Latest / Story Magic / 137 - How to write when life is crazy

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137 - How to write when life is crazy · Story Magic

• 2:14
  Emily: Foreign.
• 2:27
  Rachel: Hey, writers.
• 2:28
  Rachel: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
• 2:32
  Emily: I'm Emily.
• 2:33
  Rachel: And I'm Rachel.
• 2:34
  Emily: And today we are talking about how to write when life is crazy.
• 2:41
  Emily: Crazy felt pretty relevant to both of us right now and something that I feel like people ask us all the time.
• 2:52
  Emily: So, yeah, just wanted to share thoughts and insights and if this is you.
• 2:57
  Emily: Empathy.
• 2:58
  Rachel: Yes.
• 2:58
  Emily: Solidarity.
• 2:59
  Rachel: We see you.
• 3:01
  Rachel: You are seen in this hard time.
• 3:03
  Rachel: We are you in this trying, challenging period.
• 3:07
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 3:09
  Rachel: For both of us.
• 3:10
  Rachel: So this is our second episode back from hiatus, and if you listen to the first one, we told you about how challenging our lives were over the summer, and now we're going to talk about showing off to the page when life is challenging and how to manage that and how to do that.
• 3:29
  Rachel: And I think we have, like, offhandedly talked about this here and there.
• 3:36
  Rachel: And, like, because it's.
• 3:38
  Rachel: This is our message, right?
• 3:39
  Rachel: Like, this is our brand for Golden May.
• 3:41
  Rachel: Is.
• 3:42
  Rachel: This is mindset wise.
• 3:44
  Rachel: This is how you show up when it's hard.
• 3:46
  Rachel: Because it's always hard.
• 3:47
  Emily: Yeah.
• 3:48
  Rachel: But I have actually been thinking a lot about this recently because it has been so hard and I've been doing it anyway.
• 3:56
  Rachel: And is that a healthy thing or is that not a healthy thing?
• 3:58
  Rachel: Like, I've been showing up?
• 4:01
  Emily: Do we want to coach each other first and then we can get into our actionable feedback?
• 4:04
  Emily: No, I'm just kidding.
• 4:06
  Emily: But no, I am curious because I am, like, impressed.
• 4:08
  Emily: You had a crazy, crazy summer and you managed to do a lot, and I'm curious, like, how did it feel?
• 4:15
  Emily: Was it.
• 4:15
  Emily: Did it feel healthy?
• 4:17
  Emily: Did it not feel healthy?
• 4:19
  Rachel: Okay, so there's a lot of facets to that, and I think in the complexity of our human experience, it's helpful to think about the writing itself.
• 4:29
  Rachel: Healthy, right?
• 4:30
  Rachel: Very good.
• 4:32
  Rachel: Like, I think it was hard to show up.
• 4:36
  Rachel: I don't like revisions.
• 4:38
  Rachel: You know, the.
• 4:40
  Rachel: This is not my favorite phase of the process, but my biggest inhibitor was time.
• 4:48
  Rachel: So as far as, like, my relationship to my creativity, great.
• 4:53
  Rachel: It felt fine.
• 4:54
  Rachel: I did it.
• 4:54
  Rachel: I'm happy.
• 4:55
  Rachel: I'm proud of it.
• 4:57
  Rachel: But what suffered was, like, I'm not playing when my daughter's asking me to play, you know, like, that was the part.
• 5:04
  Rachel: I feel like I was prioritizing my writing above other things.
• 5:09
  Rachel: And that's okay.
• 5:10
  Rachel: I'm not mad about that.
• 5:11
  Rachel: But I do feel the pain of that.
• 5:13
  Rachel: I do feel, like, the struggle of that, where if you do prioritize your writing over other things, that means other things don't have the forefront, you know?
• 5:24
  Emily: Yeah.
• 5:25
  Rachel: So I. There were many moments over the summer where my choice was between go to the zoo or take Rose to a play place so that she could play and I could have four hours to write.
• 5:38
  Emily: Yeah.
• 5:39
  Rachel: You know, so there were.
• 5:41
  Rachel: I. I would really like to talk about, like, my mindset behind that and how I got there, because I would say generally very positive.
• 5:50
  Rachel: It was a lot of work.
• 5:51
  Rachel: I'm tired.
• 5:52
  Rachel: I know I'm getting to a burnout place that needs to be addressed.
