Jennifer Dukes Lee ​invites you to transform into a better writer​ through “beautifully ruthless self-discovery.”

It starts in the pages of your journal.

In a recent interview, she delves into the therapeutic benefits of daily gratitude journaling and its potential to rewire our brains. By writing down things we’re grateful for, our minds seek out the positive.

Jennifer recommends guided journals when we’re stymied by writer’s block. The blank page of a traditional journal can overwhelm us. What should we say? Where should we start?

Guided journals aren’t blank pages—they provide prompts and structure when you’re stuck or unsure of what to write.

She stresses that journaling serves as a valuable tool for self-discovery and creative expression. When you use journaling to explore your experiences, memories, and struggles, you can weave your discoveries into your writing. This deep dive into the human condition adds depth and authenticity to all our writing: poetry, creative nonfiction, online writing, and fiction.

Jennifer introduces questions from her guided journal: some profound, some silly. Either way, they open you up and lead to deeper self-knowledge.

Some of your journal entries will be personal and remain private, just as her recent book title suggests: Stuff I’d Only Tell God.

Other entries you could share with a family member or friend, creating deeper connections through your vulnerability.

You’ll see how journaling unleashes your creative potential and invites you to be more open, leaving a lasting impact on yourself, your closest relationships, and your readers.

Listen in on our discussion—and start journaling—to become a more authentic and impactful writer.

Meet Jennifer Dukes Lee

Jennifer Dukes Lee is a bestselling author, thinker, and question-asker from Iowa. Her friends say they’re scared to sit alone in a room with her because they end up telling her things they never intended to say. She is both proud of this fact and also a little annoyed at how nosy she can be.

She put a bunch of her favorite questions into a journal called Stuff I’d Only Tell God. It’s like your own little confession booth.

She’s also the author of Growing Slow and It’s All Under Control.

Subscribe to her newsletter Top Ten with Jen to get the inside scoop on stuff that is blowing her mind, encouraging her heart, and refreshing her soul (subscribe and you’ll also get immediate access to free resources): https://jenniferdukeslee.com/subscribe/

Connect with Jennifer:

• Learn more at jenniferdukeslee.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferDukesLee
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferdukeslee/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jenniferdukeslee
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/dukeslee/
• Subscribe to Top Ten with Jen: https://jenniferdukeslee.com/subscribe/

Time Stamps

The whole interview is packed with inspiration and ideas, but perhaps these time stamps help you navigate to places in our discussion that may seem more interesting.

5:29 Courageous honesty leads to self-discovery.
7:21 Journaling and memory keeping.
8:53 Journaling is essential for writing.
11:23 Gratitude journaling and its impact.
14:48 Journaling can inspire and inform.
15:01 Inspiration from journaling.
16:27 Outline and plan your writing.
19:06 The short form writing process.
22:03 Journaling preserves memories and emotions.
24:09 Capturing memories through journaling.
26:33 Journaling sparks creative self-discovery.
29:08 Writing about interesting moments.
29:35 Birds and dreaming.
31:38 Trust the spark, capture it.
35:56 Treating journals with different purposes.
37:48 Social media and storytelling.
41:33 Battle with depression and anxiety.

Transcript

(Transcripts are reviewed and lightly edited.)

Ann Kroeker I’m Ann Kroeker, writing coach. If you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome! If you’re a regular, welcome back.

Today I’m with Jennifer Dukes Lee, author of the guided journal Stuff I’d Only Tell God, and we’re discussing how courageously honest journaling can make us a better writer. Jennifer’s a best-selling author, thinker, and question-asker from Iowa, and she’s also a personal friend.

Her friends say they’re scared to sit in the same room with her because they’re afraid they’re going to tell her things they never intended to share. She says she’s proud of that, but also a little annoyed at how nosy she can be. Well, she put a lot of her questions into this one resource, Stuff I’d Only Tell God. It’s like your own little confession booth. She’s also author of Growing Slow, and It’s All Under Control. You can learn more about Jennifer at jenniferdukeslee.com.

Jennifer, it’s great to have you on the show. Welcome.

Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah, we better watch out. According to that bio, I might turn the tables today and start peppering you with questions.

[laughter]

Life will never make sense until we get curious enough to ask good questions.

Ann Kroeker And you know, you’re more than just a guest here appearing. You’re also my friend. And so yeah, I can vouch for the fact that you do ask great questions.

And you ask great questions not only as a friend, but also with your background as a reporter.

And then all these years of being an author, and working with authors, you know, you’re funneling all that into this new book, Stuff I’d Only Tell God.

So, one thing I noticed when I opened it up and I looked inside, read through the prompts, I realized, first of all, I’ve got a lot of writing to do using these prompts for a very long time. There are plenty that will get me through, I think, more than a year for me.

But one of the things you said at the beginning was this. You write, “Here’s what I know to be true. Life will never make sense until we get curious enough to ask good questions.”

Say a little bit more about that from your background that I just described.

We get to know each other through the questions that we ask each other.

01:52 Jennifer Dukes Lee Well, when you think just relationally how we get to know one another, it’s the questions that we ask each other. I’m still learning about my husband of 27 years due to just asking questions out of this journal, for instance.

And life doesn’t make sense, relationships don’t make sense, faith doesn’t make sense until we get brave enough to ask good questions.

I come from a Christian background and a Christian worldview. And my way to faith was through questions. I was a deep, deep intellectual doubter of God and Jesus. And it was questions that led me into a life of faith. It’s questions that now I consider Jesus, my CEO of my ministry, when it was like 20 years ago, I didn’t even know if he existed.

So yeah, questions have helped everything make sense. And I’m just going to keep asking them to learn more about myself and learn more about people and learn more about God.

Questions have helped everything make sense.

02:49 Ann Kroeker I love it. And this book you have, it’s Stuff I’d Only Tell God, but what you just pointed out is that you actually can use these questions not only for your personal self-reflection, but to grow closer to other people. And so it’s not really stuff I’d only tell God.

I did notice that you have a section that’s like, you probably don’t want to … [you might want to] shove this part under your mattress. But you say in the subtitle it’s a guided journal of “courageous honesty, obsessive truth-telling, and beautifully ruthless self-discovery.” What does that mean to you? And how do people process all of that?

Really dig in and go hard after the truth of your own life.

03:31 Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah, I wanted to convey the passionate aspect of this book, to really dig in. Journaling in general is digging in and pressing into how you’re feeling or pressing into your worries and your fears, your doubts, whatever it is. But I am calling people to go on an even deeper journey. And so I’m like, how do I convey that? What are the words that I could use?

And I remember sitting on the couch while Scott was watching Netflix and I was supposed to be watching Netflix, but I’m like, as a writer, I’m like busily in the notes app of my phone trying to craft this idea. And it just came to me and I’m like, Scott, pause Netflix. I’ve got to read this to you.

And it conveys that passion of honesty is one thing, but recognizing that there’s a certain kind of honesty that takes real courage. That’s where “courageous honesty” comes in, because it does take courage to get honest about what’s going on in our lives. It takes courage to look into our past and see how that’s shaped who we are today. It takes courageous honesty to ask God some important questions and to get honest with him about what’s going on in our lives.

And then when it comes to that “obsessive truth telling,” leave nothing behind. Just be obsessive about it. Really dig in and go hard after the truth of your own life.

When it comes to that “obsessive truth telling,” leave nothing behind.

And then the “beautifully ruthless self-discovery,” self-discovery is almost a buzzword, it’s just learning more about yourself so you can decide what you want to be as you move forward. But I know that the kind of self-discovery I’m asking people to do in this guided journal is ruthless. It’s hard to dig like that, but in the end, it’s beautiful. So that’s how I came up with “beautifully ruthless self-discovery.” So it conveys, I think, an idea of I’m going to do this thing and it’s going to make a difference. And if it’s going to make a real difference, then I need to give it all I’ve got.

05:33 Ann Kroeker Well, when I looked at those questions, as I said, I think it’s going to take me a very long time to work through them. And it’s for that very reason. It’s going to be a deep dive and hard work. And I don’t want to just rush through them. I want to spend some time with them and I hope that your readers do as well. And do you feel like this cross-section of being a writer, which you are, an author, you write regularly, you have great social media posts that really go deeper than what is normal, how much would you say your journaling intersects with your own writing efforts and projects?

06:09 Jennifer Dukes Lee Oh, quite a bit. I have sitting over here about seven different journals. Like you can’t see them in the camera, but I have a number of them. I’m going to show you a few of them actually.

So of course I’ve got Stuff I’d only tell God.

Multiple things in [journals] have then become social media posts, which may end up in books.

I have a gratitude journal. And when you take time to pause about what you’re grateful for, like all the time I’m like, oh yeah, like here, Beth Moore ministry was number 665. And I ended up making a post about something related to the Beth Moore ministry that has become my biggest Instagram post of all time. Just because I happen to just write it in a gratitude journal, whether it’ll make it in a book, I don’t know. But like there’s multiple things in here that have then become social media posts, which may end up in books that usually goes in that order.

I have a prayer journal where I keep track of things that I just need to pray about.

I have a commonplacing journal. I use this one a lot in my writing of books. This is where I keep quotes and other people’s thoughts and ideas and knowledge. This dates back, especially to the Renaissance era, where people would, they would call them commonplacing books and they would write down things that meant something to them. And I love doing the same thing. So this will definitely make its way into books because I keep quotes that I love.

I have a couple other journals here, but this one is very basic, very boring. It almost is like, I call it a memory-keeping journal. And in here are stories and sometimes just phrases or snippets. It’s not pretty on the outside. It’s not like Instagram-able, but they’re ideas and thoughts that I don’t want to forget. And often these will make … the memory-keeping journal stories will make their way into social media posts and into books.

Furthermore, I have the Notes app, which I treat as a journal. I told you, I’ve got a lot of them! And if I think of something, it’s going down in the notes app that counts as journaling.

And then finally, I have a running document on my computer called “Possible Posts,” which is really just a running list of ideas. And it’s 16,500 words. This is my one for this year. I started it in the spring, but that’s just all kinds of ideas and thoughts. And so I go to that file and I write from that particular document. And that counts as journaling too. Some of it makes its way into social media. Then some of it makes its way into a book. Some of it stays just for me, but it is just an absolute vital part of my ministry and my book writing.

Ann Kroeker How do you keep track of them all?

Jennifer Dukes Lee I don’t go through them every day.

Ann Kroeker Yeah. Okay. [voices overlap] Go ahead.

Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah. I don’t go through them every day. I think that can be overwhelming when people hear about all the journals that I keep.

Some journals, maybe the memory-keeping one, I’m only in maybe once a week.

The gratitude journal, maybe a bit more. Commonplacing, it just depends on what I see.

So I know what they look like and they’re at the ready whenever I need them. The one that I’m in the most, quite honestly, is the Word document because it’s on my computer, which is where I create content for people in books and social media posts.

09:27 Ann Kroeker Okay. I’m going to just camp here for just a second because I get really practical and very curious. You said they’re always at the ready. You’ve always got these analog books, these physical books ready to fill in. Like when I’m traveling, I like to keep things pretty digital because then it’s lightweight. It’s always with me. Do you take these with you everywhere?

09:52 Jennifer Dukes Lee No, I don’t. I have been taking Stuff I’d Only Tell God with me. I’ve been doing a lot of travel this summer, mostly because I have committed to doing what I’m asking other people to do. So that is the one that I have taken. I also have been taking, I usually take this one, this is Praying the Scriptures for Your Kids. So this is how I parent now. I’m “prayerenting,” I call it, because my kids are now out of the house and so I’ve been praying the scriptures. But every once in a while, I’ve taken a gratitude journal or if I think I’m going to find some interesting stories, I might take my memory-keeping journal. But usually just one, maybe two, sometimes none.

10:26 Ann Kroeker So if you’ve got somebody who’s never really journaled before, obviously the best first step is to buy Stuff I’d Only Tell God. How can they make their decision about like, “I’m ready to do more with this”? Maybe they’ve had a stop-start experience with journaling in the past. Where should they begin to try to make this an ongoing habit?

Would you survive a zombie apocalypse?

10:51 Jennifer Dukes Lee It depends on if you like the idea of a guided journal or not. So Stuff I’d Only Tell God has thousands of questions in it that are very deep, but also like really quirky. Things like, “Would you survive a zombie apocalypse?” for instance.

So there’s just fun questions like that, but also questions about your past and your, you know, if you want to just like delve in and have somebody sort of help you along down this path of journaling Stuff I’d Only Tell God or any kind of guided journal would be super helpful for you.

If you don’t really, you’re not really into that and you don’t want to be told what to write, then making a gratitude journal would be a really great place to start because you just start numbering it and write down things you’re grateful for.

And that’s such a positive, that has an immediate therapeutic impact on your life. We know that journaling is therapeutic, but if you journal and write down things that you’re grateful for, your mind gets trained to begin to scan your environment looking for positive, good things for.

We have to train our brains to be positive, so a gratitude journal might be a really great place to start.

Our brains are actually wired to see the negative. We were made that way, honestly, to keep us safe so that long, long time ago we wouldn’t just say, “Oh, I wonder what that was in the bushes. It’s probably just the wind,” but you know, then it turned out to be a tiger. So we have negativity bias for a reason and it still works for us now when we’re like in a parking lot and it’s dark and there’s people around.

And so we have a negativity bias to be a little bit scared, but we have to train our brains to be positive, so a gratitude journal might be a really great place to start. If you are a writer, don’t feel bad. If you’re listening … you’re probably a writer if you’re listening to Ann’s podcast here.

I think the thing that I felt a little bit shameful about is that I could not do a blank journal very well. I would literally get writer’s block. I’m like, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.” And so I just wouldn’t journal unless I had a specific reason. That’s why I have so many different kinds of journals. And I’m thinking if I, as a writer who’s been writing books for this many years, get writer’s block while journaling, then I think other people do too. And so a guided journal can be a great place to start.

13:03 Ann Kroeker Starting without it being a blank page. So starting with something on it does seem like a great way to kind of kickstart things, so you’re not starting from scratch, not staring at the blank page.

There are some things in a journal … can make their way out into the world and really serve a good purpose.

13:13 Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah. I mean, it could end up being, I think for speaking again to the writers who are listening, answering some of the prompts in a guided journal like mine could end up being like, “Oh my goodness, this is like a whole chapter!” or “This is a whole book!” or it’s certainly, “I could make a social media post out of this.” You could go through that and I think really get yourself some good content to move forward.

I did one the other day called “Dear Younger Me.” And I wrote a letter to my younger self, which there’s space in the book to do that. And after I wrote it, I’m like, “I’ll bet somebody else could use that kind of thought about their younger self some, too.” And so I ended up sharing it on social media and it did really, really well. And a lot of people related to it.

There’s another one, “Things I Would Want Myself to Know on a Hard Day.” I ended up making a Reel out of the content that I put on that particular journal prompt. And it did really well because it spoke to other people when I was speaking from such a vulnerable place.

So some things you will just want to keep between you and God. But I think that there are some things in a journal like this or in any journal that eventually can make their way out into the world and really serve a good purpose.

14:32 Ann Kroeker And you’ve got a place to store it so that if you’re not ready right away, you can come back to it later. And there it is preserved, the thought, the exploration that you did. I asked people on Instagram to ask me if they had any questions they wanted me to specifically ask you. And Erica Baldwin said, “Have any of your previous books been inspired by your past journal entries?” So you talked already about how you’ve used it for short form, but how about your actual, the full length books? Have your journals?

Almost everything that you see in a book, at least the nugget of it, the seed of it started in a journal that made its way into a short form post on Facebook and Instagram.

