Latest / No Mess, No Magic / Intuitive Outlining: How to Use Story Structure Without Feeling Trapped by It
Transcript
- Monica Hay: Hello and welcome to the No Mass No Magic podcast with Monica Hay. We have Lewis here. Wait, how do I say your last name? I should have asked you this before we recorded. Lewis Jorstad: ⁓ Jor's dead. Monica Hay: Jorsted, okay. Louis Jorsted, my dear friend and colleague, I'm stoked about this conversation because I feel like it's going to be a little healing for me. And you'll see what I mean in a second if you're wondering, if you're listening, like what the fuck you mean. Okay, so Louis is the editor and the book coach behind the novel Smithy, where he helps debut fiction writers turn their messy drafts into finished novels that they're proud of, or sorry, proud to publish with over eight years of experience. Lewis has edited 250 plus manuscripts, written seven bestselling writing guides, and supported over 2,000 writers around the world. These days, he's on a mission to help writers embrace their brains intuitive way of telling stories while also creating page turning novels that readers can't put down. Welcome. Excited. Lewis Jorstad: Thank you for having me. I'm, again, kind of like you said, ⁓ very stoked to have this conversation because I think it's going to be spicy in a fun and satisfying way. Because we don't totally see eye eye on this topic, which I think is going to be fun. Monica Hay: Yes, spicy and fun and satisfying. Yes, that's exactly why I'm excited because I yeah, so I guess for the listeners, I'll give you some context. I, Monica, you might have noticed from my podcast and my life online that I present have a very complicated relationship with craft. This is actually what like the first episode in what I'm calling Make Craft Make Sense because I find craft advice I think it's wonderful for the people it works with. And I think it can be awesome for people who are like, ⁓ I resaved the cat. Love it. Going for it. But I tried so many different things. It just didn't work for me. And so I'm like, ugh. So I really was excited to talk to Lewis, see what other ways I could look at it. Because I want to light craft. I don't want to be a hater. I wouldn't call myself a hater. More, I don't want to have this complicated relationship with it. I want to feel more friendly to it. So I'm very excited to have this conversation. ⁓ So Lewis, you help intuitive writers do outlines. So I'm curious, what is intuitive outlining? Lewis Jorstad: ⁓ So intuitive outlining is, I'm gonna be upfront, it's a broad umbrella. So you mentioned Save the Cat, and I wanna start off by saying, if there is anyone listening who's like, I love Save the Cat, I love the three-act structure, like I'm a structured nerd, this stuff makes me happy, and it works for you, not just makes you happy, because I know many people it makes them happy, but doesn't work for their writing. Monica Hay: Yes. Lewis Jorstad: If it makes you happy and it works for your writing, then rock on. Like if you have a process that works for you, there's no need to change it. But the idea behind intuitive outlining is that it is a way to not just outline your story and that like, ⁓ I'm gonna put all the things on paper so I have this nice organized plan. That's part of it. But probably the bigger part of it is that it is a method for developing your ideas. so that when you sit down to write your novel, you have a deep enough understanding of the story that you are confident in the decisions you're making. You don't get in and then you're like, why is this character doing this? Do I even know this character? Why is this character here? And then you just start to get that doubt spiral that becomes writer's block, that becomes that feeling that you're just stuck in the story or that feeling that you're making random decisions that you're. Monica Hay: It? Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: not entirely comfortable with because you're like, ⁓ I just needed to put something here, so let me just put something here. The idea behind intuitive outlining is that we follow the way your brain kind of naturally develops a story. Again, I'm not one for absolutes, there are always outliers, but I have found over the years that for at least most of the people I work with, there is kind of a pattern to how the human brain, broadly speaking, develops a story. You have... Monica Hay: Yeah. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: a small little idea, you have a character, you have a scene, you have a what if, like well what if this happened? And that little idea becomes kind of the kernel that then grows and grows into what is eventually your novel. But that transition between I have a singular idea into I have a story that functions as a piece of commercial fiction. You know, I'm primarily talking to folks who write genre fiction that they eventually want to sell. Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: in some capacity, that transition is really hard. And so the idea behind intuitive outlining is we take that initial kernel of an idea and then we sort of follow it the way that your brain wants to follow it and slowly start to whittle it down and slowly start to point your brain in a direction that ends with you having not only, again, that nice organized outline that I think a lot of us aspire to, but also having that. Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: internal sense of I really understand this story and I really understand what I want this story to be, not just what the structure says it's supposed to be. Monica Hay: Yeah. Interesting. So, okay, I have so many questions. I love that. So why do you think that outlining fails so many writers? So for me, it failed me, but I obviously wasn't doing your type of outlining, which it might be very, very different. But why do you think it generally fails a lot of people? Lewis Jorstad: Mm-hmm. I think... The first reason, because again, I fully believe that everyone's brain has a process that it wants, is that outlining just truly is not for some people, and that's okay. The metric I usually use is that, one, do you have a process for your writing? For folks who are working on their debut novel, they're just getting started at this, the answer is almost always no, because you just haven't found your process yet, and that's totally fine, but... Monica Hay: Yeah, right. Lewis Jorstad: What I always look at is do you have a process? And then is that process working for you? Is it getting the results that you want in the timeframe that you want them? Sometimes that's a mismatch of expectations, because sometimes people say, I want to write my novel in the next six months, completely finished and ready to publish. And I'm like, well, is that a realistic timeframe? I have seen, I have a speed demon writer that I work with who plans, writes, and publishes her novels in six months. She's hardcore. She's amazing. But that's not for everybody. Monica Hay: Yeah. Amazing. Lewis Jorstad: ⁓ especially not her first novel took her two years, even as much of a speed demon as she is. So are your expectations realistic? And then if they are, is the process that you are using working for you? If it's not, that's when it's a question of like, okay, well, what process would? ⁓ And in that case, I find a lot of people come to me and say, Monica Hay: Yeah. For sure. