Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 91. Nurturing Heart-Centered Stories with Dani Abernathy

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91. Nurturing Heart-Centered Stories with Dani Abernathy · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

0:05
Welcome to the show.
0:05
Don't Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vadori where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
0:13
Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
0:20
Join me as I share the step by step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away.
0:25
As I host successful writers who share a behind the scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
0:38
Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
0:42
There are real and important skills that you need to learn on this show.
0:46
I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
0:49
I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing.
0:57
What a treat on the podcast today, I have Dani Abernathy, who is a colleague of mine as an author accelerator book coach, and also just a really fierce and wonderful human being that I love being in the same room with.
1:10
Their energy is just off the charts, and this interview is so much fun.
1:15
They are an Enneagram teacher, and if you don't know what that means yet, then we actually will go into that on the podcast today, and Dani actually starts to analyze me, which I didn't edit out, because I think it's important for you to see that I'm a real human being and to see the talent that Dani has.
1:34
I've known Dani a long time, and we work closely together.
1:37
They help deep thinkers and feelers, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, and we talk about that as well.
1:42
What is that?
1:43
Why is it important?
1:44
Help them write the stories that they need to tell so that their readers can feel seen and can also see others.
1:51
They specialize in fantasy, soft science fiction, young adult, and heart-centered fiction.
1:56
Ugh, oh my heart.
1:57
Dani Merges how story works, how people work, which I think is really important.
2:03
Creating books that help readers have more empathy for themselves and for others.
2:08
Dani themselves are in Enneagram type four a Capricorn, an INFP in Myers-Briggs, and also a manifesting generator.
2:18
Who believes that stories can change the world one reader at a time.
2:22
I can't wait for you to hear this episode.
2:24
I think it's gonna affect you deeply.
2:28
Welcome to the podcast today, my good friend and fellow book coach Dani Abernathy.
2:33
We are together at a book coaching conference in Denver and finally sitting down to do this podcast that I've been promising to do, we've been promising each other to do for you.
2:43
We're gonna talk to Dani 'cause she has this absolute superpower.
2:47
Of helping writers find their roots and putting themselves into their story and love, love, love her process.
2:53
We're gonna talk a little bit about that today.
2:55
Welcome, Dani.
2:57
Hi.
2:57
Thanks for having me.
2:58
It's been a year since you invited me on, so it's been chat.
3:02
That's okay.
3:03
I'm as when we were last in person together and this is the way we both, sometimes and we talk all the time, but we don't always sit down and talk for your benefit.
3:11
Dear listeners and dear writers.
3:13
So here today, okay, so let's get down to brass talks here.
3:17
Dani, what is this all about?
3:19
You work with writers to find their roots, right, and weave that into their stories.
3:25
What does that mean?
3:26
Yeah, so I use a process called the Story Tree Process.
3:30
It's kind of my signature system and it's what I walk my clients through.
3:35
And if you think of a tree, there's kind of four parts to a tree.
3:40
I'm not an arborist, so there's probably more parts that work.
3:42
But uh, you've got the root, you've got the tree trunk, you've got the branches, and you've got the leaves.
3:49
So I think you, the opera are the roots of your story tree.
3:52
I think you're the most important part because every part of your story comes from you.
3:56
Uh, you are the only irreplaceable part of your story, and so I think it's really important that you understand yourself in general, but also in relation to your story and why you wanna write and who you're writing to, what you wanna get outta the process.
4:13
So the next part is a tree trunk, and that's really like the point of your story.
4:18
What do you wanna say through your book?
4:19
You can think of it as your worldview or your message.
4:23
Some writers feel a lot of resistance to finding a point, which I totally understand.
4:28
The reason it's so important is because it connects you to your story.
4:33
So when you know your tree trunk, you then know all of your story branches.
4:38
So the story branches are your protagonist, your antagonist, your conflict, your world building.
4:43
All of those elements grow from who you are and what you wanna say to your reader.
4:49
So I, I help people write their stories from the ground up.