• 5:55
  Rachel: I'm consciously not addressing my need for rest right now, and I know that's going to come back to bite me, but it's where I'm at generally, though, I'm. I. I can't believe I just did the last four months and, like, finished this book, you know.
• 6:10
  Rachel: I can't believe that happened.
• 6:12
  Emily: Yeah.
• 6:13
  Rachel: So, yeah, I think that's how it felt.
• 6:15
  Rachel: It felt good in a lot of ways, and it felt not good in other ways.
• 6:19
  Emily: Yeah, well, there's a lot of, like, things that I feel like I'm hearing in that.
• 6:23
  Emily: First of which is all that mindset work you did on the actual creation process.
• 6:28
  Emily: Right. Cause I think you're right.
• 6:29
  Emily: We have episodes on, like, how to write when writing is hard.
• 6:31
  Emily: But this is more of like, a. How do you write when life is hard?
• 6:35
  Emily: And the first and foremost thing is, like, you gotta have a good mindset when you do get to the page, because if you don't have a good mindset when you're at the page, like, it just makes everything, everything so much harder.
• 6:44
  Emily: So it sounds like that really served you.
• 6:46
  Emily: Like, when you did sit down to write, you weren't, like, hitting blocks.
• 6:49
  Emily: You were, like, having, like, mental breakdowns over your writing.
• 6:52
  Emily: Right.
• 6:53
  Emily: Like, it was like, okay, we could sit down, we could do it.
• 6:55
  Emily: So that's massive.
• 6:56
  Emily: And that's not an easy thing, Right.
• 6:58
  Emily: To, like.
• 6:59
  Rachel: Right.
• 6:59
  Emily: Learn how to do and a place to get to.
• 7:01
  Emily: But I think that's worth calling out.
• 7:03
  Emily: And then also just the awareness of, like, I'm not giving myself enough rest right now.
• 7:08
  Emily: And that is going to come back to.
• 7:10
  Emily: By me, and I need to plan for that.
• 7:11
  Emily: Like, that's okay.
• 7:12
  Emily: I think it's okay to do that as long as you're planning for it.
• 7:16
  Emily: Right.
• 7:17
  Emily: Like, burnout becomes a huge issue when people refuse to admit that they're going to hit a wall or refuse to acknowledge that that inevitability is coming.
• 7:27
  Emily: And work, you know, don't plan around it or work through it or shame themselves when they do crash.
• 7:31
  Emily: Right.
• 7:33
  Emily: So I feel like those two things are super important because, like, sometimes we do have deadlines.
• 7:37
  Emily: Right.
• 7:37
  Emily: Like you have deadlines.
• 7:38
  Emily: I'm sure if you didn't have a deadline, it would have looked real different.
• 7:41
  Rachel: Sure.
• 7:41
  Emily: Yep.
• 7:43
  Emily: And so you can, like, consciously choose to be like, okay, I'm gonna.
• 7:47
  Emily: I'm gonna do it this way, and I'm gonna recognize how that's gonna affect me.
• 7:51
  Emily: And then also the mental juggle that we do.
• 7:56
  Emily: Right.
• 7:56
  Emily: As parents between writing versus being with your kid, which is just.
• 8:00
  Emily: It's just a hard thing that no one can tell you the right balance.
• 8:03
  Rachel: Right.
• 8:04
  Emily: Like, it's just you have to make those decisions for yourself, like, in life, in your parenting in general, and then also, like, day to day.
• 8:11
  Emily: Minute to minute.
• 8:12
  Emily: Yes.
• 8:13
  Emily: And it sounds like you have found a good relationship with that or at least are aware of it and, like, working through it and trying to find it.
• 8:21
  Rachel: Yeah. I would definitely say, like, writing wise, pleased, parenting wise.
• 8:27
  Rachel: I know I got some work to do, you know?
• 8:27
  Rachel: And we are, though.
• 8:32
  Rachel: Exactly, Exactly.
• 8:33
  Emily: Do we ever not?
• 8:34
  Rachel: No, we don't ever not.
• 8:37
  Rachel: Um, I think knowing how this summer was, I want to do next summer differently.
• 8:44
  Rachel: So, like, one of the choices that I've consciously made in.
• 8:48
  Rachel: And I'll go.
• 8:48
  Rachel: I'll go back to the mindset stuff in a second.
• 8:52
  Rachel: But since we're talking about burnout, and since we're talking about hustle, in the self publishing world, you create your own deadlines.
