
Here’s the thing, though: there’s no such thing as writer’s block.
It’s a made-up myth, a lie we tell ourselves to get out of doing the work.
?Do you have a reader magnet? ?
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.
The morning monster cure
If you want to write your book, you need to build a good writing habit or you’ll never manage it.
What are you struggling with? What feels horrible?
What if, instead of saying you’ll write 500 words a morning, all you have to do is make a cup of tea, open your document, and scribble down what you’re going to do next?
Make it easy and make it attractive.
Writing lessons from Beetrice ?
Remember this next time you’re stuck. Remember it when something threatens to derail your plans to write. Be more like Beetrice, focused on writing your book.
How Talking To Your Clients Helps You Beat The Blank Page
Ever had insomnia? Not just a little trouble sleeping, but the twitchy, panicky, staring into the void teetering-on-the-edge of madness insomnia?
Every now and then, it feels like you’re poised on the knife-edge of sleep—so you grab at it, wildly, desperately, only to feel sleep slip away, leaving you grinding your teeth.
To me, that’s what the Blank Page Of Doom feels like sometimes. When I have the seed of an idea I can’t quite hold onto—or too many ideas, boiling across my brain too swift to catch.
Sometimes your words will be crap
For the past three days, I have sat at my laptop first thing in the morning and cried tears of frustration.
Every word I’ve written has been dragged out of my brain with forceps and no pain relief – and arranging those words on the page has been torture.
Almost everything I’ve written has been total crap by my usual standards.
You are not a sofa
Stop. Breathe. Listen.
Then pick a thing and do it.
Proud of Yourself? The 7 Deadly Sins of Writing a Book
If we’re not telling the truth, there’s no point in writing… don’t let pride get in the way of your truth.
A ridiculously small pin-head
Our Inner Dickheads hate change. They love the status quo (not the band).
There’s no point trying to silence that voice, either; it won’t go away. It’s a part of you.
? we need tiny beetle steps not giant leaps
The thing about tiny beetle steps is, eventually they add up to great big leaps.
We get hung up on the great big leaps. We strive for massive improvements, to become an overnight success, and wish for miracles to happen fast.
How To Write In Pictures
Flamingo your writing by making me feel, see, smell, taste, and touch…Silence.Sudden silence.The kind of velvet silence that soaks up every whisper.The only sound in your head is the bass-beat of your panicked heart… and all eyes are on you.What’s the worst thing that can happen during your competition pole dance performance? Wardrobe malfunction? Nope.
? Haunted by horrific howlers
Writing a book isn’t just about the writing; it’s about the details, too. The fine points that mark you out as a professional. Stuff your readers may not notice on a conscious level, but if you get it wrong, they’ll feel it. They’ll know.
Did you go to finishing school?
I have a quick tip for you: remember that writing a book is like falling in love.
15 Reasons to Write a Book
Ever thought about writing a book but never quite got started? You’re not alone.
Here are 15 reasons why I think you should write a book in 2020…
Sloth: Every Day Is Like Sunday
Michael Stipe was right, eh?
Oof. What a few days, eh?
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
Waterboarded at the dentist
What are you willing to endure to get what you want?
A Nice Cup of Tea
What do you want your new world to be like?
Your life? Your business? Your relationships?
How to Write About Yourself (Without Sounding Like a Canoe)
“Aargh! I hate writing my about page!”
Yep, we all do, toots. We all find it tough.
How do you strike that careful balance between “hilarious, kind, and helpful” and “obnoxious douchecanoe”?
Tricky.
Luckily, I have a quick tip for you
Roast potatoes for brains
Post-festive-sludging and I feel like my head is stuffed with roast potatoes.
I am struggling to form a coherent thought, let alone write about one.
This is extraordinarily vexing to someone who writes for a living.
100 lbs lost – real self found
Whatever you want to achieve, it’s what you do every single day that counts, not the one-off grand gestures.
On Finding Mudita
Of all the negative emotions, after shame, I think envy takes the biscuit: it seeps into everything we look at and it keeps us stuck.
Peel your eyes
Writing is a source of great anxiety to a lot of people – including me, sometimes. Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I have all my shit together.
Information water-cannon overload
Does going online feel a bit like you’re being water-cannoned with well-intentioned but overwhelming information?
Resistance Is Futile, Or, The War Of Art
One of the best books I’ve read on how to beat resistance and procrastination is The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield. Here’s my review…
13 Books That’ll Help You Become A Better Writer
Two questions get fired at me often:
How can I become a better writer?
What books do you recommend I read to get better at marketing my business?
My answer to the first question is: write. Write every day and don’t worry too much if what you write is sometimes crap. You’ll get better.
Write. Edit. Improve. Repeat.
And read everything you can get your hands on, good and bad.
The 67,000 mile-an-hour Book
We all have the same amount of time in the days, weeks, months, years.
So why do some people get tons of writing done, and others struggle to make any progress at all?
The Splendour Of Hard Things
We think that unless we can make giant leaps forward and see enormous and sudden improvements in what we’re doing, we’re not doing anything.
It’s hard to keep going when keeping going is hard (and boring).
Forward to normal
What do you want your new world to be like?
Your life? Your business? Your relationships?
Back in the 80s Without the Shoulder Pads
If you make a mistake, people will forgive you, especially if you put it right. If you make a mistake and then disappear, you’ll be considered a douchecanoe.