4:52
We start with the roots and then we figure out what you wanna say, and then we figure out.
4:58
How to grow all of your branches from that.
5:01
And then when we have that structure figured out, then we write, which is all the leaves, and yeah, that's.
5:10
I, I will love that.
5:11
What a cool metaphor.
5:12
And I know I've heard you talk about it, but not in that much detail before.
5:16
And I think, you know, there's a lot of things that we teach that are similar.
5:20
We start, you know, in my language, we'd start with why.
5:23
And then I talk about, you're saying your message and what you wanna say, the trunk.
5:27
That I talk about on this podcast a lot as what you want the reader to take away.
5:32
Like what, mm-hmm.
5:32
What, not necessarily what you wanna say, yes, but also what is it that you want the reader to experience?
5:39
So that's really, really cool.
5:40
I love how you did that.
5:41
Most writers that come to us start with beliefs.
5:45
Do you find that?
5:46
Oh yeah.
5:46
Where they try to start with the leaves and that's, that's the writing bits.
5:49
And sometimes that can be okay, right.
5:52
To kind of explore.
5:53
But then why is that?
5:54
Not where you necessarily wanna start.
5:56
Why do you have to go back to the roots?
5:57
Do you find Dani in your practice?
5:59
Right?
5:59
So you can absolutely write a book without exploring your roots at all, and that's gonna be a certain kind of book, and there's room for those books.
6:08
If you are writing a book that is deeply personal to you in some way that grows from your identity, your experience, even if you wanna have a career as a writer.
6:20
I think it's important to think about like, why the hell are you doing this and what does it mean to you?
6:27
So a lot of people start with the leaves.
6:30
They just, you know, that's the place.
6:32
When you think about writing, you think about writing scenes and writing.
6:34
It's a bon part.
6:35
Writing's, right?
6:36
It or part of it?
6:37
Yeah.
6:37
Depends on fun and terrible, depending on where you are.
6:40
Uh, most writers benefit from thinking about the structural parts, the roots, the tree trunk, the branches, before you get into all the writing because.
6:50
I can tell you from experience that you know, you can write a hundred thousand words, that it's just leaves lying on the ground, that there's no tree.
7:00
And so at some point you, I love that I'm pic.
7:03
I'm picturing actually little cutouts on your pages, handwritten pages, I believe.
7:08
I don't know.
7:08
I'm a very visual person, as you all know.
7:10
Fluttering in the wind right now.
7:12
So at some point, whether that's at the beginning or after you've written kind of a zero draft, you have to assess the structure of the story.
7:19
Otherwise, more than likely, you're not gonna have a story.
7:22
You're just gonna have a bunch of things strong together, right?
7:26
That's right.
7:26
Yeah.
7:26
And you're not gonna hold the reader's attention at the end of the day without that structure.
7:31
Readers are hardwired to accept.
7:33
Story in a certain way, and if it's just kind of coming out as a bunch of leaves without all of that structure.
7:39
Yeah, I'm totally tracking with you.
7:41
You're awesome.
7:42
And I love something else that you said when you were explaining your root structure and the tree structure.
7:47
Was that you are the only irreplaceable thing in your story.
7:51
Right.
7:52
I wish you guys could see Dani nodding your head.
7:54
Um, because, because that's, I could give everybody that's listening to this podcast today, the outline for my next book, and we could all go away and write it and Dani could write it and I could write it.
8:06
Uh, they'd be completely different because we're different people.
8:09
So people get really precious about their ideas and worried about somebody stealing their idea.
8:14
You know what?
8:15
Steal all of my ideas.
8:16
Go for it.
8:17
You can't write my book and I can't write your book.
8:20
And that's, I guess the point is, if you actually dig into those roots and build that structure, the treaty, all the work that Danning does, you are gonna get something really special, right?
8:30
Because why do.
8:31
Why do writers backgrounds matter?
8:34
How does that change the story?
8:35
Do you find in your practice, I know you've done this many, many times with writers, how does it change their process or their story or their thinking?