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: I tried pantsing or I tried discovery writing and it didn't work. I got stuck, I got frustrated. For whatever reason, it didn't work for them as a process. But they also tried outlining and that didn't work either. And they're like, am I just broken? Will this never work for me? And I hear a lot of people say, I know I need a plan. I just don't know what that plan needs to look like. And so for that camp of people, who are primarily who I think intuitive outlining is for, ⁓ Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Lewis Jorstad: The reason I think a lot of outlining methods, like Save the Cat, don't work for lot of writers is that I find they approach the process backwards. So if we come back to the idea of intuitive outlining, the idea is you start with the kernel of the idea and then you grow it until you start to narrow it back down into a functioning story. Plot and structure is the last part of that process because plot is... Monica Hay: Mmm. Okay. Lewis Jorstad: In my opinion, both from a craft perspective, but also from a coaching perspective, plot is really just the logical results of motivated characters, conflict that gets in their way, a functional world that creates sort of the foundation for that to happen. And so what I find is that a lot of writers say, ⁓ I need to outline, and they associate outlining with plot. And so they dive into something like Save the Cat or whatever story structure folks have used. ⁓ Monica Hay: Right. Lewis Jorstad: they dive right into that. And then it becomes this effectively checklist where you're just taking this teeny fledgling baby idea and trying to plug it into these really rigid boxes. And that's just not helpful, I think, for a lot of folks. ⁓ What I think, the reason I think intuitive outlining works for a lot of people who have tried that and failed is that... Monica Hay: Mmm. Right. Lewis Jorstad: The idea is that we set plot aside until the very end of that process. Like plot does not come into play until right before you start actually creating your nice organized outline. And even then, the point of plot structure to your point of like you want to love craft but you're not sure you do, I find a lot of writers think of craft as like the law. Like this is like the law of storytelling and I have to perfectly fit every piece of it. And it's just not like. Monica Hay: Mmm. Mmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right? Lewis Jorstad: Writing is just as much art as science. There is the science of it, which I think is craft. There is a structure to how stories are told. But there's also the art of how you can mess with that and play with that and skip things and move stuff around based on your instincts as an author and based on your goals for the story, your vision of the story. And so I think by putting plot to the end of that process, What you end up with is that you go into that plotting stage with a much deeper understanding of what you want your story to be. Because you've done all that development work, you've really thought through not only who are my characters, what's my world, but also one of the things that I encourage people to do is to actually think about scenes in their story and just pull out those scenes and treat them, I call it puzzling, treat them as puzzle pieces where instead of going in and saying like I have to plan from Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm. Lewis Jorstad: from A to B, nice and linear and put it all out there. ⁓ You're just like, okay, I have this tiny kernel of an idea, what are some scenes that I could create with that? What are some scenes that could be fun? You don't have to use all of the ones that you come up with, but then you have this big pile of puzzle pieces that you can start to slot together when it comes time to plot your novel, rather than just saying I have to make up something wholesale to fit whatever structure you've decided to use. Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, and it's interesting because I'm asking myself because I started trying to, I think it was Save the Cat. I started learning it, was it 2021, 2020? It might have been during COVID. I don't exactly remember because it a blur. That whole time was a blur, to be honest. I think it is for everybody. But I remember learning about it. And yeah, it was exactly what you just said of being like, okay, I have this idea and I don't know how to stick it into the boxes. I'm really curious, so my next question is for myself, but some of the people listening might understand what I'm asking. So my problem when I outline, and everybody's problem looks different when they try to outline, but for me, when I sit down to try to outline, my brain just is like, LOL, what do you think you're doing? It just goes blank. My ideas only appear when I'm actively in the story, like drafting scenes. And as much as I'm like, why? This is like, it's not an efficient process at all. And I've like worked on changing my relationship with efficiency because I want to be more efficient, but at the same time, like it's okay, as long as you're getting words down, you're getting the story down. But what do you think is happening there? And how would you tell someone who's like, my idea is just don't come until I'm like in motion in the scenes and with the characters. Like, what would you say for that person? Lewis Jorstad: Why, again, coming back to that first question at the top of all of this is do you have a process that's working for you? So for you, you're like, discovery drafting works for me. As long as you really feel that the process you have is getting you the results you want, then there's no need to change that. There's no right way to do this. But I think for folks who feel what you just described but also feel like their process isn't working, Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: In that case, I think there could be a couple things at play. I like to think of writing as, there's kind of levels of it. There is, are, know, on your... Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: on your elbows, crawling through the grass, like in the scene. And I feel like that's when you're you're tinkering with word choice. Like you're in the smallest, smallest part of the story. And then there's you walking through the forest, which is maybe a little bit bigger. You're just sort of in the scene. You're in the flow of the scene. But then outlining oftentimes is like you're in a helicopter flying above it. You're seeing the topography of the whole thing. Monica Hay: Yes. Yep. Yep. Lewis Jorstad: And some writers work better at different layers of that experience. Some writers are really good at that word level and they feel really comfortable there. And some writers are really comfortable up in the helicopter and sort of every spectrum in between. I think when it comes to writing a first draft, being in whatever level you feel most comfortable in is important. But I do think that as writers, we need to... Monica Hay: Mmm. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: Maybe not master, but we need to find a way to feel comfortable with every level. Because at different parts in the process, you have to embody every level of that. ⁓ I think with outlining specifically, and again, it takes experimentation and tinkering with it to find a way that really fits you. But I wonder if for you, the process of developing not necessarily the plot, but developing the characters, developing the world, taking that little idea that you have and kind of building it out so that it's something that's sort of strong enough to fuel you as you sit down to write is maybe where you would spend the majority of your time. And then what I often walk people through is this idea of waypoint scenes. ⁓ Again, not necessarily true for every writer, but I find true for a lot of folks is that Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Mmm. Mm-hmm. Lewis Jorstad: in the process of developing your story, you will come up with scenes that feel really clear in your head. You're like, know this argument between my two characters, like I can just feel it, I'm excited for it, or this gigantic monster rising over the hill, like whatever it is for you. You can feel that scene, and I think of those as waypoint scenes. And so for you, what you might end up doing is kind of stripping out a lot of the more traditional Monica Hay: Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: structure stage where you sit down and you say like, this is how this scene is gonna go and this is how this scene is gonna go. And instead, you treat your, ⁓ the idea is you're building a scene timeline. Your scene timeline doesn't have to be full. It can have blank scenes in it where you're just like, I just know something needs to happen here but I don't know what. You can treat your scene timeline more as a sort of. Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: a road trip and those waypoints are the pins that you're dropping of, know I need to get to this argument between my characters or this particular scene that's really clear in my head, but you're not necessarily outlining it in the traditional sense where you're sitting down and doing a full breakdown of everything that's gonna happen in that scene. Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: Instead, you sit down to write and you say, I know roughly the order of events for those waypoints, but I'm not sure how I'm gonna get to them because the getting to them is the fun part that motivates me to write. And that's totally okay, but the result is still that you have something to guide you as you're writing, that you're never totally just flying blind because you have those waypoints to work towards ahead of you to give you something to kind of set your focus and kind of understand where you want the story to go. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Mm, yep. Yeah, I really love that. And I also, are you a character forward writer out of curiosity? Are you like obsessed with character? Lewis Jorstad: I ironically am a very plot first writer, which is not what you would expect from from everything I've just said. Monica Hay: Really? No, I not expect that at all. I think they're both great. just, I'm very, that's so fascinating to me. Lewis Jorstad: So I think the reason I have people start with character is that unless you understand your character's motivations, it's very hard to understand the story. However, I find that that process can work for both character first and plot first writers because the character first writers will say, wonderful, this is where I wanna live, and they'll just sit and hang out in that character space and really, really uncover a ton of stuff. And for the plot first writers, I'll say, Grin and bear it, I need motivation, I need backstory, and then you can move on. But what I ask people to give me there can be as simple as a sentence on their character's motivation, a sentence on what I call their character's ghost. What is the one defining event of their backstory? Give me those sort of basic pieces so that you understand where you're going. And for a character first writer, they'll sit there and they'll develop them and they'll have a great time. And for a plot first writer, they have permission to keep moving. Monica Hay: Yep. Yep. Got it. Lewis Jorstad: So it can kind of be flexible. Where you end up sort sinking in and spending the most time in that process does kind of depend on your personality. Monica Hay: It's funny they're saying this, because I'm such a character first. I wasn't always a character first writer, but this last book I wrote years ago made me more of one. And I spent like so long creating like this tragic backstory for so many of my characters. And it was the- I gave her so much trauma. was just like, because I read Story Genius and I really enjoy Story Genius. I don't use every single thing in there, but I had written, I think she recommends writing different scenes from your character's backstory and all this stuff. And I had written so much stuff and I was just like, ⁓ my God, I'm loving this. I mean, maybe it's the psychology background of me of just being like, I like getting into characters. And well, do I like causing them pain? No, but I know I have to. Lewis Jorstad: But secretly maybe yes. Monica Hay: Secretly, maybe, ⁓ I love that. I think it's so interesting that you're more of plot forward writer than a character, but you still think it's important to develop both, which I think is completely accurate. ⁓ Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, I don't think any story can function with just one. Like the most plotty, you know, just by the numbers thriller still needs a character that the readers care about. And the most character driven, like emotional, tragic backstory, know, literary novel even, like let's go farther than even romance stereotypically by what these stories do. Even that story needs a functioning plot. Like every story needs both. ⁓ Part of why I like the... Monica Hay: No, I agree with that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: the method that I use is that it is so flexible because for me as a plot-focused writer, one of my challenges is I have all these scenes. When I say waypoints, I have 12. I'm just like half my story's waypoints for plot events that I want to have happen. Monica Hay: Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: And then the struggle is how do I make them all make sense together? Like how do I make the reason the characters are here make sense? And by sitting down and making myself think about motivation and backstory is what helps me do that. But conversely, for someone who is not plot focused, by having those character pieces, it makes it easier to come up with what would naturally be occurring in your plot because you better understand your characters. Monica Hay: Yeah. Right? Right. Yeah, I'm curious. some writers, I've heard some writers tell me that they find, and this isn't necessarily me, because I've never actually written a full outline in like a Save the Cat Beach sheet. Like I have for if I've revising the book, but not for a first draft. But for some people, they've told me that if they plot and outline a story, they get bored. Like they just feel like, I've written the book now and I'm bored. Lewis Jorstad: Mm-hmm. Monica Hay: So what do you think is happening there? Lewis Jorstad: I think it's a similar thing of when we were talking about the different layers. For someone who loves to live in that like walking through the forest layer where you just kind of, you're seeing the story, you're exploring the story, if that is what motivates you to write, if you've already done that by outlining, your brain loses some of that motivation. And I think that's very normal. ⁓ In that case, again, it's that idea of what... Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: Outlining, I would say, is not just about having a list of everything that happens in the story. Honestly, 80 % of it is that development phase before you ever touch plot. And so again, for folks in that camp who are like, once I've outlined the story, I lose interest, to me that says, okay. Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: do all of that development work. Like really understand what you want your story to be. Have a couple of waypoints, but leave a lot of empty space in your quote unquote outline. That's totally okay. Like, you know, when I'm having people put together a scene timeline, I tell them like put in blank scenes, put in scenes where you have one word, my character, or you know, fight or a sense. My characters need to fight here. For the plot to make sense, my characters need to do X, but you have no idea how it's gonna happen because that then lets your brain, Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah. Yes. Lewis Jorstad: enjoy that process of moving through the story and just sort of seeing it unfold and helps you maintain that motivation. But I think it also gives you some of the benefits that a lot of people are looking for with an outline of you're just a little bit more organized, you know a little bit better where you're going, but knowing where you're going can range from, you know, I have writers I've worked with who are like, no, I want a like... Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: event by event breakdown for every single scene because that's what they, because they like living in the helicopter where they can see the big picture. And so it's harder for them when they're in the forest, they're not a hiker, totally fine. That helps them get through that phase. But for someone who likes that phase better, that's okay. Do less work in the helicopter so you can spend more time down in the forest. I don't know where this analogy came from but I'm gonna stick with it. Monica Hay: you Mmm. Love this. I'm obsessed with this analogy. I'm such a forest writer. That is what I love. That's where I want to be all the time. And I like being in the grass as well. Just not as much as in the forest. Like, that's so interesting. I've never heard this analogy. Did you make this analogy up? Lewis Jorstad: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Literally as we were talking, yes. Like I just would, well, I think that the idea of levels, like, you know, there's sort of a big picture and then there's a scene level and a prose level. Like, I think that's a, that's something I've heard from other folks. That's not original to me. But the helicopter thing, I was chatting with my spouse about, ⁓ there's like a helicopter tour. Monica Hay: Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: and we see it go over us all the time. And I was like, how interesting would it be to ride that? And that was on my brain when we started this call. So I was just like, let's just go with helicopters. So that's where that came from. Monica Hay: It's so funny because I am not, yeah, I'm not a helicopter person. I can be when I'm revising the book and I know everything and I'm like, okay, how does this all connect? Once I know all of that, all those pieces, but like in the beginning of the story, I'm like, put me in the forest and I wanna hang out in the forest and just like live in the forest for the rest of my life. Like, I guess I'm a hiker. And I think, I guess for some people who are like love, word choice and things like that, what was the other one that you used? Lewis Jorstad: I don't have like a good singular word for it, but the folks who like to be just like crawling army style through the grass, like fully in it, they're watching the ants crawling through the grass and they're like, ooh, look at that beautiful ant, like look at that butterfly, you know. Monica Hay: He called them worms. I don't know if that's hot though, being a worm. Yes. Lewis Jorstad: And there are, I love the, I am not that person. I'm a helicopter person, 100%. But the folks who are just like the wordsmithing is their life, like I love that for them, because that's so hard for me. When I get into the latter stages of revisions where it's like, I gotta do pros, I gotta land my helicopter and I gotta get down and it's hard. But every writer has to get, has to find a way to get comfortable with all three. But I think knowing what your default is, is really helpful. Monica Hay: I'm not either. Yeah. It's so hard for me. Yep. Yeah. It is really helpful. I didn't even think about this. Like I've never thought of it as like my default is hiking in the forest like because I mean, it's I think it's really really cool and I'm curious so When you're because you're talking about aligning as basically developing story That's kind of 80 % of what you kind of talk about ⁓ And it's plot is the very last thing it sounds like for you It's like you develop story and then you decide like whether you want to plot Lewis Jorstad: You Monica Hay: more extensively or you want to have like waypoints, things like that. And I'm curious, can outlining also happen during writing or does it have to happen before you start in the process that you use? Lewis Jorstad: It's. I think that there is a version of outlining that can be done while you write, but I think at that point you're essentially discovery drafting, if that makes sense. ⁓ What I will say is that I have worked with a lot of folks who have come to me having already written their first draft in some capacity. So ⁓ I've worked with folks who have written like six first drafts for the same story and they just keep throwing it away because it never works the way they want it to. ⁓ I've also worked with folks who Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Lewis Jorstad: have gotten a quarter of the way, halfway, 75 % through a first draft and they're just really unhappy with it and so they they scrap it for that reason as well. Though I think for folks in that camp this style of outlining can still work really well because and the ⁓ the hard thing for a lot of folks I had a writer that I worked with who had been writing and or outlining her debut novel for eight years. ⁓ Her outline, think she held it up on a coaching call with me once, was like a binder, like this thick. Like it looked like what your city government would have for like the tax code. Like it was just enormous. You could kill a man with that. ⁓ And then she also had like three first drafts that she kind of started and stopped and thrown away and redone. And so. Monica Hay: Mmm. Yes. Lewis Jorstad: For folks in that situation, what I often find is that the story has a tremendous amount of baggage. You've been working on it for so long, and you also usually have a lot of little pieces that you're very attached to. well, I have to find a way to make this work because this character's backstory does this, but this one does this. And the story's become such a ⁓ weight on you that writing it has become incredibly hard. And so what I will often tell people, ⁓ Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: is, and it's attached to a story because I don't know a better way to make people understand it because it's a very emotionally difficult thing. But what I will often tell people is that the best thing that you can do in that situation when the story is like effectively suffocating you is to take all of that, put it in a drawer somewhere else, close it, and don't reference it at all during the outlining process. Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: And the reason for that, the story that I tell is that I actually was a ceramic sculptor for about eight years, ⁓ weirdly enough. And my teacher, when I was first learning, would have everyone spend an entire year on one project. you would have that full year to create the best version of whatever you wanted to create. And they would help you with whatever you needed, but the goal was that at the end of the year, you're gonna have to show a piece to the rest of the group and explain why, how you made it and everything you wanted it to be and your goals for it and really painstakingly create this one perfect whatever. I created a vase. ⁓ Some people created teapots, whatever they were into. Monica Hay: Mm. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: What we didn't know is at the end of that full group show and tell, ⁓ they opened one of the closets in the studio, pulled out a sledgehammer, and made us all systematically smash all of our pieces. Which was really emotionally difficult. However, and your reaction is what most people's reactions are. However, the explanation they gave us is that you cannot hold yourself back based on your past work. Monica Hay: Hmm. Lewis Jorstad: If you were able to do it once as an artist, you have to be able to trust that you can do it again, because that's how you grow. And so as extremely difficult as that can be, don't go as hardcore as like, just delete all your past work, because that's harsh even for me. But I will often tell people that if you've been working on the story for a long time and you are kind of suffocating under it. Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself and the story is to take all of that and just set it to the side for a little while and let the story sort of regrow in fresh soil and see what it wants to be for who you are now. Because I'll often have people come to me with stories they've been working on since they were a teenager. And it's like, you've grown a lot as a person, you've grown a lot as a writer, your understanding of writing has grown. And... Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah. Right. Lewis Jorstad: I don't think it often serves you to hold yourself accountable for a story that you started creating when you were 15. You that doesn't mean that that kernel of an idea can't still exist as a novel, but I think it is better to give that story the space to kind of... Monica Hay: Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: grow and see where it goes. And I also tell people that you'd be surprised what your brain remembers. If it was really important to the story, you will remember to add it back in. And if you don't remember to add it back in, maybe it wasn't as essential to the story as you thought, as difficult as that can be. Monica Hay: Mmm. I think this is a very interesting point you brought up because one of the books I wrote, I got the idea in 20, was it 2017? I'm in 2017 or was it early 2016? don't remember. But I got the idea a long time ago and a lot of things happened in my life between me and finishing the book. Like my dad passed away in 2017 and then I got my masters and then COVID happened. Like there were just so many things happening. And I was actively drafting probably only like maybe a year or two within that time. But every time I would come back to it, two of the characters, I like knew them so well. Like they knew their trauma. I knew all the things. But one of the characters kept having to get updates based on the writer I was. Like the past version of that character and the story just wasn't resonating with me. And I would be like, ⁓ I have to scrap this whole character. because she's not resonating with who I am today. She resonated with me three years ago, but I'm a different person now. And I need to get rid of the baggage of who that was. And so I think it's very interesting that you're saying that when you have a project that might span multiple years, that it's actually a good thing to let go of parts of it or just let it go entirely and let it be something new. I think it's very interesting. Lewis Jorstad: I'm a very strong believer that there are a thousand good versions of your novel. To the point of what you just described, that character resonated with you three years ago, but doesn't now. There's a version of that novel that you wrote three years ago that looks different than the novel you ended up actually writing that was still a great novel. Monica Hay: Hmm. Yep. Yep. Lewis Jorstad: But that also doesn't take away from the fact that the novel you did end up writing is also a great novel. know, it's, your story can become any number of things. And I think often there can be this pressure of like, I have to get it perfect. It has to be a certain way. I have to get every single piece to line up. And I think that pressure does us a disservice. And I think a lot of writers are familiar with, Monica Hay: Yeah. Right. Lewis Jorstad: you know, they're often told, like, don't be a perfectionist. you know, it doesn't serve the story. And they think of that in terms of like, well, I don't need to get my prose perfect, or I don't need to get every single plot point perfect. But I think we can also extend that perfectionism to our own ideas of like, I need to perfectly make all of my ideas fit together. And sometimes... Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Lewis Jorstad: you don't need to and the story is still wonderful and still something you can be very proud of. And I think also that ties into something that I think for projects that have gone on that long. Once you've passed three months of outlining a novel, I think you're starting to get into that perfection mindset. ⁓ I think time is often an overlooked part of outlining because... Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah, talk about that. Let's talk about that. Lewis Jorstad: I've just worked with so many writers, and I was this writer once upon a time, who had been outlining for three years and just painstakingly trying to make everything fit. But again, the longer you spend developing the story, the more little pieces you're adding on, like, ⁓ well, this character has this specific piece of backstory, and then this is gonna happen in this specific scene, and all of it starts to stack and become heavier and heavier and heavier and more and more complicated. ⁓ Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: And one of the things that I really push my writers on is that this whole intuitive outlining process from idea to I am ready to start my first draft is a six to eight week process. And after eight weeks, I need a really good reason why it's taking longer. And there are good reasons, absolutely. Like you are, you you're plotting a really complex trilogy and you're trying to plot the whole thing before you start writing because you need that clarity, totally fine. It's gonna take you a little bit longer. Monica Hay: Mmm. Got it. Yep. Lewis Jorstad: you know, something happens in your personal life, you have to set it aside, totally fine, it's gonna take you a little bit longer. But generally speaking, for most standalone novels, if you're just working on one novel at a time, it should take you six to eight weeks. And even for a series, I wouldn't really want it to stretch past four months. You know, at a point, the best thing you can do is to give yourself permission to move forward. ⁓ And so, Monica Hay: Mmm. Okay. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: I think that comes back to that idea of perfectionism because I think there's this temptation to just keep outlining, to just keep tinkering with it before you write it, because it's gotta be perfect, and it doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, the story will be better for letting yourself move forward. I would say a nine times out of 10. Monica Hay: to get it perfect. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I think a lot of people when they are trying to make it perfect, there's a sense of like, ⁓ I have to get it right. And what you're saying is that there's no right or wrong. There's multiple versions that could be great. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: Yeah. And I also think ⁓ this is something I talk more about with my ⁓ revision students. But there's this idea of you should write to purpose, not perfection. Every draft you write has a job. Monica Hay: Mmm. Mmm! Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: Don't be the mean, annoying manager who makes you do three people's job. Don't be the manager that makes you be the front of house and doing the kitchen and busing tables. That's really rude. We would not want to work for that manager. Don't be that manager to your stories. Your first draft has a job. Your second draft has a job. ⁓ Monica Hay: Interesting. Lewis Jorstad: And for your outline, it has a job too. And its job is just to give you enough clarity on what your story needs to be that you feel confident in writing it. Once you've hit that point, you're free, you're good. You get to move forward, because the outline has done its job. And same for your first draft. Its job is to get enough of the story on paper that you can see the full picture and that you have something to work with to revise. Once it's done that, you're good. You can move on. ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Yes. Right. Lewis Jorstad: to the point where I've even had folks come to me who are like stuck on the last 10 % of their first draft and they're like, I just, don't know what to do. I'm so bogged down. And I'm like, just move on to revisions. But I haven't finished my first draft. I'm like, you have enough, move on to revisions. Like your first draft has done its job, let yourself move forward. ⁓ Perfectionism is insidious and difficult. And I think we all deal with it, but it doesn't have to be like. Monica Hay: Mm, yep. Lewis Jorstad: me and manager constantly hanging over all of your writing, you know? Monica Hay: to be a manager. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't, they don't feel ready. Like it might feel like cheating to them to not like finish the outline or finish the draft. it's like, oh, that doesn't feel like I'm allowed to do that. Or they're afraid of, you know, moving forward and having done it wrong. I think that's probably one of the most common things I get. It's like, oh, but like, if I haven't finished the draft, like why am I allowed to revise? And I'm like, Lewis Jorstad: Mm-hmm. Monica Hay: If you're saying it's done its job, that means that you got enough clarity on the story that you're feeling good enough to do revisions. How do people know when they need a little bit more work on their outline versus they know when they're ready to keep going and just draft? Lewis Jorstad: That, to your point, there is a lot of, I think, emotional, I don't even wanna say baggage, because it's not necessarily a negative thing. Like, we all have it. It's part of the experience of writing. But there's a lot of emotional fog, I guess, that we deal with as writers, because we are very close to our stories. We're very emotionally attached to our stories, as we should be. And I think that makes it very hard to judge them objectively. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Lewis Jorstad: And so that's true both of the fear of, is it not gonna be good enough? The feeling of like I have to get it right that holds you back from moving forward. But I think that can also make it hard to judge if you are ready to move forward and you'll sort of skip ahead. Especially if say outlining is not something you typically like doing, you might feel this desire to like rush through it so you can move on to the stuff you do like. Which is totally understandable and completely normal. ⁓ Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: And there are ways to develop that objective sense for yourself, but I think it's extremely difficult and it's something that you get through practice. And so the hard answer is you just kind of have to try and fail a lot of times to get that intuitive sense for yourself of like, am I being held back by fear or perfectionism or am I rushing myself? Monica Hay: Mmmmm Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: At the same time, for folks who are like, I don't want to just fall on my face eight or nine times, that's where I think getting outside feedback is really helpful, from someone who can help you, who knows what they're doing. ⁓ That could be a book coach, it could be an editor, it could be working in a class with someone like me who is there to kind of give you checks on that. It could be working with a critique partner, it could be just asking a writing friend, like, hey, can I talk through this with you for a minute, and can you give me advice? Monica Hay: Yep. Lewis Jorstad: But I think that's the point at which having someone else who has that distance from your story is so, helpful because they can often catch things that maybe you don't see. Because again, for someone who's, you know, that fear of moving forward makes perfect logical sense in your own brain. Of course it does. It's coming from your own brain. And in fact, it often makes logical sense even the way you explain it to another person. Oftentimes it takes someone who has experience as a writer or has experience working with writers to see it for what it actually is and to say, I think what you might actually be dealing with is a fear of moving forward and then helping you sort of navigate that so that you can move forward because it's hard, it's complicated. Monica Hay: Writing, feel like being a writer is so complicated in so many ways. Lewis Jorstad: We picked the hardest art form, not at all. Listen, ⁓ as a previously a sculptor, every artist in every art form goes through this. It's just the time scale is different. For someone who's taking a photo, it's like 30 minutes of edit, well, it's like three days of editing the photo. For someone who's a sculptor, it's six months of working on one piece. But for us as novelists, the timeline we're working with is so much longer. Like a novel can take you a year, can take you two years. ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: you know, it can take you longer if you don't have a process that's working for you. And so I think that gives space for those fears to magnify just because of the amount of time that they have for us to sit with them. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah, I always think about visual artists and you can go on Instagram or read TikTok and be like, look at this thing I made. for writers, we're like, look at the pages I Lewis Jorstad: And we also get, we get those well-meaning friends who are like, how's your novel going? And they're like, they stop asking after year three and it's kind of hurtful, but like, they don't know, you know? And like, I get it, because to them, they don't get it. And for us, it's hard to explain. It's part of why I think being in community with other writers, like, whatever that looks like for you, that could be a local writing group, that could be an online community, that could be a Facebook group, although ew, Facebook. That could be any number of things, like. Monica Hay: I don't. It is. you Lewis Jorstad: Being in community with other writers is so important because it is such a hard thing to explain to non-writers. Not because they're trying to hurt you, they just don't know. Because why would they know? Even the people who love you dearly, they just don't know because they're not in that world. Monica Hay: Yes. It is. I just don't know. Yeah. Well, it's like we won't know what it's like to, you know, be a photographer if we've never done photography. We wouldn't know what it's like to be a painter if we've never done painting, right? Lewis Jorstad: Exactly. I'm sure some photographer listening to this just heard me say 30 minutes to three days to edit a photo and they're like, how dare you? And I'm like, I don't know, I'm not a photographer. You know, like every group has those nuances that other people don't get. Monica Hay: Yes, Okay, I'm curious, what would you say to someone who is curious about learning to outline, but is terrified that they're going to try it and that their brain's gonna break? How would you recommend starting? Lewis Jorstad: I ⁓ think it's a couple of things. One is for someone who's like, want to try outlining, and I'm not saying this again just to plug my method, ⁓ because I think there's many methods out there that work for a whole variety of people. But genuinely, if you're the type of person who's thinking like, I want to try this, but I'm really nervous that it's going to mess up my story, or I'm going to lose my passion for my novel, or whatever is concerning you, Don't go to the more rigid plot-focused outlining. Don't do a save the cat. It probably won't work for you. Or maybe down the line you realize it does, but I don't know if I would start there. ⁓ For someone in that situation, I think something like intuitive outlining is probably a better fit because the idea is that you're starting in the smallest piece and you're slowly letting it grow. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yep. Hmm. Lewis Jorstad: And I think letting yourself go through that process coupled with taking the time to reflect on how you are feeling, which is another skill that takes time to develop. giving yourself the space, know, every, you know, again, say you're gonna give yourself six to eight weeks to go through this. At the end of every week, part of your process should be pausing and sitting with yourself and looking at the work that you're doing and really deeply thinking about, okay, how am I feeling? Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: Where are those feelings coming from? And are those, know, if you're excited, if you're doing great, rock on, keep going, you're loving it. If you're starting to feel uncomfortable feelings, if you're starting to feel fear or anxiety, if you're starting to feel less excited about the story, that's a good thing to listen to and start to understand where it's coming from. Is it coming from? Monica Hay: Mmm. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: perfectionism, is it coming from fear of doing something wrong? Is it coming from pressure of like, I have to get this right, I have to do this a certain way? If that's where it's coming from, how can you start to rewrite that story in your brain and give yourself permission to not make it be a certain thing? On the other side, if it's coming from somewhere else, you know, maybe it's coming from a place of... Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: I'm less excited about the story because I feel like I'm starting to know so much of it, like there's less to discover, that could be a good sign for you that you've reached your natural stopping point. Pause here, and then it's a matter of assessing, do I have enough to move forward? If I'm starting to lose that excitement of like, I've discovered so much of the story, okay, pause, but now do you have enough to start writing your draft? Hopefully you do, in which case move forward. If you don't, then I think it's a question of where's that mismatch coming from. Monica Hay: Mm. Mmm. Mmm. Mm-hmm. Lewis Jorstad: Honestly, that's the place that you want to work with a coach because your specific situation and your specific story What's the baggage that you're coming into with that story? How long have you been working on it? Like there's a lot to tease out there and I think a coach or again potentially a critique partner who is a more experienced writer might be able to help with that but I think that and I think this is a skill for anyone to develop but the skill of Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: reflecting on your own feelings and listening to your own feelings is really helpful for every stage of the writing process. our, you know, again, thinking of it in levels, there's sort of the... Monica Hay: Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: the core feeling that is just is what it is, but then it has to go through all these layers of stuff to get out to your conscious brain. It goes through your memories, it goes through your personal fears and prejudices, it goes through your, you know, it has to get through a lot of gunk to get to your brain, and often it can get sort of twisted and manipulated in ways that aren't true to what the actual core feeling is. Monica Hay: Right. Lewis Jorstad: and slowly developing the skill of being able to sort sort through where is that actual core feeling coming from is how we get past writer's block. It's how we deal with perfectionism. It's how we get through the fear of publishing a novel. Like I have writers I've worked with who've just been tinkering with prose for like three years now. I'm like, the novel is done. Let it go. Let it be free. But they have that core feeling that is afraid of putting their novel out there and experiencing rejection. Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: you can't work on those feelings until you can pull them to the surface and know what they actually are. Not to get into some deep therapy stuff, but like that's therapy, know, therapy is helpful. ⁓ But you don't have to necessarily work with a therapist to do that, if it's specific to your writing, if it's other things I can't, I'm not qualified to say. But, so yeah, I think reflection is one of the best tools for that. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. How do, that brings me to thinking how can people know if the discomfort is just normal discomfort of being a writer and discomfort that there's something that needs to be shifted, you know? Because as a writer myself, like, and you're a writer, are you a writer? I forget. Okay, some people are like, actually I'm an editor, not a writer. ⁓ Some people will. Lewis Jorstad: I am, yeah. I am. Monica Hay: You know, like we just face discomfort a lot when we're writing. Like we face this comfort of like, ⁓ my God, what, you know, like the sentence was shit. Like we, you know, so many different things come up. And so how can you know between discomfort that is a signal and not. Lewis Jorstad: ⁓ Again, think it's very nuanced by person. I think, not to just keep plugging like working with someone, but I do think there is a tremendous amount of value in working with someone because having that objective eye who knows all the specifics of your story and your situation and has worked with you for weeks or months or longer, they start to understand your brain and they can call out, know, am I allowed to curse on this? Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. You are allowed to curse. Lewis Jorstad: Amazing. They can call out your bullshit because listen, we all have bullshit. I've got bullshit. Monica, I hate to say it. You have bullshit. We all have bullshit. You need, when you've worked with someone long enough where they can start to see your patterns that you fall into and they can call you out on them is just so helpful. With that said, in terms of for just you yourself starting to understand that, if you are not in a position where you can work with someone, I think that Monica Hay: We all have bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: I think it comes back to... purpose instead of perfection. What is the purpose of what you're doing right now? Is it achieving that purpose? It can create some discomfort in that. It is, you know, a big thing is starting to give yourself permission to feel uncomfortable. That feeling uncomfortable does not mean that you're doing something bad or you need to be afraid or you need to run away. Some things are just uncomfortable. But pulling back from the discomfort and looking at is... Monica Hay: Hmm. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: is what I'm doing achieving the purpose that it needs to achieve, not perfection, but the purpose it needs to achieve. And then also looking at is that discomfort hurting you? Monica Hay: Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: That is a nuanced conversation that is very individual because some things are uncomfortable, but they are not actively hurting you, if that makes sense. The discomfort is painful, but it is not doing you damage. Sometimes it's actually a benefit for you. Sitting in the discomfort is helping you grow and get more comfortable with whatever you're doing. ⁓ But that's often how I help people figure out the difference between... Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: a challenging phase in their writing and burnout. You know, a challenge is, ⁓ I feel discomfort, you know, I feel maybe a little anxious or nervous about what I'm doing, but I am making progress that I'm happy with and I am, you know, I'm achieving what I want to achieve and I'm not hurting myself, whereas burnout is I am hurting myself. I am denying myself rest. ⁓ I am feeling physical symptoms of, you know, Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Lewis Jorstad: eye strain or sick to my stomach or whatever, like you are actively hurting your body. And so in fact, in that case, the discomfort is telling you, you need to step away. You need to take a break. That is a hard thing to start to unpack for yourself. And a lot of it is just practice. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. unravel. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of it's knowing yourself as well. You just have to know like, what's what does it look like when you're uncomfortable in a good way or uncomfortable in bad way? And that's self knowledge, right? Like no one can really know that for you. Lewis Jorstad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. For example, ⁓ and I've been told that people can't tell, which makes me happy, I'm incredibly nervous speaking, which I swear to you, and it's something that I've practiced a lot over the years. I've spent almost a decade in this line of work now, and a lot of that has been spent talking to cool people like Monica and going on events and doing workshops and teaching. Monica Hay: I could not tell. Lewis Jorstad: But I still, every time I sit down before one of these, have like five minutes beforehand of just like, I feel kind of chills and I feel really anxious. like, I could just say I'm sick and leave. Like, my brain has that discomfort of speaking, but I have gotten to a point where I can recognize that that discomfort is just the discomfort of doing something that doesn't come to me naturally and that I'm okay and that I should move forward because it's good for me. One, I get to talk to cool people. And two, it's good for me to... Monica Hay: Yep. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: push myself to do this. ⁓ I think everyone has those things that make them, push them out of their comfort zone that cause that discomfort but that are still good for them to do. For a lot of us, weirdly, writing is one of those things. And sometimes it's coming back to what level of writing are you comfortable in. Maybe you're really comfortable outlining, but when you start your first draft, you get that, ⁓ that discomfort feeling because you're not as comfortable hiking through the forest. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: That doesn't mean it's something you should stop doing. It just means it's something you have to let yourself sit with that discomfort and move forward anyways. ⁓ But it's hard. It just takes practice. It's hard. Monica Hay: It is hard. How did you start doing these events and talks in the beginning when you were really uncomfortable with them? Lewis Jorstad: ⁓ I am a big believer in exposure therapy. ⁓ Honestly, it's I so I as a person and this is just me, I'm very motivated by commitment to other people. I will break a commitment to myself any day. Like I'm like, ⁓ I'm gonna do this for me. No, I'm not. I'm gonna work out every day. No, I'm not. But if my personal trainer expects me to be there on Wednesdays and Fridays, you better believe I'm gonna get Monica Hay: Nice. Mmm. Lewis Jorstad: out of bed and I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna hate every second of it, but I'm gonna do it because I'm very motivated by other people. And so literally what I did is I just started committing to a bunch of stuff that required me to be on camera. Seriously, just, Emma Dessie actually was the person, if anyone knows her, she asked me to speak for an event that she was doing. And I just, for some reason was feeling very vulnerable and so I just emailed her, I like, I'm really uncomfortable on camera. I'm... Monica Hay: Mmm Lewis Jorstad: I was an awkward 20 year old. I started doing this at a very young age. I was an awkward 20 year old. was like, not comfortable on camera. I'm not a good speaker. And she just emailed me back and was like, get over yourself. She's like, you need to do this, get over yourself. And bless her for that because I was like, all right, and I signed up and I'm pretty sure I did that call from my mother-in-law's guest bedroom because it had the best lighting. It was a lot, it was complicated. ⁓ But I'm so glad I did because literally I just started signing up for a bunch of stuff. I started doing podcasts first because I didn't have to be on camera. Then I started doing stuff like this. Then I started doing workshops for my own people and now. Monica Hay: Mmm. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: I still feel that anxious feeling beforehand, but what I found is that once I start talking, I'm just having a conversation with you. Like, it's great, like, why be nervous? But it took practice to get there, you know? But you have to do it. I am not, listen, this is coming from a very non-scientific person, so take it with a grain of salt. But to the best of my understanding and my ability to explain, our Monica Hay: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, you have to do it. Lewis Jorstad: brains have habits literally hardwired into the physical structure of our brain. We have neural pathways in our brain that when we do stuff enough times, that becomes the comfortable default for our brain. I often tell my writers who don't write, they're like, oh, I don't have a writing habit. I'm like, yes, you do. Your writing habit is not writing. Because the neural pathway you've built in your brain is wanting to write and then not following through. Monica Hay: Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: And so that is the comfortable, easy thing to do. The hard truth is that the only way to rewrite that brain, or that brain, rewrite that pathway in your brain is to do the thing, which sucks because it's uncomfortable and hard, but there does come a point when you just have to do the thing. For me, that was just showing up and making myself accountable to other people who were expecting me to show up at 10 a.m. on a Monday to be here for this call. Monica Hay: Yep. I know. You just have to do the thing. Yeah. Lewis Jorstad: And despite the fact that I'm laying in bed, like, I could just say I'm sick. No, I can't do that. It's uncomfortable, but the payoff is worth it because one, I love talking and getting to chat with cool people. And for folks writing, the payoff is that you get to have your novel out on paper, on your bookshelf. Like you get the pride of doing that. But the difficult truth is that it just requires sometimes taking those small steps and making yourself accountable. Monica Hay: It is. Yep. Lewis Jorstad: And that doesn't have to be diving off the deep end. Some people are dive off the deep end people. I'm gonna write for two hours every day. If that's you, more power to you, hardcore. But for some people that's, right, this week I'm gonna write for five minutes every day. I cannot go to bed until I've written for five minutes. Next week, I have to write for 10 minutes. The week after, and you can do this on the span of months if you want. ⁓ But making yourself do that little bit of work and sit in that discomforting place is the only way to rewire. that part of your brain that wants to pull back and be afraid of that thing. Monica Hay: Yep, yeah, I tell people this all the time and they're just like, but is there a skip button? And I'm like, girl, until we know how to create neural pathways without this, I don't know what to tell. Lewis Jorstad: There is no skip, I wish. Yeah. And it sucks. Like, listen, we can all commiserate. It sucks. It's lame. Listen, I hate nothing more than going to the gym twice a week. I want to lay on my kitchen floor and eat chocolate chip cookies every morning. Like, I don't want to go to the gym. That sounds like hell. Everything hurts. I'm sweaty and disgusting. I have to be around other people in shorts. I'm sorry, no. Monica Hay: It does not. Lewis Jorstad: But it's good for me and I'm glad that I'm doing it. And my back doesn't hurt as much all day. Like, it's worth it, you know? And for your writing, it's the same thing. You want to daydream about all your character's trauma because it's so much fun. And you don't want to actually write the words because they're really hard. But it's worth it to do it, you know? Monica Hay: It's good for me. Yep. It's worth it. love this. So where can people find you, Louis? How can people learn about you and stalk you and follow you? Lewis Jorstad: ⁓ I would prefer people stalk me only on the internet, not in person. But if you want to stalk me on the internet, ⁓ the best place to find me is the NovelSmithy.com. That's kind of the hub for everything I do online. I don't have any social media, so I can't direct people to it, which is a conversation for another day maybe, because I know social media is a big topic with writers. I have found a way to just not have it, which is lovely. ⁓ It makes my soul happy. Speaking of how much I hate Facebook. ⁓ Monica Hay: I'm Aww. Lewis Jorstad: So yeah, thenoblismithy.com is my website. You can ⁓ find basically everything I do there, depending on when this episode goes out, not to break the fourth wall at all, but depending on when it goes out, I'm in the middle of rebuilding my website. So you might end up landing on some slightly broken pages. Please be patient with me. ⁓ It will hopefully be working as soon as possible. But ⁓ that's where you can find ⁓ all of my books. That's where you can find where I teach folks about intuitive outlining. If it's something that anyone is interested in working with me. Monica Hay: Nice. Lewis Jorstad: specifically on, I would love to have you. I also always encourage people to get on my newsletter. Again, you can find it on the website. That's probably the best place to keep in touch with me, because again, I don't have social media. So if something cool is happening, ⁓ I will usually email folks about it. Monica Hay: I want to talk to about social media so bad now. Lewis Jorstad: Let's do it. Let's do it because I have some strong opinions. ⁓ Monica Hay: Really? That's so interesting. So, but oh my God, I cannot get down down this rabbit hole right now. I'm like, how do you market yourself? How do you get the word out? Like how do how do you all the things? But I won't do that a different episode. We'll come back. Okay. Thank you so much for coming and everybody, I'm sure this has been an incredible episode for all of you. And thanks for listening. Lewis Jorstad: Hahaha We'll come back, we'll come back, it'll be fun.