4 Lurking Horrors That’ll Kill Your Book
Beware the spooks, ghouls, and monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting to destroy your book…
The horrors of tight jumpers
It’s soooooooooo crucial for us to write about our experiences and tell our stories.
Asking The Right Questions
Knowing what questions to ask when you start to write your book is the hardest part… We spend so much time looking for answers, we rarely stop to think if we’re asking the right questions. And sometimes we don’t know which questions to ask at all…
What do you want to do?
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.
Never has pain felt so exquisite
Yesterday morning, I rigged my shiny new trapeze – the birthday gift my wonderful husband gave me back at the end of March, 4,380 years ago – and hung upside down from my feet.
The future is a myth
If we’re not telling the truth, there’s no point in writing… don’t let pride get in the way of your truth.
Are We Sleepwalking Through Life?
Just because I got elbowed in the face once in Primark doesn’t mean everyone who shops in Primark is an arse. Just because I got elbowed in the face once in Primark doesn’t mean everyone who shops in Primark is an arse. Repeat until I believe it.
Do you know how I rationalised that ugly little belief? By telling myself I don’t shop in Primark because it’s unethical and because I want my clothes to last for more than two washes. (Both those things are also true, it’s just not the true reason I don’t like Primark.)
10 Ways To Choose Your Book Title
Your title is one of the most critical parts of your book. If you write a crap title, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your book is, most people won’t read it…
Getting mad at your future self
We’re basically a bundle of habits, good and bad.
Which means every single action we take is a vote for the person we want to be.
Atomic Habits: My Book of the Year in 2019
Want to know how I’ve gone from a chaotic cranefly who couldn’t get out of bed to a 6 am person who writes every day and sometimes eats like a healthy adult?
New year new…?
Within the haze of end-of-year parties and admist the overindulgence of the festive feasting period glows an ember.
The glimmer of an idea.
The hope that perhaps this year will be different.
Maybe this will be the year we’ll write our books or run that marathon or start that business or go after that big contract.
Make the Uncomfortable Comfortable
There are some people who do not have a fear response. In the face of danger, they laugh and run towards it (literally).
Deeper not wider
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?
How Do You Come Up With All Your Ideas?
Ever look at those snazzy business owners in your inbox and on the internet and wonder how on earth they come up with all their stories, emails, articles, and podcasts? Wonder no more—you can do that too.
Daffodils aren’t supposed to be anxious
Writing is a source of great anxiety to a lot of people – including me, sometimes. Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I have all my shit together.
? long train journeys are the best
The thing about tiny beetle steps is, eventually they add up to great big leaps.
We get hung up on the great big leaps. We strive for massive improvements, to become an overnight success, and wish for miracles to happen fast.
Just be yourself okay?
Our brains are wired that way, to always see the bad – the problem – rather than the good. It used to keep us alive back when we lived in caves.
3 top tips to get book reviews on Amazon
You’ve written a great book, you’re getting wonderful feedback on it, people are contacting to tell you how they’re getting on and how much they love the book, and yet on Amazon… it’s crickets.
Like Wholesome Cocaine for Your Soul
None of us has any control over a global pandemic or other people’s behaviour or thoughts or actions. I don’t think we’ve ever lived through a time of such uncertainty. And yet I was trying to control it anyway. Perhaps you were, too. That’s what humans do; we try to control stuff.
Which is, quite simply, exhausting.
? The lowdown on lockdown ?️
6 top tips for working from home.
Living with purpose
My purpose is to write. To share my stories and other people’s stories – especially those people whose voices are muffled and marginalised. People who stand up for humanity and thoughtfulness and against oppression and cruelty and blind adherence to a doctrine that makes no sense.
Are you a shenanigator?
Seth Godin calls it making a ruckus. Which I like.
But I call it being a shenanigator.
Michael Stipe was right
Michael Stipe was right, eh?
Oof. What a few days, eh?
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
Take it like a writer
Criticism and feedback can feel like eating kiwi fruit with the skin on: uncomfortable, even painful, leading to shortness of breath.
But only for a few minutes. Maximum 7 minutes. Then I have to pull myself together and crack on.
the 1%-ers
We think that unless we can make giant leaps forward and see enormous and sudden improvements in what we’re doing, we’re not doing anything.
It’s hard to keep going when keeping going is hard (and boring).
Don’t rely on your friends
It’s up to us to persuade the right people that our books are worth investing in.
Nobody else is going to do it for us – and that’s a really cool position to be in because it means we’re in charge of our own destiny. We get to make our own successes (and failures) without relying on (or blaming) others.
One 3-star review ⭐⭐⭐
Our brains are wired that way, to always see the bad – the problem – rather than the good. It used to keep us alive back when we lived in caves.
How To Outline Your Business Book Lightning Fast
Let me ask you again: why aren’t you achieving your goals? Do you know what’s missing? Which tiny beetle steps you need to take?
Smooshing the propaganda machine
Words in print have a weight and a resonance that words spoken out loud lack…
How To Think Up Your Big Book Idea
The flash of inspiration you’re waiting for? It ain’t gonna happen. It is a myth; a myth that has stopped good writers from writing since humans first scratched their shopping list on the cave wall…
Start Writing Your Book Today
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