8:42
I think we all have this idea that there shouldn't be too much of us in our stories, and that a good writer separates themselves from the story.
8:54
Oh my gosh.
8:54
I'm like cringing when you even say that.
8:56
But yes, you're right.
8:57
That is what a lot of people think or they wanna be.
9:00
Professional or they have this idea of what author dumb is or writing, writing is, but, right.
9:06
Or like if you're writing a, a good book, I'm, I'm saying good in quotes, you air quotes.
9:12
Yeah.
9:12
I'm not actually doing them.
9:14
And then I felt weird 'cause I wasn't doing them.
9:16
But if you are, if you're writing a good book, then you shouldn't, your protagonist shouldn't be you.
9:25
And certainly your book, you're the place for writing a story as therapy, and that is not a book you publish, but I think most of the time, like your protagonist is some version of you.
9:39
And so I think the more honest you can be with yourself, the more honest you could be with your reader.
9:44
And writing is a process of self-discovery.
9:46
So as you discover yourself, you discover your story.
9:49
As you discover your story, you discover yourself.
9:52
And so.
9:53
You don't need this separation because we need you in your story.
9:59
You are the power, you are the magic, and you, you're the one that's gonna connect with your reader.
10:06
Yeah, absolutely.
10:07
And I wanna get there in a second about how it actually affects your reader.
10:10
'cause it does, it's a totally different experience, but it's amazing how writers' stories are actually always personal.
10:16
So if you're out there writing a book today.
10:19
You think that you're just writing about, I don't know, butterflies or what else are we writing about?
10:25
I'm not sure, but not failing in today.
10:29
Uh, more insects.
10:30
Yes.
10:31
No, but if you might think that you're just writing a story about fairies or you're just writing a story about, you know, I.
10:37
I always go back to a client that I worked with many, many years ago, and we did some of the exercises that Dani and I probably do similar but differently with our clients, and she realized that.
10:51
Even though she was writing about creatures, she was actually writing about her childhood.
10:56
Mm-hmm.
10:56
And, and it was, it was one of those things where she, she laughed about it was like, wow, that's really unexpected.
11:02
Right.
11:02
So think about it and if you're thinking, oh, I'm just writing something commercial or something that I like, you might actually find that you're writing something else.
11:10
Right.
11:10
And, and it's almost always personal.
11:13
I, yeah, why not?
11:14
I agree.
11:15
Certainly.
11:16
My, the people I work with tend to be exploring their own questions and their own experiences.
11:23
Often they're like existential questions that we don't actually have answers to, which makes it hard to sometimes write a novel because often in the novel you, you're trying to answer the question I lotted the like, really?
11:36
I have those questions daily.
11:38
So I maybe need to read more of your client's work?
11:40
I think so.
11:41
To.
11:42
But how does wrapping your own roots into your fiction, 'cause we're specifically talking about fiction here.
11:48
How does that differ from memoir, let's say?
11:50
Mm-hmm.
11:51
Because it's not, you know, PE people will come and people, well, I don't wanna write my story.
11:55
Right.
11:55
Lots of people want to, specifically we're talking about how, how is this different?
12:00
I have one memoir client right now.
12:02
My first memoir, client and memoir is really about telling the true things that happen to you and.
12:12
There is a narrative thread there.
12:13
You're reflecting on things.
12:14
There's, there's a character arc. You change and grow in relation to the things that happen to you, but fiction is really about the, whether you're writing auto fiction, which is almost like a fictionalization of the real things that happen to you or you're writing, like most of my clients are writing speculative fiction and it's really cool in, in fantasy and sci-fi because then you can.
12:36
Put a lot of those things into like, through a symbolic lens, or you can make the invisible visible, and so you're not sharing the things that happened to you, but often you are sharing the impact of what happened to you.
12:53
Yeah.
12:54
Or or the emotional truth.
12:55
That's right.
12:56
Of what happened.
12:57
Yeah.