15:01 Jennifer Dukes Lee Absolutely. And I’m going to, at this moment, treat journaling very broadly. I’m going to treat journaling also as answers that I put in Bible studies, the words that I put in my journaling Bible, where I can write in the margins where something will occur to me related to, you know, something in Exodus, like, “Oh, wow,” which actually happened when I wrote one of my Bible studies, it ended up coming into my Bible study, the notes that were in my, the side of my journal, it became a whole chapter or a whole session, if you will.

So very regularly, almost everything that you see in a book, at least the nugget of it, the seed of it started in a journal that made its way into a short form post on Facebook and Instagram. And then it made its way into a book.

I don’t have the entirety of a book out on social media. But if somebody watches my social media closely enough, they can probably figure out what I’m going to write next, because I’m just working it out. I’m just like, you know, this is stuff that I care about. I wonder if other people care about this. So I’m always like, ideating what I’m writing and thinking through what else to put out there.

Ann Kroeker We’re all going to be prowling through trying to pick up the clues.

Jennifer Dukes Lee Well, tell me if you see anything that looks like it should be if you’re listening and you see something that looks like a good next book, then do let me know because I’m trying to figure it out.

16:22 Ann Kroeker DM her! Let her know that’s going to resonate. Well, while we’re talking about your books, Twyla Franz asked this: “Do you outline where you’re going or let the writing lead? Also, is it different for long versus short writing?

Put together … an outline, an idea of where you’re going. It serves as a roadmap.

16:33 Jennifer Dukes Lee I do outline extensively for the books that I write. And that’s why I think even if you got a book contract without a book proposal, you should basically still put together the book proposal in terms of the chapter summaries and an idea of where you’re going. It serves as a roadmap. I’m very old fashioned in the way that I do this.

I actually have color coded cards and I have the chapter and what I think the chapter will be.

I have one color I’ll do in the key story.

One color will be the big takeaway.

And if there are any practical tips, that will be another color.

And then if there’s some kind of a Bible story, since I’m a Christian book writer, then that would be like in red or something like that.

So then I put them on the wall and I move them around and get them in the right order.

And on a writing day, I look at the wall and I pull one off. “That one, that’s the one I’m going to do today.” And I sit down with the card and I start.

So that’s the process that works for me. And I can, when I see it all together on the wall and move it into application software, I guess, called Scrivener. That is also kind of based on the same idea of little cards. It looks like that on Scrivener. And I do use that then as well. So it kind of moves, it migrates into the online cards. But that’s what’s worked for me for a long time.

And it’s what I coach other writers to do if they’re stuck. In fact, I’m an acquisitions editor, so I do help authors all the time, put their books together.

One last year was with a Nashville author and she’s like, “Jennifer, I’m stuck.” And I’m like, “Well, I’m getting a plane ticket.”

So I flew out and I brought my little cards and I’m like, “We’re going to map your book. And by the end of this day, you will know what the book is.” And we did it. And the book comes out real soon and I’m so excited about it. And it’s really, really, really good. We did exactly that: we just went through what’s the story, what’s the theme, what’s the takeaway, if there’s any practical helps, what can we put in there. And in her case, she had some biblical guidance. So we had that on the cards too.

Ann Kroeker Brilliant.

Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah. The short form is less structured like that, or is less structured. It doesn’t have like a card system. And I assume that Twyla means like a blog post or a social media post. That is usually more just, I have an idea of what I’m going to write.

And I either start with kind of an impactful, thought-provoking question, or more often than not, I start with a short personal story before I move into whatever I’m trying to, whatever, you know, if there’s a teaching or a lesson or some bit of encouragement, I usually start first with my story and then move into speaking directly to the reader.

In the same way that I was interrogating police chiefs and mayors and governors, I began to interrogate my own life in that way.

19:36 Ann Kroeker Do you ever feel that there’s a danger of being a little too vulnerable? Because you’re very open about your life. And I’m wondering if some of the people who are tuning in might be feeling like, “I don’t know about being so brutally honest with myself and then vulnerable with others, especially online in a place where it’s now available for anybody to read.” How do you deal with that?

20:00 Jennifer Dukes Lee I just, you know, I literally don’t think about it. It’s so, I mean, that’s probably not the answer that you would want or think, but I have been writing online in a pretty open way since 2009. I just don’t know another way. It was hard at first because all of my other writing up to that point was about other people and other events because I was a newspaper reporter.

But in the same way that I was interrogating police chiefs and mayors and governors, I began to interrogate my own life in that way. So I feel like turnabout’s fair play. So I put a lot, there’s not a lot that’s off the record. Let’s just put it that way in news terms. And I feel comfortable with it. I’ve seen too much fruit to turn back now.

Ann Kroeker Yes, I mean, that last line makes sense because if we do hold back, then maybe we’re just skimming the surface and never really going to the places that people want and need to go to for their own transformation. Is that what I’m sensing from you here?

21:06 Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah, I think so. Now I think there is a place for holding back if it’s just sort of like unprocessed grief or unprocessed hurt, or if it’s, “I’m going to say this in the name of vulnerability, but I’m really just going to be passive aggressive because I know that friend is going to be reading my social media posts.” You know? I mean, there’s a difference, right? So I think that you have to give yourself time to work through some things.

On the other hand, there are more harmless things that are in life that aren’t fully processed. For instance, my dad passed away in September. And the grief that I was feeling was expressed in real time on my social media. And while it was helpful for other people to read it, who were also grieving at some point in their lives, it was also very therapeutic for me.

And that’s the value of journaling. It’s just that my journals tend to be just a bit more public than most, but that is what I was doing through grief. And that one of the ways that it was therapeutic is that I knew that my pain was serving a really good purpose because I could see it in the comments and I could see it in my own life.

And now I have this real-time record of the pain I was feeling, the hope I was finding, all of those kinds of things.

Lists count as journaling.

There was something that I’d never wrote about and I didn’t write about it in my journal. I didn’t write about it in my notes app on my phone. And I had a fit about it about two or three nights ago. And I was in the grocery store parking lot. Then I texted my sister frantically in tears. And I’m like, “What did dad say? Remember when I asked him that one question and he said this one answer and I can’t find it anywhere. And I’ve got to know, I don’t know where it is. I don’t have it in any of my journals.” I was frantic.

Well, thankfully, my sister, Julianne, is a Notes app journaler. And she says, “Well, here it is, Jennifer.” And she took a screenshot and sent it to me.

And I think that that’s the power of it. This memory-keeping journal, if I don’t write things down, it’s just all these things that I think I would never forget. I do.

I wish that I had written down the way I felt on my wedding day. Things that I thought that I would never forget. And I don’t remember some details. I wish that I would have written down more about the way I felt when my girls were born. And I didn’t. And so much of it is gone.

23:41 Ann Kroeker I didn’t either. And I, like you, I regret it. In those moments though, it’s so like you’re getting married or you’re in the thick of dealing with a newborn. It’s really hard to figure out how, “Oh, I’m going to take a moment now to pull out my journal.” And in the chaos, “Hold on a second, honey. I know it’s our wedding night, but I got to write some things down.” How do we find appropriate times to capture the moment before it’s gone, but not interrupt life?

24:09 Jennifer Dukes Lee Right. I mean, obviously you don’t have to do it the night of, or, you know, like I didn’t pull out my journal at dad’s funeral or anything like that. But when I did get home and the dust had settled … like, I’ll just read this. All these things mean something to me. “Co-regulation, clap offering, my hand on dad’s chest, the hidden stairs, how Justin came from Canada. When you place your hand on your own heart when you talk to people.” I know what all those things mean. They don’t mean anything to anybody else. But because I have just that snippet, now I can build that out more.

So I didn’t have time. I didn’t have the energy. I still don’t have, in some ways, the capacity emotionally to address some of these in full, but I have enough there now that the memory is immediately coming back.

So that would be one way to do it. It’s not this, I think this counts as journaling. Lists count as journaling.

25:10 Ann Kroeker Yes. So you’ve got little fragments, you’ve got key words. Maybe you have some multi-sensory elements you want to remember and retain. Maybe the actual phrase seems key based on what you said about that frantic feeling that you lost what your dad had said. Those seem like things to preserve without having to take the time to write the whole story. Is that what I’m hearing?

25:29 Jennifer Dukes Lee That’s exactly right. And sometimes it’s just too painful to write. But, you know, I mean, Julianne, my sister had written down all of these conversations and all these things that dad had said in the last month of his life. And I was just hoping that her journaling, that counts as journaling, that it would be there. And I am so used to having my fingertips be able to find those things that when I couldn’t, it was really troubling to me.

25:51 Ann Kroeker  Wow. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this person. His name is Matthew Dicks and he encourages what he gives an assignment that he calls “Homework for Life.” Have you ever heard of him?

[Jennifer shakes her head no.]

Homework for Life has to be done daily to really reap all the fruits from it. Does all journaling have to be daily?

So, he wrote a book called Storyworthy and helps people—trains people—on how to tell better stories. He’s a Moth Story Slam winner and trains people through a program. But this Homework for Life is very much like what you just described with these little fragments. That’s why I thought maybe you are familiar with it.

And he keeps it all in a spreadsheet and he encourages people to do it every single day. “Ask yourself, what’s the most story worthy moment from your day?” And like you, he says you don’t have to write it all out. Just the little fragments that are going to bring it to mind so you can access that memory later.

And of course he’s just picking one moment from the day, one story from the day that you can connect with other stories. So he encourages it has to be … homework for life has to be done daily to really reap all the fruits from it. So one question I would have for you is, do you agree with that mindset that to do it daily is critical? Do you feel that’s true?

A lot of what makes its way into books are very ordinary things.

26:59 Jennifer Dukes Lee I don’t know that I do it daily, but it makes me want to! Because, you know, these things were ones that seemed like big moments to me. But in the end, a lot of what makes its way, if let’s say, let’s say we’re talking directly to the writer at this moment, a lot of what makes its way into books are very ordinary things.

And I suppose in a way, my gratitude journal offers that. But there’s some things I’m not grateful for that should also be listed. So I’m learning a new practice. But the essence of what he’s talking about is what I’ve been doing intuitively. I just didn’t know it had a name and I love it.

27:38 Ann Kroeker It is trademarked. So you can’t steal it, but you can certainly give him credit.

Jennifer Dukes Lee and I can use it. I can use it in my own life. I love that.

Ann Kroeker He has a nice TEDx talk that you can watch to follow that.

Jennifer Dukes Lee I’m writing it down right now.

Ann Kroeker Put it in your commonplace journal!

Jennifer Dukes Lee I’m literally typing it into the one that’s on my desktop. This is what I do!

Ann Kroeker There we go. Right at hand.

28:07 Ann Kroeker  When it comes to writers, then, you talked about getting started for anybody who might be listening in, but especially for the writers—because as you say, that’s the audience here that we’re talking with …

We’ve talked about using a guided journal if you really don’t know where to start or if you want to be “courageously honest and beautifully ruthless” in your self-discovery.

In order to do that deep dive that you might want to do in your creative nonfiction, maybe in your online writing, or even as a novelist to get down to the real human condition that’s within—to infuse some of your characters with certain aspects, memories, struggles … so, right? That would be one outcome of it.

Then you also talked about the gratitude journal.

But is there any other writing-specific practice related to journaling that comes to mind that’s different from that or is that sufficient? Those two?

28:56 Jennifer Dukes Lee  Yeah. No, I think that’s good.

One that just came to mind as you were talking is every once in a while, well, quite often, I will see something just sort of interesting and I will sit down to write about it to see where it goes. I don’t even know what it means until…

So I’ll just read you an example from the journal. This is going to be kind of weird. Okay. So a bit of context is I was driving up the driveway and I saw pheasants along the driveway. Okay. And I was just observing them. Side note, I’ve been kind of obsessed with birds lately. That’s a whole other story. But okay. So here it is … I just came down and wrote:

“You know how pheasants do that thing where they run alongside your car, scared out of their minds, running as fast as they can. And then they take flight, but they stay low. They can’t fly any higher because of their weight. But for a time, they soar like any other bird can, but low, like you could reach up and grab them. This is the way I fly in my dreams. Soaring only for a little while low, always afraid someone is going to pull me out of the sky.”

So I didn’t know the part about me until I started writing about the pheasant. And I still don’t fully know what it means, but it’s, it’s the start of something that is, it says something to me about the way I dream.

And I’m wondering if it says something about me regarding the way I dream about my future. I wonder if it says something about how I’m afraid that I’m not really going to soar, that I’m not going to get high as high as the other birds and that I’m going to be pulled down.

To me, it seems to suggest that I’m not very good at dreaming big.

All from a pheasant.

So, you know, I mean, maybe that’s like super weird or super deep, but that, I think that’s the kind of thing that a journal can do as you, you know, as you go along.

So like, you know, like Lydia [her daughter], she’s been at Oxford for the past six months and she’s been telling me about “wild swimming.” That’s what they call it. If you don’t swim in a pool, you’re in a lake or a river or a pond, it’s called wild swimming, which I really, really like. So I’ve got this little start of something about wild swimming here. I have no idea what that means, or if there’s any, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any big lesson about it, but I just think it’s interesting concept, like the term wild swimming. So there you have it. I just, I think it’s just fun to explore ideas and nature and the things around us.

So many times we, we don’t trust the spark.

31:22 Ann Kroeker And you trusted that little spark that came to mind when you saw the pheasants, not knowing it was going to make that connection to your dreams, right? Like you just saw the pheasants and you went in and you captured the moment based on that spark.

I think so many times we, we don’t trust the spark. Anne Lamott talks about how everyone should carry a pencil because you get those little thoughts and then you don’t have something to write it down. Of course, this is before the time of smartphones, but you know, sometimes even with our smartphones, we don’t take that extra beat to say, “Ah! I noticed something” or “Something caught my attention and I have a little spark.” And if it doesn’t seem like much; we ignore it, maybe.

And I think your, your trust and your attentiveness to that moment, attending to it on paper or on, on a smartphone, you are capturing that and letting it go where it leads when you, when you have time to write it through it. I find that excellent advice for any writer.

John Steinbeck kept a journal while he was writing one of his books. I think it was East of Eden that he was writing through as a writing journal. So it would be sort of chronicling how much he got done and wondering about some of the questions and bemoaning himself, his own writing skill and feeling like he’s not, he’s not capable of doing it.

So that’s specifically a writing journal related to that book, but also there are writing journals where, so not just associated with a book project or a work in progress, but also just about your writing life. Are any of your journals, would you say any of them are sort of dedicated to you as writer or is all sort of, you know, linked together?

32:55 Jennifer Dukes Lee It is all sort of linked together. However, for most of my books, I’ve had, you know, kind of like this college bound, you know, this kind of thing. Well, there’s some of my notes that aren’t probably very much related to this, but I keep notes like that for my books.

And then what’s get, what’s here ends up on those cards. So it’s not pretty, it’s not as orderly as what you’re describing, but I do have dedicated notebooks so that I can write down ideas specific to the book as it’s forming. I have one going right now for my next book project and it’s, it’s helping me make some sense of it.

33:38 Ann Kroeker I think finding the type of journaling that works for you seems key. And I just love that you’re kind of all over the place.

Jennifer Dukes Lee I am.

Ann Kroeker And I think that’s just so refreshing because I tend to be more like, “I need to consolidate. I can’t find what I’m looking for. I’m never going to find what’s in a printed,” you know, written down on pages. I would have to look and look and look.

And for me, just to give our audience a different way of thinking about it, I do like to keep it all in one place. So it’s searchable. So I, you know, with one, you know, with a little bit of keyword searching, I can find what I’m looking for and then it’s much faster. It’s all in one place because the scatteredness would make me so crazy.