• 8:59
  Rachel: Right.
• 8:59
  Rachel: But your momentum is incredibly important.
• 9:03
  Rachel: So in my head, and I think a lot of indie published writers feel this way, if you're not working towards your next project, you are losing money.
• 9:13
  Rachel: You're like, wasting time, losing money, losing momentum.
• 9:15
  Rachel: And that has an effect on your readership because the longer it takes you to put out a book, the inner critic myth will tell you that there's diminishing returns.
• 9:29
  Rachel: Right?
• 9:29
  Emily: Yeah.
• 9:30
  Rachel: If you don't put a book out as fast as you can, you lose readers, you lose attention, you lose that public spotlight.
• 9:38
  Rachel: So it's a pretty common practice that when you release a book, you have your preorder up for your next book at the end of that book so that people can just go pre order your next book.
• 9:49
  Rachel: So in my case, this is the end of my series.
• 9:53
  Rachel: My next book will be like a spin off series, and I've already started writing it.
• 9:59
  Rachel: I really wanted to have that pre order link in the back to be like, oh, well, you just finished Leona's story.
• 10:04
  Rachel: Go Read Fallon's story.
• 10:05
  Rachel: But in Amazon, kdp, in the Kindle Direct Publishing, if you set a pre order, you have to select a date and it can only be as far out as one year in advance.
• 10:20
  Rachel: Okay, so like let's say my book comes out September 15th.
• 10:25
  Rachel: If I want to put that pre order link in my book, I need to have it in the formatting of that book before the book comes out.
• 10:31
  Rachel: Which means realistically it has to be in the book a week before the book comes out.
• 10:35
  Rachel: So let's say September 9th.
• 10:38
  Rachel: If I create a pre order September 7th of 2026, the farthest out it could possibly be is September 7th of 2027 or September 6th of 2020.
• 10:49
  Emily: I didn't actually know that.
• 10:50
  Rachel: Yeah, so it has to be a year out.
• 10:53
  Rachel: That's as far as you can go for a pre order.
• 10:56
  Rachel: If so let's say I did that.
• 10:58
  Rachel: If I'm not able to make that year date and I need to push it back, you get penalized in the Amazon system to where you lose all the pre orders you have.
• 11:08
  Rachel: So no longer like those people aren't preordered anymore.
• 11:12
  Rachel: They'd have to re pre order, they have to purchase it again.
• 11:15
  Rachel: So you would lose all of it.
• 11:17
  Rachel: And then you get penalized through the Amazon system that you can't create another pre order for a whole year.
• 11:24
  Rachel: You could live release, which means your book goes up the day that you want it to release, but you can't have a pre order campaign essentially for a whole other calendar year.
• 11:35
  Emily: Got it.
• 11:36
  Rachel: So if I set a preorder date in September, I would be committing to another book coming out at minimum one year after that.
• 11:45
  Rachel: And I really debated do I want to make that commitment.
• 11:49
  Rachel: And ultimately I chose no, I don't.
• 11:52
  Rachel: I can't promise that.
• 11:53
  Rachel: So that was like in the hustle culture perspective, I had to let that go because as I'm feeling the burnout for this book coming, I'm like, I cannot promise that my next book will release within the next year.
• 12:09
  Rachel: It could, it absolutely could.
• 12:11
  Rachel: But I don't know how I'm going to feel in October.
• 12:13
  Rachel: Like I might have a complete implosion in October and get terribly sick and then also not write anything.
• 12:20
  Rachel: And then I'm working on like a six month deadline to get this next book in.
• 12:23
  Rachel: Like it just while I'm on maternity leave.
• 12:26
  Rachel: Yeah, right.
• 12:27
  Rachel: While you're on maternity leave.
• 12:28
  Rachel: I'm trying to get a book out because I made a pre order and I have to committed to the preorder so like, Hustle Culture wise, I knew that even if I was, even though I was working my ass off this summer, those that decision still needed to be made.
• 12:43
  Rachel: And if I was living within Hustle culture, I would have put that pre order up.
• 12:48
  Rachel: I absolutely would have.
• 12:49
  Rachel: Because I would have been like, I can't lose on this momentum.
• 12:52
  Rachel: I want readers to finish the end of Leona's book, be super hyped about it, and then buy Fallon's book.
• 12:58
  Rachel: I want them.
• 12:59
  Rachel: And am I gonna.