12:57
Right.
12:58
I know when I, when I wrote my first few novels that were published.
13:03
I was kind of terrified when they came out because all of my characters had pieces of past people or relationships and things and situations, and I mean, they're fictionalized, but it felt like a thin bale to me.
13:17
But I could tell you that people who read them did not see themselves because they don't recall how you see them through your lens.
13:23
Right?
13:24
Or many of those people would never have read my.
13:27
Why a fiction to begin with that people that I grew up with or that I experienced these things with when I was in high school.
13:34
Mm-hmm.
13:35
Right.
13:35
Or in junior high is the case maybe.
13:37
But yeah, it's, it's amazing how we worry sometimes about putting ourselves in there, but that is actually not something that everybody recogniz.
13:47
Yeah.
13:48
But it does feel really risky because you're exposed to yourself, you're making yourself vulnerable and often about things that maybe you haven't shared with anyone else.
13:57
Is there a risk, you think, I mean, it feels risky.
13:59
There's a difference between it feeling risky and it being risky.
14:02
I'm saying in my experience, it felt very risky and in the end it wasn't.
14:06
But what is your experience?
14:07
'cause you do, you work with this all the time with clients, right?
14:09
Right.
14:10
And so I think first of all, most of the time the people, if you're writing about.
14:16
Your real life aren't gonna recognize themselves in your story.
14:19
But I do think if you are a person with like a marginalized identity, if you're a trans person or you know, I'm, I live in the United States and there's a lot of stuff going on here that's scary and.
14:32
So if you hold an identity that isn't as accepted, there can be actual risk to writing about.
14:40
Yeah.
14:40
Fear, you know, queer characters or writing a story about racism or whatever.
14:45
Whatever your lived experience may be.
14:48
So that's something that you really have to recognize, I think.
14:50
Like, why do I wanna do this?
14:52
Why do I wanna tell this story about this thing?
14:54
And you know, what might I encounter if I put this book out in the world?
14:59
Yeah.
14:59
And you work with historically marginalized writers, many different kinds.
15:03
Um, and, and what does this mean and why is it important to represent them in publishing despite that risk that you just mentioned?
15:12
Yeah, so a historically marginalized person holds an identity that hasn't been the mainstream.
15:19
So I would say sort of our non marginalized identities are, are white male.
15:25
Cisgender heterosexual, often like Protestant, Christian, certainly, you know, in, you know, Western Worlds marginalized identities are people who black, indigenous people of color, queer people, uh, neurodivergent people with disabilities.
15:42
And I think it's so important that we get stories from everybody out into the world, and especially people with marginalized identities because they haven't.
15:53
Most of our stories have been from non marginalized enemies for some reason, I can't think of a good term for what these identities are that aren't marginalized.
16:02
But when we read books about people who are different from us, our empathy grows and our understanding grows and, and often you see ourselves recognized and and to, to feel seen is so powerful.
16:17
And to also see someone else, I think is.
16:21
Exactly what we need right now.
16:23
So I'm kind of on a mission to like change the world through quiet little books.
16:27
And as you've ever met Daddy, I mean, I have no doubt that you are going to be able to do this.
16:33
It's such an but, but it is, it's such an important mission that we both share in lots of ways that.
16:39
Communication is the key.
16:41
It's the key to understanding.
16:43
And so having books written from many, many different perspectives is the key to understanding, to empathy, as you said.
16:50
Because right now the world is very divis, so whatever side of that division you're on, the answer or the remedy is never going to be to cut off all other sides.
17:02
Mm-hmm.
17:02
It's to open the lines of communication and to understand one another's point of view that's gonna get us through that.
17:08
And I think.
17:09
I know from my own experience, like I used to be pretty homophobic and transphobic, and now I understand about my myself that I am non-binary and bisexual.
17:19
And one of the things that has has had the greatest impact on my life is reading fiction and reading about the experiences of people who I know now are a lot more similar to me than I thought.
17:32
And so growing up without that, that lens, right?