And again, like I said, I don’t think I would want to have a whole big tote bag with all my journals, but I really, really love that people who are drawn to that could then just grab the one you had some, you showed us, you held up your journals so we could see what they look like. And they each have a different look and feel. And one was so plain as you showed us and one had had some floral designs on it. And one is more like a bound book. And then of course, Stuff I’d Only Tell God is also a bound book that we can move through writing directly on the pages. And so anyway, I just love this variety, I guess. I just like giving people options that there isn’t one right way to do this.

35:01 Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah. It surprises me, given my personality type that I actually do like this because I tend to be pretty like orderly in life. But in a way for me, this has order because each one has its purpose.

One is for praying for people, one is for praying for my kids, one is for gratitude. So I know if I’m in the prayer journals, I don’t really use for my books, I don’t suppose. But yeah, I kind of just know where the thing is. I will have to flip around to find things for sure.

Ann Kroeker It’s like if we had boxes or tubs that were labeled and this is where the Christmas supplies are and this is where packing material is, we would be opening the box to get what we need. It seems like that’s how you’re treating these different journals with different purposes.

Jennifer Dukes Lee That’s right.

Ann Kroeker Is there anything we haven’t covered today that you would want to share with a bunch of writers who are really thinking now, right now about journaling, that intersection of journaling and writing?

Journaling is a way to [build your author platform] with confidence and with joy.

36:01 Jennifer Dukes Lee I want to emphasize again how, I mean, if you’re a writer, you know the P word “platform,” right? I mean, if you want to get published by a traditional publisher, even if you aren’t wanting to get published by a traditional publisher, you need to grow your platform so people can find you and find out about your book, right?

Journaling is a way to do that with confidence and with joy.

You can look back on something you’ve written and see a nugget in there and you know you don’t have to share it word for word. You could leave out some of the hard details, but maybe just going one step further than you feel comfortable with, I think that you will see fruit with it too and that’ll give you more confidence and that will bring you more joy in the process of the social media piece of writing.

Social media for us is writing. It is such a gift, such an opportunity!

I hear some, I mean, probably 90% of the writers I know, say, “I don’t like social media because I don’t like selling myself. I don’t like it,” and I’m like, “Social media for us is writing. It is such a gift, such an opportunity!”

We don’t have to wait two years to get to make an impact with our words. We have an opportunity to do it every single day on socials and to make a difference like right away.

It’s a great place to practice your craft. It’s a great place to build, at the same time, build an audience.

It’s a great place to impact other people’s lives.

So I just encourage you to view social media that way as kind of an online journal that you’re letting people read in a way that you feel comfortable with and maybe even a little uncomfortable with, but just to approach it that way and to see what happens.

I just encourage you to view social media that way as kind of an online journal that you’re letting people read.

37:44 Ann Kroeker I 100% agree with all of that. It’s a way to distinguish ourselves from others who might be in a similar sort of space as what we are in.

When we tell our stories, they’re our stories and nobody else can tell those stories. Nobody else can reveal those pieces of ourselves.

And it’s also another sort of pushback to what AI is producing. They can’t produce our stories. They might be able to organize things nicely and give us suggestions for how to present content, but it can’t tell our stories.

And that comes from places like Stuff I’d Only Tell God.

And I guess I have one more thing came to mind before we close this out. When we’re telling our stories—and you touched on this a little bit, but I want to go just a step beyond with—when we share other people who are in our stories publicly, we have that frequent fear that memoirists face.

If somebody else is in my story—and almost all the time somebody else is in the story—how do we protect ourselves and not protect them? Because what if someone shouldn’t be protected, right?

How do we deal with that tricky issue and if we’re worried about any kind of negative impact for those relationships for the living or the dead … but mostly the living?

Be as transparent as you can with people before you put it out into the world.

39:08 Jennifer Dukes Lee Yeah. So first of all, there are the big picture legal issues you have to think about, right?

I would not just throw some stuff out on social media. Put it in your manuscript and then have your publisher do a legal review on it. I do that all the time with my authors if something seems a little bit touchy.

And so then if you really feel the story is needed, you will either need to A, get their permission or B, get corroboration for it and you may need to revise the content.

Now that’s a more of a negative piece, right? But I just had an author last week turned in their first manuscript and they had a story that was very kind toward the other people, but it involved the husband having gone through an injury of some sort that was debilitating in his life. And I said, “This is a great story. It’s a great example, but you’re going to need to have them sign a waiver of permission.” Right?

And so I think that the legal thing is a huge factor.

And then second, you have to ask, “Is this worth it? It’ll serve the story, but is it worth it?” Count the cost. Think about what you might lose and only you can decide if it’s worth it.

If it’s a life story and it involves things that your mom did when you were little that left you feeling alone and abandoned, you’re going to have to think through. Is it worth it? You’re going to have to think through, “Will this possibly bring me closer to Mom? If I share this with her before publication and say, ‘Mom, you know, I know we’ve patched things up now, but I’m going to share this story from my childhood just all along the way.'” Is it worth it?

And just be as transparent as you can with people before you put it out into the world.

I don’t tend to write stories about even my husband or my kids without saying, “Hey, this, do you mind if I share this situation?”

41:04 Ann Kroeker This would count also for social media posts, blog posts as well?

41:08 Jennifer Dukes Lee Yes, absolutely. And then you don’t have, unless you’re a lawyer or have one, you don’t have the benefit of those harder stories. So you just have to be a little bit more careful.

But I don’t tend to write stories about even my husband or my kids without saying, “Hey, this, do you mind if I share this situation?”

Anna has been — our younger daughter has been pretty public about her battle with depression and anxiety. And in fact, we went to Indiana together where she spoke at a conference with me and shared the stage with me. So she’s been very open about her battle with depression.

Even so, anytime I talk about it in anything, I have a read it first, or I read it to her first, or I’m not going to publish it. Scott, the same way, you know, I’m like, “Hey, honey, I’m going to put a post up about our anniversary. Is that okay?” It’s glowing. It’s wonderful. And he says yes, and he’s supportive of my work.

But for me, that’s really important to keep other people in the loop.

Ann Kroeker Do you have them sign a release?

Jennifer Dukes Lee No. It’s worked for me so far, though. I’ve been doing this again since 2009 and I haven’t gotten in trouble yet. Cross our fingers that it doesn’t happen like, today!

42:30 Ann Kroeker That’s great. Well, your training in those early years as a reporter? You understand maybe more how to navigate that.

But it seems like what you do most is you share from really your own … it’s more about you and your struggles and your questions and the things that you’re wondering about. And I think that comes through loud and clear on all of your social media and your blog posts, all that content.

And speaking of which, now that we’ve had this great conversation, I’m sure that people who are tuning in are dying to know how to get to know you better. So how can people, what’s the best way for people to connect with you?

43:04 Jennifer Dukes Lee I’m on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, @JenniferDukesLee. And I’m also on Instagram at @StuffIdOnlyTellGod — which has been kind of fun. We’re just going through the journal together and just journaling tips, all those kinds of things.

And my website is Jennifer Dukes Lee (jenniferdukeslee.com) as well.

Ann Kroeker Fantastic. Jennifer, thanks for your time today, for giving so much of your life to us, in the book, but also today as we’ve interacted.

I think you’ve probably given people a lot to think about and a lot to write about.

Jennifer Dukes Lee Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Ann Kroeker Well, I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. You can find all the links and all the information you need related to this episode at annkroeker.com/JDLStuff.

And I’m Ann Kroeker, cheering you on as your writing coach. Everywhere where you may meet, at my website, on this show, or even in person, I’m always looking for ideas to share with you that will help you achieve your goals and have fun by being more curious, creative, and productive. Thank you for being here.

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The post Want to Become a Better Writer? Journal Before You Write appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Bryan Collins relies on a simple system that captures notes and ideas that flow directly into his projects when he sits down to write.

His writing routine doesn’t take all day yet achieves significant results. Find out how he works and test it out.

When you combine that with his simple system for collecting inspiration for all of your writing projects, you’ll be on your way to completing a full manuscript.

Ready to do the work and write the truth?

Learn from Bryan:

• how to “green-light” yourself
• how to capture ideas with easy, daily systems
• the magic of building your body of work in a surprisingly small pocket of time
• how to find time for writing—even during hectic seasons of life
• how to regularly review your notes from other sources alongside your own ideas
• how to break out of writer’s block

Meet Bryan Collins

Bryan Collins is a USA Today best-selling author whose books include The Power of Creativity, This Is Working, I Can’t Believe I’m A Dad! and a best-selling series of books for writers.

He was a journalist and copywriter for years and has contributed to publications like Forbes, Lifehacker and Fast Company.

Today he runs his website Become a Writer Today, with the help of a team of writers, attracting several million visitors each year. And he hosts a popular writing podcast by the same name, where he deconstructs the writing processes of New York Times best-selling authors like James Clear and Daniel Pink.

Resources:

• Become a Writer Today, Bryan’s website
• Become a Writer Today, Bryan’s podcast
• I Can’t Believe I’m a Dad, Bryan’s book (paperback version, Amazon Affiliate link)
• Bryan’s interview with me: Self-Publishing vs Traditional Publishing with Ann Kroeker
• Zettelkasten System
• Day One app
• ambient noise on noise-canceling headphones (to minimize distractions)
• brain.fm (for focus and flow)
• otter.ai, rev.com (for transcription/dictation)
• Medium
• Wattpad for fiction
• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (affiliate link for 30th anniversary paperback ed.)
• Twitter for microblogging
• Story by Robert McKee (affiliate link to Kindle ebook)
• Choose Yourself, by James Altucher (affiliate link for Kindle ebook, on sale at the time of publishing this interview; about green-lighting yourself)
• Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (affiliate link to paperback ed.)
• Inspiration: singer Nick Cave (here’s his interesting website) and author Stephen King

Listen to the interview, or read the transcript below.

Bryan Collins Interview

This is a lightly edited transcript.

[00:00:00.190] – Ann Kroeker

How would you like to develop a simple writing routine that doesn’t take all day to achieve significant results? And what if you could combine that with a simple system for collecting inspiration for all of your writing projects?

Today I have Bryan Collins of Become A Writer Today on the show, and he is sharing his one-two punch of a system-routine combo that turns out an impressive body of work.

I’m Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. If you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you’re a regular, welcome back. I’m sharing my best tips and training skills and strategies to coach writers to improve their craft, pursue publishing, and achieve their writing goals.

Bryan Collins is a USA Today best selling author whose books include The Power of Creativity this is Working, I Can’t Believe I’m a dad, and a best selling series of books for writers. He was a journalist and copywriter for years and has contributed to publications like Forbes, LifeHacker and Fast Company. Today he runs his website, Become A Writer Today with the help of a team of writers, attracting several million visitors each year by the same name, where he deconstructs the writing processes of New York Times bestselling authors like James Clear and Daniel Pink.

Let’s hear his practical advice for writers.

Ready to do the work and write the truth?

[00:01:32.770] – Ann Kroeker

Well, we have Bryan Collins on the show today. He is a podcaster and an author and a writer, and I cannot wait to ask him all kinds of really practical questions that we can pass on to listeners today. Bryan, thanks for being on the show.

[00:01:45.590] – Bryan Collins

It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

[00:01:47.450] – Ann Kroeker

Thanks for taking the time. We’re in different time zones and I am excited to hear more.

Would you share with listeners a little bit about your own writing, your own writing past and what brings you to today?

[00:02:03.090] – Bryan Collins

Sure. So, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer and earn a living from the written word. I was a big fan of Roald Dahl back in the day, children’s author, and I figured the best way to do it was to become a journalist when I became 18 and it was time to pick something to study in college or university.

But I went to journalism college and spent more time going out to parties than I did actually taking notes. And I found it really difficult to find paying work. So I kind of drifted in and out of various freelance writing gigs during my 20s. I’m 40 now, by the way, for some context.

I got really frustrated with writing and I wasn’t a very good journalist, if I’m being honest. So I drifted into other careers that really weren’t suitable for me. But I still want to earn a living from writing, so I took a series of creative writing workshops that made a big impact on me.

I started by writing short stories and then entering short story competitions. I made a few mistakes. I spent a lot of time writing the same short stories rather than getting feedback.

[00:03:05.670] – Bryan Collins

And after about two or three years, I got frustrated with that and I was about to give up on writing altogether. But then I said, I’ll try something else. What if I try blogging and writing about the one thing I do know something about, which is the craft of writing?

So I had a technology blog that wasn’t getting a huge amount of traffic, which taught me the basics of WordPress and writing online. So I transitioned that site to become a writer today.

For a long time it was like a hobby. This is around 2014, so it would have been in my early 30s. For a long time it was a hobby, something I did around the side of a job.

I was surprised, or pleasantly surprised, when it turned into a part-time and then later a full-time business.

And then to give a bit more context, I did find work. I was working as a copywriter for a British software company. So I did get paid to write. And more recently I’ve left that job. I was there for about eight years, so now I’m working on my own business full time.

So that’s an overview of some of the ups and downs of my writing career to date.

[00:04:05.670] – Ann Kroeker

Would you describe the work that you’re doing through the podcast as part of your full-time work that you’re doing as a writer?

[00:04:13.470] – Bryan Collins

What I do today is I have a site for writers, and I used to write all the articles. Now I commission freelance writers to produce the articles, and then I have a set up a couple of other sites in different niches, or niches, as you say in the United States. I don’t write content for those, but I kind of replicate what works for my site for the other sites.

So I guess the business is a content publishing business and one of my jobs is to edit articles, so I’m using some of the skills I learned along the way in the business.

I self published books, so I was big into self publishing for a few years and I self published a parenting memoir last year, which was my fifth or sixth book.

And then I like podcasting because I get to talk to authors and experts like you. And as any writer or listener can attest to, writing can be quite lonely and isolating; you’re by yourself in a room, which can send you a little bit crazy.

That’s why I podcast. It’s to talk to people and to connect with other writers and share stories or anecdotes about what’s working or not working.

[00:05:19.350] – Ann Kroeker

Thanks for sharing that.

Do you feel like looking back at your journey there’s any one decision you made or one avenue you took that made a big difference?

[00:05:32.290] – Bryan Collins

Yeah, like said, it’ll be deciding to write online.

I think anytime during my writing career where I’ve sought permission from somebody, it’s never worked out well.

By seeking permission, I mean going to an editor and asking them to hire me as a reporter. A few editors did hire me and then they let me go. Or going to a writing competition and asking a judge to pick my story over to hundreds or thousands of others who are trying to get a book deal, all of those kind of things.

Whereas any time I pick something that doesn’t involve gatekeepers or permission, such as self publishing—such as writing online or starting a podcast—I’ve always felt more comfortable with it personally, and I’ve had more luck with earning an income from us and finding readers.

[00:06:20.150] – Ann Kroeker

I love that that’s something becoming more and more of a path for people that is no longer stamped with the stigma of vanity press. It’s becoming a valid, legit path versus sticking around, waiting for people to say yes and green light your project. Green light yourself!

[00:06:39.650] – Bryan Collins

Exactly. There was a great book a few years ago by an author called James Altucher. I don’t think he writes about these topics anymore, but it was called Choose Yourself. It’s kind of like a manifesto for side hustlers.

I know side hustlers get a bad rap, but for somebody who’s doing something online, side hustling can actually turn into something amazing. And the key piece of that book is: Don’t wait for someone to pick you. You pick yourself.

So start your own site, start your own podcast, create your own course. Employ yourself.