• 13:01
  Rachel: Could I possibly miss out on some readers of Fallon's book?
• 13:04
  Rachel: Because I'm not doing that strategy.
• 13:07
  Rachel: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:08
  Emily: But I think it's gonna be better without that pressure.
• 13:13
  Rachel: Exactly.
• 13:14
  Rachel: I already have the covers for both of Fallon's books.
• 13:17
  Rachel: I could put them up right now.
• 13:19
  Rachel: I'm not going to because I'm way too tired.
• 13:23
  Rachel: So anyway, there, like, because I'm now familiar with the self publishing industry and what the expectations are like, I'm making choices right now that are stepping myself out of it because I can't physically and mentally commit to stay on the schedule that like a lot of indie published authors are, are trying to stick to right now.
• 13:45
  Rachel: I might come back.
• 13:46
  Rachel: Like, I, I still think that's probably the most effective marketing strategy for setting your next book up for success, but effective for me right now is that wouldn't be the case.
• 13:59
  Emily: Yeah, well.
• 14:00
  Rachel: And I guess I got it.
• 14:01
  Emily: Not time to kind of take a pause because you're between series.
• 14:05
  Emily: And then you were just saying that you would do next summer differently.
• 14:10
  Emily: And I'm imagining not having deadline at the exact end of summer would be super nice.
• 14:15
  Emily: So, like, now you get to kind of think through like, what would an ideal schedule be given that your kid's home in the summer now.
• 14:23
  Emily: Right.
• 14:24
  Emily: Like, that's a such a huge life change to work around.
• 14:28
  Emily: That seems really smart.
• 14:29
  Emily: So it seems to me it seems like a smart longevity decision that's going to help you write better books and be a better writer and be a better human being and like a healthier human being.
• 14:40
  Emily: And so, yeah, Hustle Culture wants to be like those few period orders you're gonna lose.
• 14:44
  Emily: It's not worth it.
• 14:45
  Emily: And it's like, no, actually, longevity wise, it is absolutely worth it.
• 14:49
  Emily: And it's gonna bring you money, I think, in the long run because you'll be able to like, be smarter and like, more intentional, I guess, about what you do next.
• 15:00
  Rachel: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:01
  Rachel: So, like, you know, in the context of this summer being like, I'm making a short term choice now to Work my butt off.
• 15:09
  Rachel: I have to set myself up for long term rest.
• 15:12
  Emily: Yeah.
• 15:12
  Rachel: Cause I'm pushing because you don't know
• 15:13
  Emily: how long it's gonna take.
• 15:14
  Emily: You never know.
• 15:16
  Emily: And I think we try to rush rest.
• 15:18
  Emily: Like, I was like, oh, I'm gonna be able to hit the ground running after Maine to start working on my book.
• 15:22
  Emily: And it was weeks before I could even, like, stomach thinking about it again.
• 15:25
  Emily: Like, it, like one month turned into three, four, you know, like, and I needed it.
• 15:32
  Emily: And like, in the moment, I could have pushed myself and forced myself to start writing again, but I was like, no, like, we're not.
• 15:37
  Emily: We're not ready.
• 15:39
  Emily: We need to rest some more, get some more other things off our plate.
• 15:43
  Emily: That's something I'm trying to, like, balance right now.
• 15:47
  Emily: Is like, there's a part of me, I think the antsy hustle has built this new voice in my brain that's like, you must prioritize writing.
• 15:58
  Emily: And I think that is in some ways a good thing.
• 16:01
  Emily: Right?
• 16:02
  Emily: Like, my brain is allowing me to be like, you can choose to write, but there's also this, like, shame whenever I'm like, oh, I'm gonna choose to work instead of write.
• 16:11
  Emily: Like, like the other day I was like, I really wanted to write, but I was super tired and I was just feeling really overwhelmed by my to do list.
• 16:19
  Emily: And I was like, if I. I could choose to write today, but I'm gonna feel even worse and more behind tomorrow.
• 16:25
  Emily: And I was like.
• 16:26
  Emily: And it felt like, like my body wants to be like, that's hustled culture telling you that you have to work right now and you have to get things off your to do list.
• 16:33
  Emily: But it's like, no, actually it was just like my body being like, no, I want to, like, do these other things.
• 16:38
  Emily: It's just like, get them off my plate so I can focus.
• 16:41
  Emily: And so I'm learning that, like, that that non hustle culture voice has now turned into its own version of a hustle culture voice, right?