17:35
That's right.
17:36
Or without that experience.
17:37
Yeah.
17:37
No.
17:38
Amazing.
17:39
Okay, so we've talked about a few like marginalized identities, um, but what types of roots.
17:45
Make sense to include in writers' books?
17:47
Like what other things do you uncover?
17:50
Because it might be a marginalized identity, but what else mm-hmm.
17:53
Might there be that people are exploring that you uncover in your work?
17:57
That makes sense?
17:58
Yeah.
17:58
So there's a lot of pieces we explore.
18:00
Um, like in my, I have a group program called the Rooted Writers' Mentorship, and uh, we have a curriculum and the whole first module is about exploring yourself.
18:08
And we talk about kind of your backstory and your values.
18:13
We talk about your need.
18:15
So all of that I think is important to consider.
18:18
But when we're talking about an individual story, often what comes through is something you are deeply passionate about.
18:25
So that could be like for my clients test, often environmentalism or some sort of oppression or invisibleness.
18:37
Some way of not fitting into the mainstream and yeah.
18:43
So Dani, you actually use this really cool tool.
18:46
I don't know, is it a tool called the Enneagram?
18:48
What is it?
18:50
You first introduced me to it, I think, way back in 2020 when we met, and it's something that you're super passionate about and has, you know, really helped your business shape the way that you work with writers.
19:01
Mm-hmm.
19:01
Can you tell, talk a little bit about that and what it needs?
19:03
Yeah, so the Enneagram is a personality system that.
19:08
We talk about typed the types one through nine, and so I'm type four, which is the individualist.
19:15
The reason I love the Enneagram, the reason it works so well for writing is because it's not just about characteristics.
19:22
It's not just about traits.
19:23
It's about why you have those traits.
19:26
So we talk, it's a personality.
19:28
It's a personality, right?
19:29
And so it, it talks about your desires and fears.
19:34
That's what we need to understand about our characters.
19:37
And so it's incredibly helpful for developing characters and it's also incredibly helpful for understanding yourself and why you're writing.
19:47
So for example, I'm a type four and I write to understand myself and to express myself.
19:56
I want to be understood and I also want to make people ugly cry.
20:03
You badly cry all this.
20:04
I, I love it.
20:05
No, Susie P type three, which is the achiever and soaker type three.
20:10
Like what matters more is my, the success, honestly.
20:15
And so threes, if threes are gonna write a book.
20:17
Often they want it to be a really good book and they wanted to, yeah, I wanted to reach as many people as possible, but you're right, and I, knowing that about myself actually helps my clients as well.
20:28
And you'll hear me say this all the time, but Dani just said, it's true actually.
20:34
The reason I do this work, I actually only care that my clients get to write the books that they want, that they are successful, whatever that definition is for them.
20:44
So success doesn't always mean.
20:46
Like best sell.
20:48
I mean, yes, some of them are bestsellers and things like that, but it doesn't have to be, that success to me is did you reach your goal, whatever that is.
20:56
Writers, yeah.
20:57
Dani's gonna jump in and tell me something about myself.
20:59
Yeah.
21:00
I wait to hear you on my face.
21:02
Okay.
21:03
I'm getting coached right now.
21:04
You been here on the podcast.
21:06
You have the, okay, so you're.
21:08
I don't wanna get too into the weeds of the Enneagram.
21:10
No, this is great.
21:11
It gives them a sense for how you coach.
21:12
It's cool.
21:13
Okay.
21:13
So there's different centers of the Enneagram and one of them is the heart center, and these are types two, three, and four.
21:19
So two is the help bird, three is achieve, and four is the individualist.
21:23
And these types, well, they need other people to reflect back their chosen image.
21:27
But these types are really oriented to people and they read people and they adjust according to how people are responding to them.
21:37
I know for a fact that you, your core type is in the heart center.
21:41
You might be a two though, Susie, which is the helper, because you are so other oriented and I, I think you give so much and choose.
21:51
What did I tell you writers about the ugly cry?