[00:07:10.970] – Ann Kroeker

That’s great. I was looking at some of the notes you had sent me and I saw that you have a way of managing all of the information that you’re using in the writing that you do. A note-taking system. I would love to hear more about that.

I’m pretty passionate about that and I think it’s absolutely necessary. No matter what kind of writing we do—whether we’re pursuing traditional publishing, self publishing, writing online, whatever—we need ideas, we need information, we need topics, and then we need to be able to find that when we need it.

And you have a system. Tell us about that.

[00:07:44.390] – Bryan Collins

So when I was a journalist, I kept hearing about the importance of research and organizing your ideas and notes. A lot of journalists keep notepads on their desk or Post-It notes or memos. But I wanted to get a bit more organized with it.

So like many people, I started reading articles and just clipping them into Evernote. I’m thinking that: Now I clipped my articles into Evernote, that’s it. Now that’s my research done.

But that’s just replacing or trying to replicate what the Internet does. The Internet is a repository of all that information.

What’s far better to do is to take interesting anecdotes that you can use from courses or podcasts or articles and save that into your note-taking system and then summarize it in your own words. Maybe describe how this piece of research you’ve come across relates to another piece of research that you’ve come across.

Let’s say I listened to an interview about how to grow a podcast, and the interview was two hours long. I actually did do this. It was an interview Tim Ferris gave, and I wouldn’t save all of the transcripts into my note-taking system.

What I do is I just extract two or three key points that means something to me, and then I write about I’d summarize it in a sentence, and then below what, I describe how I could apply this idea for my own podcast.

[00:09:02.910] – Bryan Collins

And then I link the notes up with each other.

If I was using a digital system—

The method I’m using is called the Zettelkasten method.

I’m still refining it. It’s not something I came up with. It’s a German sociologist from the mid-20th century. His name is Niklas Luhmann. He wrote dozens of books during his career and published hundreds of papers. He’s seen as a really prolific sociologist and author, but he used a series of index cards to do this.

Basically, it’s a form of progressive summarization in your own words. The idea is that you’re always engaged in the act of writing and research, and you’re summarizing all the information you come across continually and reflecting on it and reviewing it.

Because if you think back to the Evernote issues that I described, there’s no point having hundreds of articles saved into Evernote or whatever your app is, if you don’t actually read them and reflect on them and review them.

And that’s where the Zettelkasten method comes in. It’s a German word which translates as slip box.

[00:10:07.230] – Ann Kroeker

Which described his method with his little cards.

[00:10:10.620] – Bryan Collins

Yeah, he used those index cards.

He had one idea per index card in his own words. And then he would have the source for the idea in case he needed it, because he was an academic—in case he needed to go and find the source.

If you see a picture of his slip box, there are thousands of index cards that he kept in giant wooden filing cabinets.

You can replicate this now with digital tools, obviously. That’s the system I settled on. I mean, there are other ones. Like when we were talking before the interview, you mentioned Ryan Holiday’s, the Commonplace Book. I did try that, but I personally find that I prefer a kind of digital system that works quite well for me.

[00:10:49.170] – Ann Kroeker

Well, I have been experimenting with this myself and like you, I have tried Ryan Holiday’s Commonplace Book—which is a misnomer because there are commonplace books that are more like journals, and his is actually this big plastic box that was used for scrapbooking or something.

He has all these index cards in there and then he sort of randomly plucks from them trying to make connections. And that really appealed to me and I didn’t think that the digital approach could do that for me.

But what I feel like the Zettelkasten method does, that you’re doing now, is you’re already finding the connections. As soon as you find something that you’re interested in as you’re taking your notes, you’re summarizing it, you’re already finding the connections right away.

Is that what I’m understanding? You go and you find what you’ve already written about that and then make some connections?

[00:11:40.570] – Bryan Collins

It is, yes.

I did use Ryan Holiday’s method, and I found that I had hundreds of index cards, which were quite hard for me personally to manage.

The tool isn’t really that important, but I use Day One. It’s a journaling app, and I use it because I journal regularly. But there’s other tools you can use.

I just give each note a hashtag. So, for example, I have a series of notes on podcasting. So if I type “podcasting” into Day One, all of the podcasting notes will come up. And if I was writing an article about podcasting, for some reason, I could see all of my research into the topic and all of my reflections on the topic of podcasting, and that works quite well for me.

I try to remind myself that the tool is less important than the process.

Have one place for your notes, whether it’s Day One or Evernote, or index cards or shoebox. When you have one system and you stick with it and you use it, you’re putting stuff in there regularly and you’re taking some time out to review your notes as well.

[00:12:42.440] – Bryan Collins

And that’s actually why I use Day One because I journal a lot. I find that’s really helpful for creative writing and I just enjoy it. So it was just natural for me to start using that for a type of Zettelkasten or slip box.

[00:12:54.200] – Ann Kroeker

That’s so smart because now your notes from outside sources merge with your own ideas.

And I love the idea of the hashtag search, pulling from all of that and creating a cohesive set of ideas and notes.

How often do you actually do that? How often would you do a search on that? Every single day?

[00:13:18.530] – Bryan Collins

I’m working in my business full time now, so I get more time for this.

Bryan’s Note-Taking Routine

1. I try to start in the morning by recording five to ten notes into the Zettelkasten based on a book I’ve read or an interview I’ve listened to. That’ll take me about half an hour.
2. The note is literally just a single one or two lines, and then my reaction, and then just a link to the source and then potentially a hyperlink if I want to link the notes to each other.
3. Then I’ll write a journal entry and that’s about 45 minutes. And then I’ll move on with whatever I need to do that morning.
4. And then once a week then I’ll go back and review some of the notes in the Zettelkasten.
5. And then every few months I’ll go back and review all of the notes from the previous year.
6. And then if I’m writing an article, I’ll just search for the topic in Day One.

I find it’s amazing what I forget. Like many people, you read something and think that’s a great idea and you’re not quite sure what you’ll use that for and then you come across this anecdote or metaphor that you can use for something later on.

[00:14:18.160] – Bryan Collins

So I find that’s quite helpful too.

[00:14:19.990] – Ann Kroeker

So you follow that nudge or that impulse to write it down even if you’re not sure how you’ll use it.

[00:14:26.110] – Bryan Collins

Oh yeah, I’ll always be writing things down. If you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen.

[00:14:31.610] – Ann Kroeker

That’s great, that’s good for the digital age. We all can, well, you talk about grabbing this time, you can work full time when you maybe couldn’t before, and you’re a busy father of three.

How do you fit writing into life? And do you have any suggestions for listeners who might feel themselves crunched for time as well?

[00:14:51.230] – Bryan Collins

So when I was trying to make a living, writing like our kids were quite small. Now I have a 16-year-old, an eleven-year-old and a three-year-old, but at the time I think they were all under five. I wasn’t bored, but it was difficult to do with a corporate job.

What I used to do was just get up early before work at 06:00 a.m. and write for an hour or an hour-and-a-half.

I recognize that’s not possible for everyone, so I also tried writing in the evenings, but what I found is that I was always tired after work and I was more likely to procrastinate or pop things off.

So I asked myself: What could I give up?

And I stopped playing Xbox and PlayStation games, and that’s how I was able to get some writing done.

And then I also kind of stopped watching television during the week and then you confine it to the weekends.

I don’t get up that early now because I can do it full time. But if somebody is having trouble finding time to write, I would say rather than trying to write for four or five hours on a Saturday because you feel like you have a full free day, try and slot 15 minutes into your day every day.

[00:15:54.460] – Bryan Collins

Fifteen minutes is often enough to write 300 words.

And if you write 300 words for six or seven days a week, chances are you’ll hit 3000 words—chances are you’ll go over, because some days will just go better than others.

If you do that for a month, or you do that for three months, you’ll have the first round of a book, you’ll have a series of articles for your site, or you’ll have more than enough articles that you can use to build a writing portfolio if you’re a freelancer.

It’s tapping into the power of small daily wins. And I think most people can find 15 minutes.

We have more tools than ever for writing today:

• You can dictate on your mobile if you’re on a commute.
• You can write on your commute.
• You can use your tablet or whatever works for you.

[00:16:37.910] – Ann Kroeker

Yeah, these tools are making it possible to do things we couldn’t do before. People who maybe they’ve had surgery can’t type. We can now dictate or record and transcribe, just as you said.

And the 15-minute chunk—surely we can dig out a little bit of time to pull it off.

I love your examples, but at the same time, I know you encouraged the idea of getting into creative flow and the flow state sometimes takes a little time to get into.

So how do we merge these two ideas, that we can actually write a book in 15 minute increments every day because it will pile up and it will accumulate. How do we do it in a way where we feel like we’re tapping into that deeper place that happens during creative flow?

[00:17:25.010] – Bryan Collins

You can write in 15 minutes, but if you want to get into kind of a deep state of creative flow, I’d say you need about 30 minutes. So still not a huge amount of time. Depending on how busy your day is, maybe you can find 30 minutes to do it.

There’s a few kind of techniques you can use to get there faster. So you can use a set of these noise-canceling headphones and listen to ambient noise like rainfall and that can quickly help you eliminate distractions.

Or there’s a service called Brain.FM. I interviewed the person who created it. It’s designed to help you get into flow state faster. So that’s another technique that you can use.

But what’s really key is to be in an environment where you’re not going to be distracted for about 30 minutes. So take your phone out of the room. Ideally there’s no other distractions like a television on or games console.

Now, I recognize that’s not possible for everybody, again, depending on where they live. So perhaps you need to write at a time when your house or your apartment or where you live is quieter.

[00:18:27.000] – Bryan Collins

Or maybe you could go to the local coffee shop or the park and write there for 30 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever it is.

You also don’t need to get into a state of creative flow for hours. While that can be fun and productive, 30 minutes is often enough. And then you can get up and take a break.

If you have time, you can get back down and do another 30 minutes. And then depending on how the day goes, you may go for two or three hours.

I find more than two or three hours gets exhausting. There’s a great book about Flow by Mihaly…I’m not going to attempt to pronounce his last name, it’s called Flow. But he basically says more than three hours is really difficult for most people and that’s often enough to do what you need to do.

[00:19:08.630] – Ann Kroeker

I think that’s great advice and very doable. I love the noise-canceling headphones. I used those when my kids were young and safe and didn’t need my monitoring, but I didn’t need to hear their noise. That’s a good trick.

How about other ways we can be creative and pull out a more creative mindset and tap into different creative tools? Do you have advice for that?

[00:19:33.530] – Bryan Collins

Yeah, when you’re working at a computer, sometimes it can feel confining and limiting. We’re all relying on these tools to write books and self publish them or build sites or publish articles.

If you’re working on a first draft or you are thinking about a project, consider going for a walk and bringing your phone with you and using a set of earphones and dictating the first draft using an app like Otter.AI or Rev or Dragon, or other new ones.

Often dictating the first draft is a lot faster. Plus, you’re outside. You’re getting the blood moving and you’re getting some fresh thinking as well.

And sometimes just to change environment is enough if you feel like you’re stuck on a particular project.

It’s also good to mix up your tools. So if I’m working on a book, sometimes I’ll use index cards, even though I have all the book writing software, and I lay all the index cards out on a table. And then because I can physically move the index cards around, it’s a way of kind of zooming out and seeing the structure of the book as a whole and where each section fits in the book.

[00:20:39.160] – Bryan Collins

But I find that quite difficult to replicate on the computer. I know Scrivener has index cards, but again, it kind of feels like I’m trapped inside of the app, which is great for focusing on a sentence or a chapter, but not so great when you need to look at the manuscript in its entirety.

[00:20:54.410] – Ann Kroeker

Mixing up analog and digital, that’s genius. I see other people doing similar things. They print off and cut up their pieces of paper and rearrange. There’s something about that. I don’t know. Maybe we’re just as humans, we need to have a little tactile experience in addition to the digital tools that are a fingertip away.

[00:21:14.030] – Bryan Collins

Yeah, I’m a big fan of whiteboards and lists. You can’t see it here, but there’s a whiteboard to my left. Sometimes I’ll just write down lists on a whiteboard or mind map on a whiteboard and I find that’s quite helpful as well.

[00:21:26.710] – Ann Kroeker

Nice. So if somebody’s listening and they’re just getting started and they would like to move toward publishing, whether that’s self publishing or traditional publishing, do you advise any kind of first steps to finding their voice, to try to get their ideas out, to start sorting through things, to see what they even want to write about and what they want to be known for?

Those initial questions. They’re just getting started. What would be your advice to them?

[00:21:54.560] – Bryan Collins

Yeah, those are difficult questions.

Many new writers are afraid of what people will think. What will a family member think if they start writing about depression or sex or some real personal problems they have?

I worried about those things when I started writing nonfiction, but I quickly discovered that your biggest problem isn’t what people will think, it’s actually capturing the attention of readers in the first place.

So much content out there and so many books, it’s really hard to connect with who your ideal reader is. So get into the habit of publishing your work and submitting it.

Try different genres or niches—or niches—until you figure out one that resonates for you.

If you’re writing nonfiction, you can use a platform like Medium to try different genres or niches, write for different publications and potentially earn a few dollars each month from the Medium Partner program. And you’ll learn more about writing online through using Medium.

Now, I don’t write much fiction, but you can use services like Wattpad if you’re writing fiction, to do something similar.

Twitter is also quite a good microblogging platform.

But that said, I would always at the back of your mind be thinking, what can I build as my own?

[00:23:05.200] – Bryan Collins

While you can build a platform on Medium and Twitter, you’re still subject to their algorithm rules. So it’s always a good idea to have a part of the internet that’s your own home base. Whether that’s a site about your business or a site about you, it’s a way for readers to find who you are.

Once readers start to visit your site and hopefully join your email list—because you want to give them something for free—you can start emailing them and asking them questions about what do they like about your work or what kind of problems that they have.

Then you can use that to inform what you’re going to write and publish next.

[00:23:37.130] – Ann Kroeker

So I hear at least three great pieces of advice that they need to stick with. One is: don’t worry so much about what people think; worry more about capturing reader attention, like being findable, but then having them stick with you because they like what they read. That was one thing you said.

Then you said, what can I build that’s my own?

Even though we have access to something like Medium—because it’s there and it’s an easy way to publish and distribute our words—still be careful and try to create something that’s our own and then just maintaining that reader attention, even once they’re in your space.

Whether through a lead magnet/freebie thing or whatever brought them into your space, try to maintain that attention and even ask them for ideas. Is that a pretty good summary of what you said?

[00:24:24.970] – Bryan Collins

It is a fair summary.

While you need to go out and build relationships with your readers, it’s also good to have a way of having a direct relationship with your readers, as well, so you’re not overly reliant on Twitter or Medium or whatever—or even the Amazon algorithm—to show your content to them.

As an example, it was really easy to self publish a book years ago on Amazon. It’s still easy to self publish a book, but it’s much harder to find readers unless you go and invest in paid advertising. That’s just one way that the rules have changed slightly, but those authors who have an email list are less subject to having to use paid advertising.

[00:25:04.250] – Ann Kroeker

Yeah, so that’s a whole world. I have a membership program and we talk about all of this, setting the whole system up for people to be able to get into your ecosystem, if you will, your sphere of influence.

But this idea of, to use Seth Godin’s term, to “ship” content out there, to get in front of readers and get their input and hopefully get them to like what you’re writing…do you feel like that is the best use of social media right now, to just kind of get your ideas out there fast and then see what sticks? Is that a spaghetti approach?

[00:25:39.710] – Bryan Collins

It can work, but if you’re going to go out and just start publishing links to all of your content, the algorithms tend to favor keeping people on their platform. So posts with links don’t work that well.