• 16:47
  Emily: And it's like, so I think we have to pay attention to those voices and be like, what do you actually want to do right now?
• 16:51
  Emily: And I. I'm in a place where, because I don't have deadlines and because I don't want my book to come out during my child's first year of life, like, my last child's first year of life.
• 17:03
  Emily: And I want to, you know, speaking of doing things differently, there is no rush.
• 17:07
  Emily: So it's like, I'm trying to embrace that, but it's hard.
• 17:11
  Emily: I'm not used to writing slow at this point in time.
• 17:14
  Emily: Um, so it's.
• 17:16
  Emily: It is harder to, like, slow down and step out of it, especially when I'm having fun.
• 17:20
  Emily: I'm in a very different space right now because I'm having fun than I was in May when life was hard for other reasons.
• 17:28
  Emily: Um, and so in the having fun stage right now, I have to, like, I want to write, and that's all I want to do.
• 17:34
  Emily: And everything else feels, like, annoying.
• 17:37
  Emily: But if I don't give myself, like, the permission to slow down and do a little bit, it becomes not fun because then everything else is piling up and I just get really stressed out.
• 17:47
  Emily: And so when I do make time to write, it feels like my to do list is just getting higher.
• 17:53
  Emily: And so it's this balance between, like, allowing myself to write and also allowing myself to not write in order to preserve that energy so I can write later, which is just.
• 18:04
  Emily: It's hard, especially when, like, you want to do, like we've been saying today, all the things like, you want to do all the things, and there's just not time.
• 18:13
  Emily: So I'm trying to balance that.
• 18:14
  Emily: And then earlier this summer, when I was in my first trimester of my pregnancy and my husband was training for his race, and I was just, like, exhausted all the time I was trying to write my first draft.
• 18:29
  Emily: And I do not enjoy first drafts.
• 18:31
  Emily: I still have a lot to work through there.
• 18:32
  Emily: Mindset wise.
• 18:34
  Emily: Yeah.
• 18:35
  Emily: But I would feel like I was doing pretty well at first, just being like.
• 18:39
  Emily: Like, my goal was okay.
• 18:41
  Emily: Everything is just kind of nuts right now.
• 18:42
  Emily: So we're just gonna write bad words.
• 18:44
  Emily: Like, that was kind of where I was at.
• 18:45
  Emily: And I do think that's important.
• 18:47
  Emily: Sometimes when you.
• 18:49
  Emily: Especially in a first draft, if you have limited time to work on something, you just gotta be like, 30 minutes.
• 18:54
  Emily: Gonna write bad words.
• 18:55
  Emily: So I was like, I'm gonna practice this.
• 18:56
  Emily: And that worked for a while until I got so exhausted that then it was like, everything just felt so heavy and so, like, emotionally just, like, there was so much emotional baggage to, like, every time I thought about writing or sat down to write or whatever.
• 19:11
  Emily: And so the drafting voices came back, and everything just felt miserable.
• 19:15
  Emily: And I just reached a point where I was like, life is crazy right now and I don't have to write.
• 19:19
  Emily: And I feel like that is an important thing to say on this.
• 19:23
  Emily: On this podcast is like, sometimes life is insane and you just don't need to write.
• 19:27
  Emily: It's okay.
• 19:29
  Emily: And that lasted A while for me, a few months, because it was travel insane and then work insane and then pregnancy insane.
• 19:40
  Emily: And so I just chose.
• 19:40
  Emily: I was like, I'm just not.
• 19:41
  Emily: I'm just not gonna do it because I'm gonna focus on other things.
• 19:45
  Emily: And I think sometimes writers need that permission of, like, if you're trying to force yourself to write while everything is really hard outside of writing and it's taking the joy away from the writing, then, like, it's okay to step away.
• 19:58
  Emily: You don't want to.
• 19:58
  Emily: Like, your nervous system will start to associate writing with pain, and you don't want that because that is really hard to break.
• 20:08
  Emily: And so if your nervous system has started to associate writing with pain, you're going to try to avoid it, or you're going to not have fun while you're doing it, and everything's just going to feel really hard.
• 20:16
  Emily: Then you're probably going to carry that shame.
• 20:18
  Emily: Right.
• 20:19
  Emily: You shouldn't.