21:54
Here I go.
21:55
Keep going Dani.
21:56
Well, this, this part you might not like, but you often give love to get love and they, they give and give and give.
22:03
Hoping that people are then gonna give back to them and meet their own needs.
22:06
And they have a really hard time expressing their own needs.
22:09
Yeah.
22:09
And that all tracks Yeah.
22:12
On tracks.
22:12
Let's be a little bit vulnerable here.
22:14
Right.
22:15
So anyway, I You're a two or three.
22:17
I don't know.
22:18
I know we've had this conversation before and when they do the test.
22:21
When I do the exercises, I, I am very close on a number of different numbers, so, but yes, it's a really cool tool.
22:28
Okay.
22:28
So you mentioned a little bit it helps writers Yes.
22:31
Understand their own.
22:33
Desires, but it also helps them design their characters.
22:37
Mm-hmm.
22:37
So how does it help them, you know, knowing this about themselves and when you work with clients from this, how does it help them with their writing process or their story, or all of the above, or the, or even, how does it help them manage the emotional rollercoaster of writing a book in the first place?
22:51
Oh, gosh.
22:52
Race.
22:53
Yeah.
22:53
Yeah.
22:54
So the Enneagram is an incredible tool for understanding your characters, for building your characters, and.
23:02
It's kinda help you write deep, authentic characters, so it enables you to go below, like beneath the surface.
23:12
Well, first of all, really understand how your characters will behave in a situation, which I think sometimes.
23:17
We just have them like puppeting around doing random stuff, but also it can drinking tea.
23:23
I always see people drinking tea.
23:24
I'm like, your characters aren't doing anything in this scene.
23:27
I know I talk about it.
23:28
If you listen to this podcast, you could probably have a drinking game about drinking tea on my podcast when I talk about it.
23:34
Yeah.
23:35
Popping around doing random stuff, right.
23:36
Like that.
23:37
Right, right.
23:37
Instead of making choices based on what they actually want or what they're great at, what they're trying to avoid.
23:42
The Enneagram can make that really clear really quickly.
23:46
Another way that I find that it helps writers is when you're drafting or revising, you know, sometimes you can feel like a character is just really flat, or maybe some of your characters are quite similar to each other.
23:59
So the Enneagram I love because it's both so deep, but also you can look at a type and understand how they're.
24:06
What kind of language they're gonna use, what kind of mannerisms they might use, even what kind of like clothes they might wear.
24:13
So if you're feeling really stuck, you can, for example, find celebrities who are type sevens, which is the adventure, and like go look at how they behave in the world and use that to inform your writing so that your characters feel real and not the same as each commercial.
24:32
Uh, and not flat.
24:34
I love that as a process for designing that.
24:36
Okay.
24:37
And we can include a link to a test if you're interested in learning surface level about your own.
24:43
Yes.
24:44
Okay.
24:45
So you talked about creating the magic and.
24:48
Bringing your roots in and, and bringing yourself into the store, creating magic.
24:52
But how does including this actually affect your readers?
24:55
We like to talk a lot on the show, don't Tell podcast, not just about your own process, but how we're actually affecting readers and getting our message out there.
25:03
So how does including yourself create that connection?
25:08
For me, there are four things that are most important to know about your book so that you can know what choices to make to get you where you wanna be.
25:17
So one is.
25:18
Who you are, why you care about this.
25:21
The second is your point, what you wanna say.
25:24
The third is who you are writing to.
25:26
And I don't mean like teenage girls, I mean like house wise between the ages of 32.
25:33
That's right.
25:34
40. That's right.
25:35
But like why does your reader come to your.
25:39
What are they gonna take away?
25:41
What, what are they looking for?
25:44
What are they hungry for?
25:45
Like, what questions do they have?
25:47
So on a deeper level, like who are you writing to?
25:49
And then like, how do you wanna impact them?
25:51
So, you know, it's one thing to know your message, but if, okay, let's say your message is something about climate change.