If you engage with somebody naturally or authentically on Twitter or Medium, that tends to work much better. In other words, if you’re on Twitter, you’re writing content for Twitter and not asking people to leave Twitter to join your site, but if they’re interested, chances are percentage will come and find who you are anyway.

[00:26:10.190] – Ann Kroeker

Which platform is your favorite?

[00:26:12.770] – Bryan Collins

Well, these days, to go back to your question about finding time to write, I actually reduced my social media usage for a long time because it’s hard to write and find time for social media.

But these days I use Twitter quite a bit. I find it’s quite good. I particularly like Twitter threads.

I used to use Medium quite a lot when I was freelance writing. I’m not using it so much anymore because there were a lot of changes to the algorithm and how content was surfaced and.

To be honest, I found my site was starting to get traffic, so it was better publishing content there. I’m starting to use YouTube a bit for informational videos from my own side as well. So they’re probably the three main networks at the moment.

[00:26:53.440] – Ann Kroeker

And would you suggest those as a starting point for somebody? We kind of covered that already, but would you say, “Yeah, go ahead and start doing video!”

[00:27:04.730] – Bryan Collins

Yeah, I guess somebody would have to ask themselves what network they’re most comfortable using.

If you’re a writer and you write nonfiction, then I really encourage you to check Medium out if you haven’t done it already. And Twitter as well. It’s naturally geared towards writers and microblogging, and it’s gotten much easier to use than it was a few years ago, and more relevant for people who use the written word online.

So probably those two, they probably take the least amount of time, whereas video can be quite involved.

[00:27:37.070] – Ann Kroeker

That’s great advice. Do you feel like if somebody is stuck…So we talked about beginning writers—what about people who are feeling stuck? They’ve got writer’s block or something like that. I know that’s maybe a term that some people argue that it doesn’t exist, but they’re feeling blocked in some way. Do you have any tips for how they can break free from that?

[00:28:03.530] – Bryan Collins

Writer’s block is often an input problem rather than an output problem.

So if you feel like you have nothing to say, ask yourself what types of books are you reading or courses are you taking and are you kind of documenting your notes and learnings from those books and courses?

Writing about what you’ve learned is a great way of conquering writers block.

If you’re writing something that’s more creative, I recommend checking out the book Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. It’s fantastic. Get the audio version because she narrates it herself and she’s amazing.

But she describes a practice called free-writing, which is really helpful for writer’s block.

Basically, you write for a predetermined period. You don’t stop to edit yourself, and you just write about whatever is on your mind. And if something strange happens while you’re writing, you would just write that down as well. Or a dog barking, you just write that down as well.

The idea is that you’re just getting out whatever’s on your head onto the blank page, and then later on, during a separate session, you can go back and edit and tidy up and see if there’s something useful.

[00:29:05.870] – Bryan Collins

So those practices can all help a writer’s block.

[00:29:09.650] – Ann Kroeker

Free-writing was so liberating to me, and it wasn’t because of writer’s block that I was using it. I was actually using it in a creative writing class. It was an assigned book back in the day.

That book transformed everything for me, because I had come from a family of journalists and so I had one way of thinking about writing. But then I read what she was saying, that we have to get down to those “first thoughts,” as she called them. And the only way we can do that is when we take away the editor that’s always editing what we’re saying and thinking, and get down to the first thoughts.

And that can only happen when you just keep that pen moving or the I guess you could do fingers. She sort of changed her tune a little bit. She used to say a pen on paper, but now she’s saying if keyboard works better, that’s fine. Yeah, just get the words down.

[00:29:56.390] – Bryan Collins

Yeah. I like free writing.

Journaling is good too. Journaling can work quite well with the freewriting approach because usually a journal entry is for you and you alone. You can write about whatever you want.

[00:30:09.410] – Ann Kroeker

Yeah, you said you used Day One, that’s for your journaling and it’s digital, right?

[00:30:14.930] – Bryan Collins

I use Day One. It’s a purpose-built journaling app.

Sorry, my phone going off there. That’s another tip. Yeah, turn off your phone when you’re writing.

So yeah, I used Day One. It’s a purpose-built journaling app and I particularly like it because it works great on the mobile, and so I can use it on my tablet and I can also use it on the Mac and you can put in photos.

It also has a nice neat little feature where it’ll surface entries from last year or five years ago or eight years ago. So it’s a great way of bringing back up pieces of writing that you may have forgotten about.

[00:30:48.560] – Ann Kroeker

Do you ever worry about privacy with these apps?

[00:30:52.730] – Bryan Collins

Sometimes, yeah. Day One has a pretty strict encryption policy and it’s connected to your Apple ID. And actually when you’re using Day One, if you even tab out of the app, it will automatically lock as well. I guess if you’re journaling, you have the same issues. If it’s a paper journal too, who’s going to unearth it under your bed?

[00:31:14.390] – Bryan Collins

I don’t have state secrets in there. I can’t imagine why somebody would want to hack into Day one. Maybe just be somebody I know would want to read it. But it’s password protected.

[00:31:23.670] – Ann Kroeker

Yeah. And it sounds like you do a lot of the creative work that you’re going to pluck from anyway for your public writing.

[00:31:30.450] – Bryan Collins

Well, that’s it, yes. So a lot of it is like the research and the bare bones hopefully later turned into an article or some sort of chapter.

[00:31:37.570] – Ann Kroeker

Do you see a difference between a personal reflective journal and a writing journal?

[00:31:44.270] – Bryan Collins

That’s a good question. So I guess they’re kind of intermixed.

In Day One, I have a personal journal—traditional journaling about what I did or what I thought about something. And then I have the Zettelkasten, and those are probably the two ones that I have in there. I don’t have a dedicated writing journal, per se. I would consider that the Zettelkasten.

[00:32:06.690] – Ann Kroeker

Okay. And if you had a favorite writing book—we’ve already mentioned Writing Down the Bones. Is there another book that you would say?

[00:32:19.370] – Bryan Collins

Yes, it’s on my top ten list of books about writing.

Story by Robert McKee.

He’s a screenwriting doctor and guru, worked a lot in Hollywood.

He came to Ireland a few years ago, and I went to his workshop, and at the end of the workshop, I was walking up to meet him, and I’d ordered a copy of his book, and he put a statement down and it said: Write the truth.

I think he puts that on every book he autographs.

But basically he provides an overview of how any writer can use Story in their work. And once you learn it, it’s something that can be really impactful. It really helped me. That’s definitely a good book. Even if you don’t write screenplays, it’s still a book that will help you with your craft.

[00:32:58.160] – Ann Kroeker

I have it in the house. It’s really fat.

[00:33:00.610] – Bryan Collins

It is. It’s quite a dense book. It took me a while to go through it, but I ended up reading it three times and taking lots of notes. It’s excellent.

[00:33:09.200] – Ann Kroeker

I’m going to pull it off the shelf, blow the dust off and get started. That’s great.

Do you find yourself writing your nonfiction differently because of having read Story? I’m assuming that, based on what you just said.

[00:33:22.490] – Bryan Collins

I try to. I try to insert some personal stories into my nonfiction.

I don’t always succeed in following what he advocates in the book, but he did something that’s always at the back of my mind, because readers will connect more with a story rather than somebody who’s regurgitating information.

[00:33:38.630] – Ann Kroeker

Who’s your creative hero?

[00:33:41.750] – Bryan Collins

That’s a good question. A few. Probably the singer Nick Cave. I think he’s just tried multiple formats, from poetry to books to music.

I suppose Robert McKee’s made a big impact on me, the fact that I was looking off to meet him.

Maybe Stephen King as well, because he’s such a huge back catalog, and he’s tried so many different genres and niches.

[00:34:06.510] – Ann Kroeker

And what’s next on your plate, on your desk? What are you working on now?

[00:34:12.950] – Bryan Collins

Well, I just finished writing a parenting memoir. It’s kind of a lockdown project. So I’m at the final stages of recording the audio book called I Can’t Believe I’m a Dad.

It’s a creative project that’s something that I wanted to write during the lockdown. It’s all about when I unexpectedly became a dad about ten or 15 years ago. It’s something I enjoyed writing rather than a book I wrote because I was going to achieve some goal for me. So that was fun to do. And I spent the past few months narrating the audio version of that as well.

[00:34:41.970] – Ann Kroeker

That’s a big project. And then marketing that, I suppose, is a big part of that. The next steps involved.

[00:34:49.570] – Bryan Collins

Yeah, I need to spend more time promoting it.

To be honest, I kind of wrote the book just with the goal of writing something that’s a bit more honest and personal, because prior to writing this book, I’d written a lot of business books, and I was a freelance writing for Forbes, so I wanted to do something that was altogether removed from that type of writing, and it was just something I enjoyed writing.

All the kind of stories and anecdotes and how they relate to a guy who’s about to become a dad…the thesis of the book is it’s all the information I wish I’d known about becoming a father. It’s something I wish somebody told me at the point when I found out my partner was pregnant years ago.

[00:35:30.450] – Ann Kroeker

Write the truth. You’re doing it.

[00:35:31.620] – Bryan Collins

Write the truth. Yeah, that’s it.

[00:35:35.010] – Ann Kroeker

Well, thank you for your time today and sharing so much of how your own creative process works and even the little granular details of how your card system lives in Day One and how we can use different systems to do our own creative work and step out into the world to be read.

Do you have any final thoughts that you want to leave us with?

[00:35:57.270] – Bryan Collins

Sure. So if somebody is listening to this and they want to learn more, you can visit becomeawritertoday.com. And on the homepage, you can get a free book of writing prompts. I also have a podcast under the same name, and I was looking up to interview guests like Ann about the writing process. And that’s also called Become a Writer Today. And it’s on the iTunes Store, so go check it out.

[00:36:19.640] – Ann Kroeker

You have had some big name people on there, me not being among the top names, who are some of the people you are really excited to have on the show that they might want to go dig around and find?

[00:36:30.520] – Bryan Collins

Yes. I interviewed James Clear when he was promoting Atomic Habits. That was a good one. I interviewed Daniel Pink about his book a few years ago. That was interesting, too.

More recently, I interviewed Mark McGuinness, so he’s well known and as a kind of a creativity coach. And he was really interesting to talk to. And he gave me some advice about how to think about creative work versus work that pays the bills.

[00:36:55.950] – Ann Kroeker

All right, I’m going to go listen to that next myself. I haven’t gotten to that one. So thank you. Thank you for opening up your life and your work to us. And I hope that many people find themselves becoming stronger, better, more confident writers, especially getting to know you and your podcast.

[00:37:15.390] – Bryan Collins

Thank you, Ann.

[00:37:16.430] – Ann Kroeker

All right, you take care.

[00:37:17.800] – Ann Kroeker

I hope this conversation helps you see how you can start building your own system for collecting everything that inspires you. And you really can build your body of work 15 minutes at a time.

Let Bryan continue to inspire you through his podcast, Become A Writer Today. I’ll link to that and to his interview with me, along with loads of resources he mentioned.

Just go to annkroeker.com/becomeawritertoday, all jammed up together. That’s annkroeker.com/becomewritertoday.

Thank you for being here. I’m Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

The post How to Make Time to Write and Develop a System to Take Notes, with Bryan Collins appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

With inspiration from Mark McGuinness, you’ll integrate poetry into your writing life as a pleasurable practice that elevates your prose.

In this interview, Mark describes the vision for his podcast and his own poetic beginnings, and he urges writers (and readers) to simply enjoy poetry.

You’ll see ways poetry intersects with and impacts prose—you can even play a literary game he describes at the end.

Learn from Mark:

• How a mouthful of air is a perfect image for poetry and podcasts
• How can we translate metaphor into our other forms of writing (without being weird)
• The metaphor that comes to his mind when describing himself and his writing
• How poems “mug” Mark and he drops everything to chase them like leprechauns
• The importance of getting input on your work and finding a writing mentor
• Plus, play his writing game (bring your prose)!

Listen to episode 245 and check out excerpts in the transcript below. You’ll be inspired by his warm, encouraging advice. If his subtle persuasion succeeds, you may embrace poetry as the next step in your literary journey.

Meet Mark McGuinness

Mark McGuinness is a poet based in Bristol, UK. On his poetry podcast A Mouthful of Air he interviews contemporary poets about their writing practice and draws out insights that can help any writer become more creative, expressive and memorable.

Mark also takes classic poems apart to show us how they work and what we as writers can learn from the examples of poets including Yeats, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer and Edward Lear.

Links:

• Visit amouthfulofair.fm
• Listen to A Mouthful of Air on Apple Podcasts
• Twitter: @amouthfulofair
• Instagram: @airpoets

Mark McGuinness Interview

This is a lightly edited transcript.

[00] – Ann Kroeker

With inspiration from my guest Mark McGuinness, you may find yourself integrating poetry into your writing life as both a pleasure and a practice. I’m Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. If you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you’re a regular, welcome back. I’m sharing my best tips and training skills and strategies to help writers improve their craft, pursue publishing and achieve their writing goals. Today I have Mark McGuinness on the show, a poet from Bristol, UK.

On his poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air, Mark interviews contemporary poets to discover their writing practice and draws out insights that can help any writer become more creative, expressive and memorable. Mark also takes classic poems apart to show us how they work and what we as writers can learn from the examples of poets like Yates, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer and Edward Lear.

Listen in on our conversation.

[00:54] – Ann Kroeker

I am so excited to have Mark McGuinness on the call today on our show and we are going to talk about a lot of different things related to the creative life, the writing life, even the poetry life. Mark, thanks for being on the call.

[01:09] – Mark McGuinness

Thank you. It’s lovely to be here, Ann.

[01:12] – Ann Kroeker

I am looking forward to learning more about how you approach your own creative life and how you use and enable poetry to be part of what feeds your creative life, how you inspire others with poetry, because that seems to be a big part of your life.

Can you tell the listeners and viewers, can you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

[01:37] – Mark McGuinness

Sure. I am a poet living in Bristol, in the southwest of England, in the UK. I’ve been writing poetry quite a while and in my typical group of friends, I’m usually the one who reads poetry. I’ve always been quite aware that most people don’t read poetry most of the time.

There are a lot of people who are very literate, very well read, very avid readers, but who will generally read anything but poetry. And to my point of view, it’s not that hard. I think a lot of people get put off at school, they have a bad experience or they think it’s this thing up on a pedestal that they don’t understand or that isn’t going to speak to them in their lives.

And I got this urge about two years ago when I first got the idea for the show that I would really like to take some of these books behind me down from the shelf and just read a poem and just share it with people and say, “Isn’t that great? And notice what’s happening in the third line here. Isn’t it marvelous what she’s done with the rhyme or whatever?” And just to share the magic that I feel that I don’t think it’s that hard for other people to tune into.

[03:00] – Mark McGuinness

And then following on from that, I thought, “Well, actually, I know quite a few poets I’ve been to their readings. I’ve read their books. I’ve sat next to them in workshops. Why don’t I invite them on the show, too? And then they can read it.”

And so the way the show works is that every episode is focused on one poem, and the first thing you hear is the poem. Because if it’s a good poem, you don’t need an introduction. You don’t need to be told why you should like it or all the footnotes and stuff. You either like it or you don’t, or you feel something or you don’t. But you’ve really got to listen and put your kind of assumptions aside about it.

So we hear the poem read by either me, if it’s a dead poet, if they’re alive, I get them on the show and they read it themselves. And then we have a little bit of context, a little bit of, well, what’s going on in the poem? And again, if they’re alive and they’re on the show, I’ll ask them, where did the poem come from? How did you get the idea?