• 20:19
  Emily: But you might of like, you know, the voices in your head telling you, well, you had the time, you know, 30 minutes to write and you didn't do it, or you froze up, or you hated it.
• 20:29
  Emily: And that is just like a. That's a spiral that will only get worse unless you step away and just kind of like, you know, get yourself on your feet again and learn to, like, retrain your body to think.
• 20:43
  Emily: Writing is something that is safe and fun.
• 20:45
  Emily: So, yeah, it's really easy to step into that.
• 20:48
  Emily: I think that's kind of where I was at is like, I was.
• 20:51
  Emily: Yeah, I was pushing too hard, and writing started to be associated with pain.
• 20:54
  Emily: So then I started to not want to write.
• 20:57
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 20:58
  Emily: And then I started to be mad at myself because I didn't want to write, you know, and it was just this spiral.
• 21:03
  Emily: So finally I was like, I'm done.
• 21:05
  Emily: Not going to do it.
• 21:06
  Rachel: Take a break.
• 21:08
  Emily: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Rachel: I think writing can be an escape.
• 21:12
  Rachel: It also can be a burden.
• 21:15
  Rachel: And everybody.
• 21:16
  Rachel: Everybody's different.
• 21:17
  Rachel: Like, when we take this approach so often in our podcast of sometimes it's really hard to offer you guys advice because every one of you is different with your own internal voices and your own circumstances and your own physical abilities.
• 21:32
  Rachel: But that's why I think working on your mindset is so important, is because the awareness.
• 21:37
  Rachel: The awareness of knowing who you are and what you need and what's going on with you is really the only answer we have for, like, determining whether or not you should write or whether or not you can.
• 21:50
  Rachel: You can write.
• 21:52
  Rachel: So there's this class that I've taught before, and I want to teach it again to tenacious writing this fall.
• 22:00
  Rachel: But like, in my.
• 22:02
  Rachel: In when I was going through this in like, 2023.
• 22:08
  Rachel: So I. I think I made this class when you were on maternity leave the first time.
• 22:13
  Emily: Yeah. You die.
• 22:14
  Rachel: Yeah. And so Rose would have been three, so, like, still pretty little.
• 22:19
  Rachel: We were balancing daycare.
• 22:21
  Rachel: Like, I was really wrestling with this fact that there are things I cannot change about my life that make writing.
• 22:29
  Rachel: Like, I don't have the time.
• 22:31
  Rachel: I can't change those things.
• 22:33
  Rachel: And then there are parts of myself that get triggered when I try to write that prevent me from writing.
• 22:41
  Rachel: So if I could, like, deal with the parts of myself that are causing me writing problems, whatever amount of time I do have could finally be my writing time.
• 22:53
  Rachel: But without dealing with those things, there's zero time, right?
• 22:56
  Rachel: Yeah. So I called them.
• 22:59
  Rachel: Like, you have practical disruptors to your life where you're ill, you have children, you have jobs, you have responsibilities, you have pets, cooking, life, grocery shopping.
• 23:10
  Rachel: Like, those are things that you can't just not do.
• 23:14
  Rachel: Right.
• 23:15
  Rachel: Especially for women like us.
• 23:17
  Rachel: We can't just not make food, right?
• 23:20
  Emily: Yeah.
• 23:20
  Rachel: Like, we can't.
• 23:21
  Rachel: We can't just not have.
• 23:23
  Rachel: Not watch the child.
• 23:25
  Rachel: Right?
• 23:25
  Emily: Yeah.
• 23:25
  Rachel: We have a. We have a partner.
• 23:26
  Rachel: We have a spouse.
• 23:27
  Rachel: Yes, very helpful.
• 23:28
  Rachel: But I'm saying, like, the child just doesn't disappear because you don't want them anymore.
• 23:33
  Rachel: Right.
• 23:33
  Rachel: Like, you have a child, you can't do anything about that.
• 23:36
  Rachel: You have a job, thankfully, you have a job.
• 23:38
  Rachel: You can't do anything about that.
• 23:39
  Rachel: But then you have, like, belief disruptors, which is the mindset.
• 23:46
  Rachel: So, like, I don't have the time and energy I think is either a physical disruptor or a belief disruptor.
• 23:53
  Rachel: I don't.
• 23:54
  Rachel: I have to write faster.
• 23:55
  Rachel: I only have 10 minutes today.
• 23:56
  Rachel: I gotta do this as fast as I can.
• 23:58
  Rachel: That's a belief disruptor.