25:57
Do you wanna write a tragedy?
26:00
Do you wanna wrestle the reader, the reality of climate change and that it's real?
26:05
Or do you wanna.
26:06
Leave them feeling hopeful and empowered.
26:09
I think that was a bit of a leading answer there.
26:11
I think we, we probably want them to feel hopeful and empowered and maybe that is how you choose what genre.
26:17
'cause this is this advice that you're giving actually transcends genre.
26:21
Yeah, it works for all the ones, but often whether you want it to be positively or negatively will help you determine your genre.
26:28
And most of the time I think we're writing, we want the reader to end the book feeling.
26:34
Something good.
26:36
Sometimes you don't.
26:37
You wanna write a tragedy or you wanna really lead the reader feeling uncertain or confused.
26:41
Absolutely.
26:42
Absolutely.
26:43
But then take your genre.
26:44
'cause not all genres will accept that as an right.
26:47
No, don't.
26:48
Don't write a a romance.
26:49
Write romance.
26:49
Don't write a romance.
26:50
Romance you want happily ever after.
26:51
Or at least happily ever after for now.
26:53
Or you're gonna get canned in your reviews.
26:55
Absolutely.
26:55
Or don't call it a romance.
26:56
Just wanna a love story.
26:57
Exactly.
26:58
Okay.
26:58
So I know that coaching writers through this process brings you so much joy.
27:04
What does this work mean to you?
27:07
Okay, so this is a great example of your roots because when I think about my business, it feels like it has grown from me entirely, and every part of it is influenced by who I am and what I care about.
27:21
My values.
27:22
I think emotional bravery is so important.
27:25
I think agency, dignity, vulnerability, like all of these are my values.
27:30
And so my, the way I work with writers is built around these ideas.
27:37
And right now with the way the world looks in 2026, coming to work, coming to my coaching calls with my clients gives me hope.
27:48
I often, often feel hopeless, and it also helps me to feel like I am taking action positive like action towards positive change action toward the world I wanna live in, because I truly believe that stories can change the world.
28:05
And so.
28:06
If I can help writers get out stories that make people accept themselves more, make people accept other people more, you know, that feels so meaningful to me.
28:18
Yeah.
28:19
Yeah.
28:19
And Dani, I just wanna say that.
28:22
It's my absolute pleasure and honor to watch you build this business and to stay true to all of that and to build our businesses alongside one another and to push each other to grow and change and help as many writers get their stories out into the world as possible.
28:38
Yeah, it is very, very rewarding work.
28:41
It can be very rewarding to write your book.
28:44
And hopefully today's episode, I think.
28:47
Thank you so much, Dani, for sharing all of that because it's given writers a lot of food for thought as they they go through.
28:53
Where can we find you and your programs?
28:57
The best place to find me is my website, which is Dani abernathy.com.
29:01
Dani is spelled DANI.
29:05
You can sign up for my newsletter, which is called The Quiet Book Revolution.
29:09
I am launching a podcast, maybe it's already out or maybe it's soon to be out, but it's called Writing from the Margins, so you can find me there.
29:18
Those are probably the best places.
29:19
Yeah, we will definitely share all of those links and when your podcast comes out, whenever that is of the next few months, we will be sure to share that with our most nurses as well.
29:28
Thank you so much for coming on, Dani, and now Onward.
29:32
Thanks, Susie.
29:40
Thanks for tuning into the show.
29:41
Don't Tell Writing podcast with me, Susie Vidori.
29:44
It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or the book that you're planning to write.
29:50
Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us.
29:54
You could subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening.
30:01
Tu the show.
30:04
That's how other listeners will find us.
30:06
Also, visit susie vidori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events.
30:18
I'm writing courses that happen in my community.
30:20
You want my eyes on your writing?
30:22
Submit a page in your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes.
30:27
I'd love to chat with you about your writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals.
30:37
I am here to cheer you on.
30:39
Remember that book you're writing is gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
30:49
See you again right here next week.