[03:59] – Mark McGuinness

How did you work it up? What process did you go through from the initial idea to what we have on the page or on the screen or in the ear. And quite often that journey is really surprising. I mean, as a writer, I’m fascinated by how things evolve. And if the poet is sadly no longer with us, then I will share my thoughts on why I think the poem is worthy of our attention and what I think is going on.

And then the end of the show, we hear the poem again. And even though it’s the same poem and the same recording, it should sound different. In fact, listeners tell me it sounds different because it’s a bit like a magic eye, because they can see things or they can hear things in it that they weren’t aware of the first time rounds. So that’s it. It’s all quite self contained.

[04:51] – Ann Kroeker

That is a wonderful concept. I took an online course in years past where we did these close readings, and it just opened my mind up. It took me back in time. I actually studied poetry and creative writing as an undergraduate at Big Ten University here in the States. And so I have a little exposure to poetry, and it was my entree into writing and building a writing life.

So tell us what the name of the show is and why you chose it.

[05:23] – Mark McGuinness

Okay. It is called A Mouthful of Air. And I know it’s a good title because I nicked it from W. B. Yeats in a little poem that he wrote, an early love poem. Would you like to hear it? It’s really short. It’s easier than me describing, of course.

Okay, so it’s called He Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved.

And it’s not hard for us to guess that his beloved was like to be moored gone. Famously he was in love with her. She was a significant figure in the Irish political independence movement in the late 19th century. So it begins.

It’s just six lines, so blinking, you miss it, but it goes:

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,
And dream about the great and their pride;
They have spoken against you everywhere,
But weigh this song with the great and their pride;
I made it out of a mouthful of air,
Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

And I love the fact that Yeats, he emphasizes a poem, in which case a song. He was a very lyric poet. He emphasizes how light, how insubstantial it is. It’s almost nothing.

[06:56] – Mark McGuinness

“Weigh this song.” She’s being criticized by people. He doesn’t like “the great and their pride.” And he’s saying, but you can’t—don’t respond to the criticism. Just “weigh this song” with it almost as though he’s saying that poetry can balance the scales of this injustice.

And he says, “I made it out of a mouthful of air.” So that’s what the poem is made of. It’s made of speech, it’s made of breath.

And of course, this takes us back to the origins of poetry, which is even older than writing. So it would have been spoken or maybe sung way back before people thought of writing poems down.

And I think this is something for me, something quite magical about poetry, that insubstantial thing. You’re making it out of nothing, really. A mouthful of air that still survives into the 21st century. And I thought, Isn’t that a lovely way of thinking about a poem?

And it’s perfect for a podcast, because what you get on the podcast, of course, is the spoken poem. Again, we’ve gone from the text back to speech. So that’s where I got it.

[08:02] – Ann Kroeker

It’s both literal and metaphor. And metaphor is a big part of poetry, and we can grab it.

Most of the people, I think, listening to my show are writing prose or novels or short stories or essays or articles, and probably fewer writing poetry. Tell me how you feel like this. We can translate things like metaphor used commonly in poetry.

How can we translate metaphor into our other forms of writing without being weird?

[08:34] – Mark McGuinness

I mean, I’m thinking I can tell you about how to do it as a poet. And I use it a lot. I think I use it quite a lot in my nonfiction writing.

So I write about the creative process sometimes. But I think it’s probably basically the same process, which is on some level, the question you’re asking yourself is, “What does this remind me of?” Or, “What is this like?”

And you’re just allowing that thought to come maybe from the back of the mind to the front of the mind. If you have an image, I would say pay attention to the imagery in your mind.

If you’re picturing a character, say, and there’s an image of a waterfall in your mind, just trust that and say, you know, “She was like a waterfall.”

That’s a simile, technically, rather than metaphor, but you know what I mean. It’s the same kind of figurative language I would say or listen and take seriously the words on the tip of your tongue.

If you start to say, I’m feeling really heavy today, then just go with that heavy feeling. Or “He was feeling heavy. He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

[09:47] – Mark McGuinness

I know that’s a cliche, but you can just go with that kind of language, I think. And the other thing I would say, of course, is read lots of poems, because you get loads and loads of metaphors and they just lodge in your mind and get you into that way of thinking.

[10:04] – Ann Kroeker

I appreciated how you modeled that close reading of the Yeats poem for us. And I think just with that alone, you’ve given us a powerful tool to do that, to pull a poetry book off the shelf or look one up online, read it, and then pause and look for those.

That would be a great place to start, I think, with metaphor. I agree.

I have a question for you.

What comes to mind when you think about your own writing life? What metaphor comes to mind for yourself?

[10:40] – Mark McGuinness

The image that came to mind then was kind of almost like a river bank, but it’s going up there’s the river down below, but then there’s the bank leading up, and there’s kind of trees and branches and hedges up there, and there’s all the life going on up there.

I’m waving my hand about for anyone listening to the audio version.

And I guess it feels if I’m writing, I’m going to go down here down by the river, and I’m just going to be out of sight for a little while. I can hear the world is still within earshot. I can listen to that. I can tune into that. But I can also listening to the river that is going in my other ear.

And I feel quite earth and I don’t know, you can’t quite say water, can you? Connection for water. But there’s a connection to the earth and water, which feels quite true to the spirit, I guess.

Well, that was the image that came to mind. I could run with that, plenty into that.

[11:47] – Ann Kroeker

Exactly. My mind was going, I’m imagining you dipping into that river that’s always flowing. And you do that with poetry you’re dipping in.

[11:56] – Mark McGuinness

Yeah, absolutely. And maybe take some back up over the hedge.

[12:01] – Ann Kroeker

Yeah. “Hey, drink this. Taste this.”

[12:04] – Mark McGuinness

That’s it. Yeah, maybe that’s it. That’s good.

[12:09] – Ann Kroeker

Has your writing life evolved in a dramatic way, a subtle way, from your origins?

Which…maybe tell us about those origins and then walk us through?

[12:19] – Mark McGuinness

That’s a good question. I would say my poetry, in one sense has stayed the same, which is that…so I remember the first time I really got excited about writing poetry.

We were at school and my English teacher, Jeff Reilly—wonderful guy, great teacher—he sets the task of writing a ballad based on the novel that we were reading.

And we got started in the class and then we had to go into the next class. It was probably chemistry or something deathly boring like that. And I found myself at the back of the class with my jotter, which I don’t know if your lot of us are familiar with that term it’s basically the rough notebook that we have with really awful paper that would probably take your skin off if you rubbed against it too hard. And I was writing in my jotter and I kept going with it…

I sat at the back of the class and kind of hid it behind my bag. And really I should have been doing chemistry but I couldn’t get the rhythm of this ballad—which a ballad’s is very strong rhythm—out of my mind.

[13:29] – Mark McGuinness

And I kept going through chemistry and history and goodness knows what and normally was the boringly good student who would be paying attention due to fully but I couldn’t. There was this mischievous thing in the poem.

Years later I interviewed the poet Paul Farley, who’s one of our foremost poets here, and he said to me something that really resonated because I was asking him about his writing life and he said, “I feel like I have to be skiving off to write.”

So skiving off is British slang for maybe you call it playing hooky, running away from school. Yes, he said, “I feel I have to be skiving off from something else.”

Like maybe he was supposed to be writing a review or a lecture or whatever and he would be scribbling in the margin. And I could really relate to that.

And I think, coming back to your question, my poetry writing life is not a million miles away from that. The poem is something that will come along and interrupt or tap me on the shoulder when I’m doing something else or even when I’m trying to sleep. Three o’clock in the morning is quite inconvenient sometimes.

[14:37] – Mark McGuinness

But I do have a rule with myself, with whatever else I’m doing, unless I’m in front of a client, I am allowed to go with the poem.

Even if I’ve said to myself I’ll be writing a podcast episode or something this morning. I’m allowed to write that poem because it’s a bit like a leprechaun, the Irish leprechaun. The little spirit’s supposed to appear in front of you, and you mustn’t take your eyes off him because he’s got a pot of gold at the end of his rainbow.

And if you make him, he has to give you the pot of gold. But if you look away and he will use all his tricks to get you to look away, he’ll disappear.

I think the poem is a bit like that, at least the initial idea. You’ve got to grab it before it vanishes.

And then there will be endless tweakings and revisions and rewriting over and over again. So I guess as far as poetry goes, it’s like that. It’s still quite feral, quite wild.

For prose, I’ve got a pretty well established routine, which is I write in the mornings and I do all my other stuff in the afternoon.

[15:47] – Ann Kroeker

No, go ahead. I love hearing about your process.

[15:50] – Mark McGuinness

Well, that was a decision I made about 15 years ago when I realized that my email inbox and my phone and running around after other people was running my schedule, my day. And I thought, “No, you’ve got to draw a line in the sand. You’ve got to actually start the day by writing and making something, not just reacting.”

And at that stage, I was so busy, I got up at 6:00 in the morning to write this blog. I had an idea for launching a blog, but to have it stuck with me.

Unfortunately, I’ve now managed to move the date further forward into the day, partly due to having children, when I capture every ounce of sleep I possibly could when they were small. But I still like that intentionality that that gives my day, that I’m starting off, I’m going to create something.

Later on, there’s plenty of things that I need and want to do for other people. But this is the thing I do that feeds me. First thing.

[16:55] – Ann Kroeker

As a writer, do you identify first and foremost as a poet who writes prose, or someone who writes prose and uses poetry…which comes first?

[17:04] – Mark McGuinness

Oh, poetry comes first. That’s much more exciting, at least in my mind, because to me, that is the most exciting form of reading or writing. And I love prose as well, don’t get me wrong. But what poetry gives me is that it’s even more concentrated, even more magical.

[17:25] – Ann Kroeker

What do you think is the biggest gift that a poem gives?

Is it the play with words? Is it conveying an idea slant? Is it something else?

[17:39] – Mark McGuinness

There’s a lot of pleasure in poetry, and I think that’s something that’s easily overlooked.

Like, we listen to music. We listen to songs because they’re fun. It’s not because we feel we ought to understand figurative language and Bob Dylan’s use of the metaphor, whatever. It’s because it’s a great tune and we like the sound of it and it sticks in our head.

And to me, first and foremost, poetry is like that, or rather, and also because I had to really think about this when I was launching the poetry podcast. Well, what does it do? And to me, it helps me make sense of the world, and that’s reading and writing.

And of course, Robert Frost put it much better than I did when he said, “a poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” It becomes “a momentary stay against confusion.”

And I just think that’s so beautifully and precisely put because it’s momentary. It’s not like this is the Truth, capital letters, and it will always be, but a momentary. You go, “Actually, yeah, I’ve got that.” When you read the poem or writing it, “Yes, I captured that.” And then, of course, we’re back in the flow of confusion.

But yeah, that delight and wisdom that will do me for poetry.

[19:01] – Ann Kroeker

Where is that? I want to know the source of that quote.

[19:05] – Mark McGuinness

I think he made it like an offhand remark, maybe in one of his interviews or talks. I’d like to think he sat down and considered it because it’s pretty good, isn’t it?

[19:15] – Ann Kroeker

It’s like you’ve prepared that for this.

[19:17] – Mark McGuinness

It’s a prepared line. That’s right.

[19:21] – Ann Kroeker

Wow.

When you think back to all the things that you have done and achieved as a writer, what are you most proud of?

[19:32] – Mark McGuinness

The poems that sing to me. And also I’ve heard they sing to…they sing or they speak to other people.

And I won’t lie, if a poet I really admire says, “I like that one,” that means a lot.

I think when you’ve got a fellow practitioner who’s further down the path than you, who says, “Okay, there’s something there,” ego aside and validation and aside, I think it’s a sense of “Yes, at least I captured that. At least I managed to kind of make sense of that little corner of the universe.” That’s quite satisfying.

[20:20] – Ann Kroeker

And that input that you’re getting that you know it sang to somebody, and it landed right, is that happening because it got accepted to a journal and it’s been read or available to the public? Or does this happen privately?

I’m asking because I’m thinking about all the people who are working so hard privately at their computers, at their notebooks, writing poems, writing other things, essays or whatever, and they’re hearing no from the gatekeepers.

So I’m just curious if some of this input that you’re getting…how are you getting it?

[21:00] – Mark McGuinness

Well, first of all, I’ll say if you want to get a lot more no’s, then write poetry.

Because the amazing thing is you walk down the street, you never meet a poet, and you submit to a poetry magazine and suddenly there’s hundreds of them in the inbox next to you. And I know this because I edited a poetry magazine once, and I saw what mind-boggling number of poems come in.

So I’m there with you. If you’re getting the no’s, I get more no’s than yeses. Most people do just because of the numbers. But the yeses outweigh the no’s.

And going back to the original question, which I think is a really good one, it’s interesting because the ones that come to mind aren’t publications or prizes.

When you asked the question, it was times when I’ve sat down when poet is tutoring me, because that’s when you actually see the real response, the one that they can’t fake. Either they frown or their face lights up and you can see even before they said something, “Oh, that one connected.” And then they will say something.

Because when you get accepted, generally you don’t get a lot of feedback.

[22:18] – Mark McGuinness

It’s just, “Hey, great poem, thanks. We’re pleased to have it.”

Whereas in a tuition situation or mentoring situation, I think you’re more likely to get a) the emotional response, and b) the more fulsome, detailed feedback.

So I would say if anybody is in that situation, get great feedback, find a tutor, find a mentor, somebody who really knows your genre.

And they’re not just going to give you general praise, but they can give you really specific praise or be open to the criticism if it’s not there yet. But that can really help you calibrate.

Because I think another thing I would say based on the experience of having edited a magazine is when we submit, I think there’s always a little frightened part of us that’s thinking, “Oh, will I be good enough?”

And if you get rejected it’s, “I wasn’t good enough. My poem wasn’t good enough. I’m not good enough.”

But rest assured, when I edited, it was Magma Poetry magazine. There were plenty of poems that weren’t of a great quality, that’s true. But there were also far more poems that were good enough—in other words, well written enough—than I had room for in the magazine.

[23:38] – Mark McGuinness

And so at that point it came down to my taste. It came down to the kind of context.

There were several sometimes that would form little constellations together. They would be on the same topic or around they seem to speak to each other. They kind of looked out for each other. And then the poor poem about a subject completely different wasn’t left on its own. It was harder to justify leaving that in.

Ever since then I’ve realized it’s not just about being “good enough,” whatever that means. Maybe think about that before you submit.

They always say read the magazine or read the books published by whatever. You really should because that will give you an idea of the kind of stuff that gets published there. Sometimes it helps to get an idea of if there’s a judge for a competition, sometimes, I’ve entered because I thought, “Oh, I like their stuff, I wonder what they think of mine?” So that can be interesting.

But the other thing is to just keep at it. And always have always have more submissions out.

Never have one submission at a time because when that comes back as a no, then you’ve got nothing to look forward to.

[24:56] – Mark McGuinness

But if you’ve got another two or three, then there’s a part of you that can go, “Yeah, but, well, maybe next month I’ll get a yes.” And then you rotate.

So the game is to always have more submissions always out there so there’s always, “Well, but maybe the next one.”

[25:13] – Ann Kroeker

So much good advice. And so reassuring.

Mark, I can’t tell you what a relief this is going to be for those who are in the trenches doing the work, submitting, to hear from someone who’s been an editor—and someone who has submitted their work and had to grapple with both sides.

That helps us get a vision for what these editors are trying to do with their work and how they honestly react and respond to pieces. And that there are many good poems that end up hearing no simply because it didn’t fit the theme that emerged organically. I loved that part.

I think that’s just one example of why we need to just turn around and resubmit.

Keep finding the right home for your work.