• 23:59
  Rachel: Like, no, not necessarily.
• 24:01
  Rachel: So I need to work harder.
• 24:03
  Rachel: This has gotta be perfect.
• 24:04
  Rachel: I have to get all the right words.
• 24:06
  Emily: Only written words count.
• 24:07
  Rachel: Yeah, only written words count.
• 24:09
  Rachel: Exactly that.
• 24:10
  Rachel: It's gotta be good enough.
• 24:11
  Rachel: Because other I only have so much time.
• 24:13
  Rachel: If it's not good enough, then the time, like, I'm wasting time.
• 24:18
  Rachel: You know, there's all that mindset stuff that goes on, but if you can deal with the belief stuff going on, then it's so much easier to show up to the page.
• 24:27
  Rachel: So that's why this summer was so helpful for me, is because my belief disruptors, I. It like, picture a volume dial Turned all the way down, right?
• 24:37
  Rachel: I don't have time for that.
• 24:38
  Rachel: I don't have time for that shit.
• 24:39
  Rachel: I have to just do the jobs.
• 24:42
  Rachel: So like we, if you can turn those belief disruptors down, they don't disappear.
• 24:48
  Rachel: But if you can learn how to be aware to your inner critic voice in the time that you do have, you can make choices that work for you.
• 24:58
  Rachel: Whether that means writing or resting, right?
• 25:00
  Rachel: Because you don't have to fill.
• 25:02
  Rachel: I was telling this to my writing partner Amelia on Tuesday night.
• 25:07
  Rachel: I was sick, right?
• 25:07
  Rachel: But I got in bed at 9 o', clock, I put the puppy in the crate and I was like laying in bed and I was like, I could do some line editing right now because these are prime working hours for me.
• 25:19
  Rachel: Between 9 to 11 I get a lot of work done.
• 25:23
  Rachel: Prime hours.
• 25:24
  Rachel: And I was messaging her like I could do some line editing.
• 25:28
  Rachel: I'm just laying here.
• 25:29
  Rachel: She was like, go to bed.
• 25:33
  Rachel: And I was like, but, but if I have a moment of spare time, shouldn't I fill it with work?
• 25:39
  Rachel: Yeah, no, do what you want to do.
• 25:43
  Rachel: So I didn't, I just scrolled my phone instead.
• 25:45
  Rachel: Not that that was a better choice, but.
• 25:49
  Emily: Well, and I think the, the belief disruptors to kind of tie back to what we were saying before.
• 25:53
  Emily: The belief disruptors are what make writing painful, right?
• 25:55
  Emily: So it's this self feeding cycle of like if you sit down and your brain is full of self doubt and shame and like all of these beliefs that make you feel like you're a worthless piece of shit, right?
• 26:11
  Emily: Then it's gonna start to feel unsafe to write, which is gonna make you even less likely to show up, which is gonna make those voices louder, right?
• 26:19
  Emily: And so that's why like craft answers in that state are not the answers that you need, whether you're drafting or revising.
• 26:29
  Emily: Like the answers that you need are to start to work through that mental stuff.
• 26:32
  Emily: So I just want to extend to people.
• 26:35
  Emily: If this feels like something you're struggling with, is like, you know, you've got a really demanding life and yet you want to write and yet writing feels unsafe for you.
• 26:46
  Emily: Like if that feels true, we're going to pop the link for our Anti Hustle Writing Life masterclass.
• 26:54
  Emily: It's free, it's like two hours long.
• 26:57
  Emily: It is a primer on this stuff.
• 26:59
  Emily: So if this is new for you, definitely go into the Show Notes and check that out.
• 27:03
  Emily: Out.
• 27:04
  Emily: We'll put the link in there for you to download it.
• 27:06
  Emily: Because this is, this is the key to making the most of the limited amount of writing time.
• 27:12
  Rachel: Exactly.
• 27:13
  Emily: Not just making the most of it in terms of like, productivity, but also like enjoying it.
• 27:19
  Rachel: Really enjoying it.
• 27:21
  Rachel: The awareness to your ingrained beliefs points you in the right direction of what you should do.
• 27:27
  Rachel: Right.
• 27:27
  Rachel: Like if you're having a perfectionism voice, you showing up to the page will always be limited by that voice.
• 27:38
  Rachel: But if you can ha.
• 27:39
  Rachel: If you can learn how to manage that voice, you can then write for as much time as you have.