[25:57] – Mark McGuinness

That’s it. That’s the phrase. Find the right home for it.

Because if you go with the idea that, well, I mean…sometimes it’s been rejected enough. There are poems I’ve taken to Mimi Khalvati, my longterm mentor, and she said, “Well, you know what, Mark? Maybe it’s time to retire that one.” And that’s fine.

But sometimes it is a case of…I’ve had plenty of poems accepted by good publications that have been rejected several times by others, and it’s about: you could find the right home for it. I think there’s a lovely phrase to use.

[26:31] – Ann Kroeker

Is there a number we should keep in mind? Like when Mimi would tell us what’s the number of rejections where….yeah, maybe…?

[26:42] – Mark McGuinness

I don’t know, because famously, if J. K. Rowling had given up after, was it 29, 30 rejections, she wouldn’t have sent it to the next one.

[26:51] – Ann Kroeker

True. Yeah.

You said a couple of things that were interesting that I wanted to explore with you. One was early in the discussion with me today. You’ve talked about just start reading poetry. Then later here, we’re talking about creating poems.

So we’ve got sort of the person who’s taking it in and maybe for the first time, starting to integrate that as part of their writing and creative process. And then you have people who are actually trying to write poetry.

And you’ve suggested getting mentors, getting some sort of input with genre-specific, feedback, so that you can really learn and grow.

When would a person who’s just starting to read poetry know when they’re ready to start getting that kind of education and input? And where can they find it?

[27:40] – Mark McGuinness

I would say, if you really want to get going, then go and look for a course.

Obviously, look for a beginners’ course, but as well as the actual tuition and feedback you get, there’s nothing like being in a room full of people who want to do the same thing.

You know, I did a writer’s retreat a few years ago and we had to go round the table on the first evening and, “What does everybody want? What does everybody want from the week?”

And I just said, “I want a week where writing poetry is normal.” And there were a few smiles around the table because people recognize that normally, it’s not. Normally, they’re the odd one out. Normally, they’re fighting for that time or trying to sneak it away from other things in terms of where to go.

I mean, I’m in the UK, so to me the obvious place would be the Arvin Foundation, which does all kinds of different genres. It does poetry, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction and so on.

There’s also the Poetry School in London, which is a wonderful—well, they’re based in London, but they have courses online and they have courses around the UK.

[28:50] – Mark McGuinness

Arvin and Poetry School have been doing a lot more online since the pandemic came along. So that’s one benefit from somebody like me who doesn’t live in London anymore, or indeed, if you’re in the States or elsewhere in the world. I think those are my main recommendations. So it might depend on time zones and online availability, but I’m sure wherever you are, they will be.

If you Google fiction for beginners or poetry for beginners or nonfiction or whatever it is.

Ann Kroeker

How did you find Mimi?

Mark McGuinness

Good question. I found Mimi…I can’t entirely remember. I’ve got a feeling that I was in the Poetry Cafe in London in Covent Garden, which is a lovely space. It’s a cafe for poets and poetry. They do readings and drinks and stuff, and the Poetry Society is upstairs where it used to be. And there was a notice board.

I think maybe I saw her advertised for doing, because Mimi did a course for the Poetry School years ago called Versification, where she took all the major types of meter and verse form and we had to write them every week. I think we started with Anglo Saxon, and that was quite demanding course, but also a really amazing one, because at that point I’d done an English degree, so I kind of knew all of this stuff.

[30:25] – Mark McGuinness

But Mimi showed us how the craft of it works. “Okay, this is the result, and this is what it looks like when it’s finished. But how do you write a Petrarchan sonnet? How do you write terza rima? How do you write heroic couplets or blank verse or a villanelle? And how did it evolve and what does it do that other forms don’t do?”

So she really conveyed the magic of the form, really. And that was a lot of the traditional forms in poetry.

They’re not exactly endangered species, but they’re not the mainstream anymore. Most poets these days will write what’s called free verse, which basically means it doesn’t have a regular meter, it doesn’t have a regular rhythm, and it quite often doesn’t rhyme. And that’s great. But it turns out that’s not predominantly the kind of poet I am.

I really like the pulse, as I call it, of the rhythm of the meter, and I like the rhyme. To me, there’s a magical quality to those old forms.

And Mimi really showed us how to tap into that and use it in our own voice. So that’s how I met her. And I just kept going to different classes, and she’s currently mentoring me one to one.

[31:53] – Ann Kroeker

So you must have just asked and she said yes? I love it.

[31:58] – Mark McGuinness

Yeah. I would say again, if there’s a writer that you really admire and you think, “If I could write a bit more like them,” or “I’d really love to get their view on my work,” or just to learn more about how they do it, just Google to see:

Are they giving a talk? Are they being interviewed? I mean, there’s loads of interviews on podcasts, for example. Are they offering classes? Is there any way that you can get into that person’s orbit? And you can learn a lot.

[32:30] – Ann Kroeker

When you are working on a poem or any creative project, how do you get started?

Like, where do you start with an idea, with a phrase? Tell us a little bit about your process.

[32:41] – Mark McGuinness

A lot of the time it kind of mugs me.

There’s another thing that Paul Farley said. He said, “I want the poem to mug me when I’m doing something else.”

So it’s the line that pops into your mind, which is quite a well established phenomenon for a poet. Paul Valéry called it le vers donner, and le vers calculer.

Le vers donner is the given line. This is the line that the muse or the unconscious or whatever we want to call it, pops into your head.

And then le vers calculer is the line that you make yourself.

So I was once on getting on my children on the Tube, and…I remember just setting them into their seat on the Tube and then the line “terminate the human race” came into my mind and I thought, “What is that?“

And it was the start of a poem. And it was interesting. As soon as I heard that line, I knew what shape and size poem it was and how it related to another poem that I knew.

And it had nothing to do with children, so don’t worry about that. But it just shows how inconvenient and how completely unconnected it can be with whatever’s going on in the rest of your life, it will pop into your mind.

[34:08] – Mark McGuinness

I think actually it’s possible to kind of prime the pump, so to speak.

So a few months ago, I had an idea that I wanted to have a ballad in my poetry collection, because I had a few times that were kind of almost ballads or next door to ballads, and I thought, “Oh, come on, you know you could do the actual thing.” But I had no idea what I would write about. And then—let me show you.

[34:35] – Ann Kroeker

You pulled out your notebook from childhood and the ballad that you are hiding.

[34:40] – Mark McGuinness

It’s interesting because that’s probably the last time I’d written about it.

No. Maybe I wrote one in Mimi’s class, but I went on the internet and I ordered this. Which is the Faber Book of Ballads, from the ’60s. And it’s all lots of old traditional ballads. Irish. Scots. English. Nearly all anonymous.

And I just read it from cover to cover, and then sure enough: A few days later I wake up at three in the morning and there’s my ballad starting to write itself.

And it was a topic I would never have guessed. So that can happen.

If you can kind of say that I’m going to mark out the ground and invite the spirit of the form in, then sometimes they answer the call.

[35:28] – Ann Kroeker

It reminds me of two things, and the first is just that you seem to have like, that invitation—that openness to whatever might come, whenever it might come, and then trusting it when it comes. That is one thing that strikes me about how you approach what enters your orbit, to use your phrase from before.

The other thing that strikes me, too, with that story in particular is I’m a big Sting fan.

[Oh, right.] There was this era where he says that he was creatively blocked and it was old music that had kind of been lost and forgotten. I think there’s a TED Talk that he gave about it, but that’s where he went when he needed to reignite his creativity—it’s going back to the older music and letting that stir something up in him.

I’m not trying to quote him or anything, but it seems like that you pulling that book off the shelf, revisiting what was long ago, allowed you to bring that into your own contemporary life and something came.

What was the theme of that ballad?

[36:35] – Mark McGuinness

I can’t tell you. Literally. Well, actually, I can tell you it was about the pandemic. I can’t quote it because I’ve sent it out on submission, so I don’t want to jinx it, okay? But it was about the pandemic, and I never thought I’d be writing about the pandemic because it’s a big theme to explore and there is quite a lot of pandemic poetry out there.

But anyway, sometimes you’ve got to do what the poem tells you you’re going to do.

[37:01] – Ann Kroeker

There you go. There’s a line. Yeah, “You’ve got to do what the poem tells you to do.”

[37:05] – Mark McGuinness

But to your question about the traditional, I do think it’s important to know whatever genre you’re writing it.

I mean, for me it’s poetry, but different types of fiction, it will have begun at some point. And there’s a backstory, there’s a history, there’s a tradition, and it’s your job to know that and read that because it’s evolved and you learn so much. And there’s a sense that you’re carrying that torch forward for the next generation.

We love to think we’re so individual, particularly poets. Goodness me, we love that. But at the same time we’re kind of part of a procession or part of a team, even. And I think it’s important to know what people further down the line have done.

I think my experience of writing the ballad was I wanted to tap into that whole very old oral ballad tradition.

A lot of people who “wrote” ballads were illiterate. They were songs, they were sung, and they were recited orally and changed. They went through many hands.

And just to pick up a kind of a wave, the metaphor that’s come out like a rippling wave from that and just to go, “Okay, that energy can flow into my poem.”

[38:31] – Ann Kroeker

Where do you see…so you’re entering the conversation now.

You’re entering that with your own energy, adding to that pulse of poetry, that pulse of ideas. Where do you see yourself headed?

Mark McGuinness

As a poet?

Ann Kroeker

As a creative person, I guess? You can broaden it if you want to.

[38:52] – Mark McGuinness

Yeah. So the image that’s coming to mind now, which is one that comes up quite a lot when I think about poetry, is because I think it’s like a big group writing project. And the image I have is a Persian carpet and all the poets throughout history and all the different languages, they’re all weaving it together simultaneously throughout time and space.

And of course, in the middle you’ve got Shakespeare and Homer and Dante doing the big flourishes and whatever.

But even if I could just do a little Bird on the Border or I could do a bit of the trellis work or whatever, I’d be happy because I’m connected up to that grid.

So it comes back to that. It’s not to say I’m not ambitious to do the best I can, but it’s more and more that phrase you used earlier, just find a home. Just write the work that I feel I want to write and find a home for that and just pass it on to the next.

Ann Kroeker

What a beautiful image.

Mark McGuinness

That’s not to say I don’t have ego and ambition and all of that, but there’s a time and a place for that, and that’s not really where the real writing comes from.

[40:07] – Ann Kroeker

Mark, that’s so beautiful, the image you’ve given us, the desire to be one color, one thread woven into that carpet, into that tapestry. I’d be happy to be part of the fringe. I don’t mind.

[40:21] – Mark McGuinness

Right.

[40:22] – Ann Kroeker

Just straighten it out a little bit.

[40:24] – Mark McGuinness

Yeah.

[40:25] – Ann Kroeker

Because that adds to it. Right? We’re all adding to it.

And when it comes to ideas, I think there’s a common word that people use, which is this ecosystem of ideas that we’re all connected to. This giant pond area.

But I love your image. It’s so much more beautiful and a much stronger metaphor, and one that I think we could all dream of to add color to this world. Yeah.

Any parting words that can inspire us and leave us ready to go do the work?

[40:56] – Mark McGuinness

Well, I’ve got a little suggestion for a little game you could play with some writing if you’re remotely curious about writing poetry or just using poetry as a way to look more closely at the words that you use.

So for instance, if you’re a novelist, then you will know far more about plot and story and narrative structure than I will ever know. But what poetry can help you do is to really hone in on the words and that close reading that you were talking about.

So I would say you don’t even need to write anything new for this little game. I would say take a piece of writing of yours that you pretty well like that doesn’t make you cringe when you look at it, that you think, “Okay, I like that.”

And then I want you to copy-paste it and get about one page, a fourth’s worth, or maybe half a page is probably better.

Then I want you to play the game of chopping it up into lines. Because that’s really the only difference between verse and prose—it’s that the verse means a turn. Somebody once said it’s writing that doesn’t meet the right hand margin.

And it’s debatable whether that—and it’s not the same as poetry, which we could argue all day about what the definition of that is—

[42:12] – Mark McGuinness

but for verse, it’s divided up into lines.

So take your poem and divide it up into lines. And don’t get too…try to do them kind of much of a muchness, roughly the same length.

And just look at it on the page, and read it like that and see what difference that makes. And see if it changes the way you see the words or the way you might try speaking it aloud. That would be really interesting. Read the prose aloud and then read that aloud.

Then take that same text and divide it up into stanzas of four lines each. And don’t play with it, just chop it up and just put an extra line space in, and then have a look and see what difference that makes.

And you can keep playing. You can try it with two-line, three-line, five-line stanzas.

You can try longer or shorter lines.

You could try it with what they call verse paragraphs, where you have one section is altogether as a block and then you break it up and there’s another section.

And copy all the different versions of this and maybe print them out and you can just see.

[43:23] – Mark McGuinness

That will teach you a load about poetic form and about the effect of it without anyone having to explain it to you because you will see and feel and sense the difference between the same words in different arrangements.

So that’s the game I invite you to play.

[43:41] – Ann Kroeker

I like that game. I will play it this afternoon. Thank you, Mark. How can people get to know you better? Where do you want to send them?

[43:50] – Mark McGuinness

If you listen to podcasts, wherever you listen to podcasts, search for A Mouthful of Air, and you will find us.

Or online, AMouthfulofAir.FM. Now, the great thing about the website is, remember, poetry is what I call an amphibious art, which means it can live in two different elements. It’s not water and air, but it can live on the page and it can live in your ear.

So if you go to the website, you will find the text of all the poems. And it can be interesting. You listen to the audio and you look at the text and there’s also a transcript of every episode with links to all the technical terms I mentioned. I do try and explain them as we go, but if you want to know more about it, then go there and there will be a link to explain all of that.

And you can sign up and you can get it delivered via email. You get the audio and the email, or you can just subscribe and listen to the podcast. And I do have some people who only read it because they just prefer to read and that’s cool, too.

[44:50] – Mark McGuinness

So that’s where to go. I think on Twitter, it’s @amouthfulofair. And on Instagram, I’m putting the poems on Instagram, it’s @airpoets.

[45:00] – Ann Kroeker

You are investing in writers so generously. This is incredible. I think we talked about finding a class, finding a mentor. You can be our first mentor, I believe, with all of this.

[45:13] – Mark McGuinness

Thank you.

[45:13] – Ann Kroeker

Yeah, thank you. Well, thank you for your time, too, and it’s been a pleasure to get to know you better, to get to your work and to introduce you to listeners of “Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.”

[45:23] – Mark McGuinness

Well, thank you. With a coach and a podcast, you ask great questions and it was a real delight to talk to you. So thank you.

[45:31] – Ann Kroeker

Are you ready to make poetry part of your writing routine? You can let Mark continue to guide and inspire you through his podcast, A Mouthful of Air. I’ll link to that and all things related to Mark at annkroeker.com/amouthfulofair. That’s annkroeker.com/amouthfulofair. I can’t wait to hear your best takeaway from this interview. Thank you for being here. I’m Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

The post Poetry as a Playful and Pleasurable Creative Practice, with Mark McGuinness appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Today I’m chatting with Sharon Stohler, author of the nonfiction children’s biography Affectionately Yours: The Devoted Life of Abigail Adams, a charming and inspiring picture book released in June 2019.

As you’ll learn in the interview, Sharon and I met years ago when we both started home educating our very small children, so we’ve known each other for decades. I was privy to her idea for this book years ago when she shared it with me as a friend. Later, we worked together when she brought me on for more official coaching.

Sharon’s path to publishing was long and required vision, flexibility, patience, and perseverance. Pursuing traditional publishing revealed insights that led her to eventually land on self-publishing Affectionately Yours. And anyone who has poked around at self-publishing or pulled it off knows to do it well you undertake a long list of new steps and stages.

She did it. She pulled it off.

I hope you find her story instructive and motivating.

Though the process was long and complicated, time-consuming and expensive, she said that the moment she held that book in her hands, it was all worth it.

Sharon Stohler has a B.S. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Delaware and a Masters of Education from West Chester University. She has taught children ages four through 12 in private, public, and homeschool classrooms. Sharon currently teaches 3rd grade in a hybrid homeschool classroom and often finds herself delighted by her students and their brilliant minds. Aside from her own family room, she feels most at home in a library. She and her adventurous husband live in Indianapolis, where they cater to the needs of their Siamese cat, Gigi. They have three grown children.

Resources

• Sharon Stohler’s website
• Affectionately Yours: The Devoted Life of Abigail Adams (affiliate link)
• Tiny Boat, collaborative publisher and illustrator Daron Benson
• Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators Facebook page
• Bigger Dot, printer for Affectionately Yours
• Tara Lazar’s sample children’s book layout & dummy construction
• John Adams biography by David McCullough (softcover edition, affiliate link)
• All podcast interviews
• All podcast episodes

The post Ep 208: Children’s Book Author Sharon Stohler’s Path to Self-Publishing appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Today I’m chatting with NavPress Publisher Don Pape.

Don has published over a dozen New York Times best-sellers, including Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Don is also the publisher of Julie Cantrell’s Into the Free, which won the 2013 Christy Book of the Year Award. He led a team that won 20 ADDY Awards between 2008 and 2010 for David C Cook titles recognized for best cover or book design.

Born in Brazil, Pape graduated with a bachelor of arts in political science from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. He speaks fluent French and Portuguese and is married with three sons. His multicultural publishing career in sales, marketing and graphic design has led him to a variety of roles, including executive, literary agent and consultant.

Don and I met years ago when my first book came out, and he jokes in the interview that he’s not an expert, but let me tell you, he is. And I’m honored to call him a friend, as well.

His focus has always been in the Christian publishing industry, but even if you’re writing for the general market, you’ll hear about changes in publishing in general and learn from Don how writers can and should practice their craft.

Here’s an excerpt:

“The reality for authors is that they are much more engaged in their book than in the past. In the past you could probably give your book over to a publisher and then go back to your Hobbit house and start writing again. Now, you’ve got to give the book to the publisher and then get fully engaged with the marketing team and the publicity team as to how to reach the consumer—and addressing it in a way that it will reach the right people. And who best knows the content of the book—who better—than the author?”

Click on the podcast player (above) to listen in on my conversation with NavPress Publisher Don Pape.

Resources

• Don Pape on Twitter
• Don on Instagram
• NavPress
• Navigators
• Waterbrook (a division of Penguin Random House)
• Multnomah (also a division of Penguin Random House)
• Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group
• David C Cook
• Tattered Cover Book Store (Denver)
• bookbar independent bookstore (Denver)
• A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken
• Travis Thrasher
• Words from the Hill, by Stuart Garrard
• Crazy Love, by Francis Chan
• Bad Girls of the Bible, by Liz Curtis Higgs
• Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, by Joanna Weaver
• Eugene & Jan Peterson
• All podcast interviews
• All podcast episodes

The post Ep 199: Insights into Christian Publishing with NavPress Publisher Don Pape appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Today I’m chatting with author and literary agent Jeff Herman.

Jeff’s literary agency has ushered nearly one thousand books into print. He’s the coauthor of the acclaimed Write the Perfect Book Proposal and is often featured as an expert in print and broadcast media.

Jeff provides insider insight that will give you hope that it’s possible to see your words in print.

When you get a chance, check out his resource: Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 28th edition.

Here’s a taste of what he passed along today:

“The first myth is that just because you’re in New York or the vicinity of New York you have a crucial advantage over someone from Indiana or Alaska. It’s really not true. The walls that publishing creates obstruct everyone equally. It’s not a matter of geography. It’s just a matter of access.”

“Now, of course, with digital communications, which to a great extent has displaced hard copy and to a certain extent has even displaced telephones and in person communications, I think that has done a lot to equalize the playing field.”

“The rules are not really true. They’re really preferences. The walls are porous, if that’s the right word. These walls are not metal plated; it’s more like Swiss cheese. And it’s a big illusion that you can’t get through these walls. The illusion is very useful for agents and editors. It works for us. But it doesn’t work for you, the writer, and ultimately it doesn’t work for the editors or agents because it does in effect lock out a lot of good people. But that’s why we need to be very tenacious and not let the agents or the editors individually or collectively tell you that you are not publishable. Because they don’t know. They think they know—they may know what’s right for them—but nobody can speak for the industry as a whole.”

“What I enjoy is working with the writer to make them as good as they can be and helping them to achieve their goals. I like to see the results of our good work together. I like to see that the book gets acquired by a publisher, that it gets published, and that it sells copies, and all the benefits that accrue to the author. I really feel then that I’m serving a purpose by helping the client and the publisher and the reader get all these beneficial results. And that’s what I see as the dream situation where we’re all working together as a well-oiled machine.”

Jeff Herman is the author of Write the Perfect Book Proposal and Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 28th edition.

Resources:

• Website: jeffherman.com
• Publisher’s Marketplace (Jeff mentioned the subscription you can get through them)
• Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 28th Edition (affiliate link)
• Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why (Third Edition) (affiliate link)
• Jennifer Dukes Lee interview
• Alison Hodgson interview
• Shawn Smucker interview
• Patrice Gopo interview
• Ann’s Patreon account
• All podcast episodes

You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

The post Ep 190: [Interview] Author & Literary Agent Jeff Herman appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

As you’ll discover in this conversation with Tania Runyan, she’s experimented with being a screenwriter and playwright and written several nonfiction books, including How to Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, and one for college-bound high school students, called How to Write a College Application Essay.

But Tania thinks of herself first and foremost as a poet. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Image, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Christian Century, Saint Katherine Review and the Paraclete book Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. 

Here are a few snippets of our chat:

“I write blog posts and articles for companies…and I realize that poetry and that kind of writing are not at odds with one another. In fact, I have found they complement one another really well because poetry is all about condensing language, and the efficiency of language, and audience and emotion, and when you’re writing for businesses…tailoring my language to a certain audience, a certain emotion, and trying to do that in an efficient manner, I find has been easier to do because of my background as a poet.”

“This is very important. The very first thing I bought with my NEA grant, was a Roomba. To this day, I still use it every day. It’s responsible for a lot of my writing.”

Advice for new poets: “When I work with newer poets, it seems they’re consistently surprised with how much time I spend on my poems and how much time I think they should spend on their poems. So my advice would be to slow down and enjoy the process…You want to write, you want to produce, you want to publish…but really there’s no reason to rush. You need to give yourself to the process and enjoy it.”

Enjoy learning about all the ways a writer can write as you get to know Tania Runyan.

Tania Runyan is the author of the poetry collections What Will Soon Take Place, Second Sky, A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, and Delicious Air, which was awarded Book of the Year by the Conference on Christianity and Literature in 2007. Her guides How to Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay are used in classrooms across the country. Tania was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2011. When not writing, Tania plays fiddle and mandolin, drives kids to appointments, and gets lost in her Midwestern garden.

Resources:

• Website: TaniaRunyan.com
• Facebook Page: Tania Runyan Poet
• What Will Soon Take Place, Tania’s most recent poetry collection, celebrating its one-year anniversary (affiliate link)
• How to Write a Poem: Based on the Billy Collins Poem “Introduction to Poetry”, by Tania Runyan (affiliate link)
• How to Read a Poem: Based on the Billy Collins Poem “Introduction to Poetry”, by Tania Runyan (affiliate link)
• Book that mentioned Nabakov in the bathtub: Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors, by Sarah Stodola (affiliate link)
• Writing book Tania recommends for poets, an anthology with simple explanations of forms: Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms (not affiliate link; only available used)
• Jennifer Dukes Lee interview
• Alison Hodgson interview
• Shawn Smucker interview
• Patrice Gopo interview
• Ann’s Patreon account
• All podcast episodes

You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

The post Ep 185: [Interview] Poet Tania Runyan appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

When Author and Acquisitions Editor Jennifer Dukes Lee was in town for an event, we met up and discussed challenges that writers—especially nonfiction authors—face as they try to land a traditional book contract. Jennifer generously provides us with behind-the-scenes insight and solid action steps we can take today.

She offers hope, too, that one doesn’t necessarily have to boast a giant platform to find a publisher.

You can hear us fine, but the sound quality is a little ethereal. Once your ear adjusts, I think you’ll be fine—perhaps imagine us in some fantastical location.

And you’ll love meeting Jennifer. Here’s a taste of her encouraging input:

“All books are picked for at least two of the following reasons: large platform, great idea, and fantastic writing.”

“[T]here are first-time authors with small platforms that are still getting published, and I know it because I was one of them.”

“I think if this is really something that is in your heart and it is burning inside of you, there’s really no stopping that. I think you just have to give it time to catch.”

Enjoy listening as we chat about her new role in the publishing world that has allowed her to sit on both sides of the table, as it were.

Jennifer Dukes Lee is the author of Love Idol, The Happiness Dare, and her latest book released in 2018, It’s All Under Control.

Resources:

• Website: jenniferdukeslee.com
• Facebook: @JenniferDukesLee
• Instagram:  @dukeslee
• Twitter: @dukeslee
• It’s All Under Control (Amazon affiliate link)
• It’s All Under Control – Companion Bible Study (Amazon affiliate link)
• The Happiness Dare: Pursuing Your Heart’s Deepest, Holiest, and Most Vulnerable Desire (Amazon affiliate link)
• Love Idol: Letting Go of Your Need for Approval and Seeing Yourself Through God’s Eyes (Amazon affiliate link)
• Hear Jennifer read chapter one of It’s All Under Control: https://jenniferdukeslee.com/itsallundercontrol/
• Subscribe to Top Ten With Jen and get immediate access to exclusive free resources on her website. https://jenniferdukeslee.com/subscribe/
• Alison Hodgson interview
• Shawn Smucker interview
• Patrice Gopo interview
• Ann’s Patreon account
• All podcast episodes

You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Have you grabbed the free mini-course?

Make Your Sentences Sing:
7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose

Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.

The post Ep 184: [Interview] Jennifer Dukes Lee – Author, Acquisitions Editor appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Back in October 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team at Breathe Christian Writers Conference. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you.

I’ve mixed in with my standard short solo episodes an interview with Shawn Smucker and another with Patrice Gopo.

Today, I bring you the last of the three from that conference: a conversation with Alison Hodgson, author of The Pug List. I sprang this on her at the last minute, asking if I could interview her during the last hour on the last day of the conference.

We slipped into a room and discussed such topics as boiling a story down to its essence, seeing work come to fruition, managing a pug’s Instagram account, surviving one-star reviews, and much more. Enjoy getting to know Alison Hodgson.

Alison Hodgson is the author of The Pug List: A Ridiculous Dog, a Family Who Lost Everything, and How They All Found Their Way Home. She is a Moth StorySLAM winner and a regular contributor to the design website Houzz.com. Her writing has been featured in Woman’s Day magazine, on Forbes.com, Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics blog, and the Religion News Service, and her essays have been published in a variety of anthologies. Alison lives in Michigan with her husband, their children, and three good dogs. alisonhodgson.com

Resources:

• Website: alisonhodgson.com 
• Facebook: @alisonhodgsonauthor
• Instagram: @alisonhodgsonbooks/ and (more prominently) @therealpugoliver
• Twitter: @HodgsonAlison
• The Pug List: A Ridiculous Little Dog, a Family Who Lost Everything, and How They All Found Their Way Home (Amazon affiliate link)
• A clip from Alison’s MOTH story
• The Barbara Pym Society, a website highlighting information related to an author Alison mentions
• Shawn Smucker interview
• Patrice Gopo interview
• Ann’s Patreon account
• All podcast episodes

You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Have you grabbed the free mini-course?

Make Your Sentences Sing:
7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose

Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.

The post Ep 177: [Interview] Alison Hodgson on Boiling a Story Down to Its Essence, One-Star Reviews, and Perseverance appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

At Breathe Christian Writers Conference, held October 12 and 13, 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you.

I’m sharing these conversations with you, mixing them in with my standard short solo episodes.

You heard from Shawn Smucker in episode 171. Today, I bring you the second interview: a conversation with Patrice Gopo. We discussed her work as an essayist and meaning-making on the page. She gives us an inside look at her writing process, including several techniques she’s used study the craft of writing as well as the importance of feedback.

I begin by reading her bio as we sat down to talk, so you’ll get the official info at the start. Today, enjoy getting to know and learn from Patrice Gopo (and check out multiple resources below).

Patrice Gopo’s essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and other publications, including Gulf Coast, Full Grown People, Creative Nonfiction, and online in The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Literature Fellowship, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of All the Colors We Will See, an essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging. Her book is a Fall 2018 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.

Resources:

• Patrice’s Writing Resources: to help you develop as a writer – recommended classes, conferences, coaches and editors, craft books, and community
• Sign up for her newsletter and receive an essay from the book along with the discussion guide: https://www.patricegopo.com/subscribe/
• Patrice’s website: patricegopo.com
• Patrice on Twitter: @patricegopo
• Patrice on Instagram: @patricegopo
• Patrice on Facebook: @patricegopowrites
• All the Colors We Will See, by Patrice Gopo [affiliate link, which means I will receive a small compensation at no charge to you if you click through to check it out and purchase]
• All the Places We Call Home, Patrice’s debut children’s book (releases June 2022) [affiliate link]
• Ann’s Patreon account
• All podcast episodes

You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Have you grabbed the free mini-course?

Make Your Sentences Sing:
7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose

Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.

The post Ep 173: [Interview] Patrice Gopo on Meaning Making on the Page and Studying the Craft appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

At a writing conference held October 12 and 13, 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you!

I’m going to share these conversations with you, mixing them in with my standard short solo episodes; in other words, you won’t be getting all three interviews in a row. But you’ll know an interview from a solo show because I’ll include “interview” in the subject line—that way you can set aside a longer chunk of time to listen.

Today, I bring you the first of the three: a conversation with Shawn Smucker. We discussed his work as a cowriter, ghostwriter, and novelist, and our discussion took place just before release day for his nonfiction book Once We Were Strangers.

Shawn Smucker is the author of the novels Light from Distant Stars, The Day the Angels Fell and The Edge of Over There, as well as the memoir, Once We Were Strangers. He lives with his wife and six children in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You can find him online at www.shawnsmucker.com.

Resources:

• Light from Distant Stars, Shawn’s 2019 novel
• Building a Life Out of Words, Shawn’s free e-book chronicling his first year trying to make a living cowriting
• Shawn’s website: shawnsmucker.com
• Shawn on Twitter: @shawnsmucker
• Shawn on Instagram: @shawnsmucker
• The Day the Angels Fell [affiliate link, which means I will receive a small compensation at no charge to you if you click through to check it out and purchase]
• The Edge of Over There [affiliate link]
• Once, We Were Strangers [affiliate link]
• Favorite books Shawn has re-read to analyze and learn (all affiliate links):
  • All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr [paperback]
  • Home, by Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook]
  • Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson [paperback]
  • Lila, by Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook]
  • Gilead, Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook]
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving [paperback]
• Ann’s Patreon account
• All podcast episodes

* * *

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The post Ep 171: [Interview] Shawn Smucker on Cowriting, Ghostwriting, and Prioritizing Your Own Work appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.