• 27:46
  Rachel: That's why I feel like I don't have enough time is a belief disruptor.
• 27:51
  Rachel: Because you can write a book in 10 minutes a day.
• 27:55
  Rachel: So when people are like, I need one to two hours to sink into the page, I'm like, do you?
• 28:00
  Rachel: Maybe you do.
• 28:01
  Rachel: That's also okay if that's your process.
• 28:03
  Rachel: But do you?
• 28:03
  Rachel: Are you sure?
• 28:05
  Rachel: Because look, I don't have two hours every day to write and I've written four books, right.
• 28:12
  Rachel: So there are days where I put off my other responsibilities so that I can have more time.
• 28:18
  Rachel: But there are days where all I have is 10 minutes and we just show up and get it done.
• 28:24
  Rachel: But if you.
• 28:25
  Rachel: If you've got this narrative in your head of the way that it should be, or you can't do it because of X reason, or you need to be moving faster or it's not good enough or whatever the narrative is, that's what needs to be dealt with.
• 28:40
  Rachel: Not rearranging your life that you can barely change as it is because you're overwhelmed and you're tired.
• 28:46
  Rachel: Your life like you most of the time.
• 28:49
  Rachel: We can't change our practical disruptors.
• 28:51
  Rachel: I'm not telling you you need to put your child in childcare so that you can have more time to write.
• 28:55
  Rachel: I'm telling you work on your perfectionism because you're going to have more fun writing and you're going to write more and get more accomplished and be like, love it.
• 29:05
  Rachel: Because you're no longer burdened by this need to protect yourself from making mistakes.
• 29:12
  Emily: Yeah.
• 29:12
  Rachel: Like who deal with that.
• 29:14
  Rachel: And that's how you write in the insane times.
• 29:17
  Rachel: That's also how you know when you need to rest.
• 29:20
  Rachel: Because if you're like, can barely bring yourself to the page, don't do it.
• 29:27
  Emily: Yeah.
• 29:27
  Rachel: Take a day off.
• 29:29
  Rachel: And also don't feel guilty about it.
• 29:32
  Rachel: Like, guilt.
• 29:33
  Rachel: Guilt.
• 29:35
  Rachel: Rest with guilt is not rest.
• 29:40
  Rachel: So if that practical.
• 29:41
  Rachel: If that belief disruptor is still going on in your head, you're not resting effectively.
• 29:47
  Rachel: Yeah, we've gotta deal with that so that the whole can become More sustainable, more consistent, more, quote, healthy.
• 29:56
  Rachel: And I.
• 29:57
  Rachel: This has been really like last year.
• 29:59
  Rachel: So this time last year, and go back to 2025.
• 30:03
  Rachel: In the summer of 2025, I had the worst migraine season of my whole life.
• 30:10
  Rachel: And due to medications that I was on, I was having a period every other week.
• 30:16
  Rachel: I had nine periods last summer.
• 30:18
  Emily: Jeez.
• 30:19
  Rachel: And, like, my body, I felt like, was disintegrating.
• 30:22
  Rachel: Like, I was just so.
• 30:24
  Rachel: I felt so terribly all the time.
• 30:26
  Rachel: It was either period, which is exhausting.
• 30:30
  Rachel: I was anemic because I had a period every other week.
• 30:33
  Rachel: My brain was on fire because I was having 25 migraines a month.
• 30:36
  Rachel: Like, it was insane.
• 30:38
  Emily: Yeah.
• 30:38
  Rachel: And that was like, even with those chronic illnesses, my relationship with my creativity was okay.
• 30:46
  Rachel: Right.
• 30:46
  Rachel: I'm not saying that I was pushing myself through writing because, you know I have a chronic illness and like.
• 30:53
  Rachel: Yeah, because I feel so good about my writing life.
• 30:55
  Rachel: I was writing anyway.
• 30:56
  Rachel: No, I'm saying that, like, in those moments, I was so.
• 31:00
  Rachel: I felt so terribly with my migraines and with my body that thank goodness my mindset was in a good spot.
• 31:08
  Rachel: So that I felt okay taking time off.
• 31:11
  Rachel: And like, when I was tired, I went to bed.
• 31:14
  Rachel: And when I wanted to read a book, I read a book.
• 31:17
  Rachel: So, like, I think your health has so much to do with the.
• 31:26
  Rachel: Your time and energy to show up.
• 31:29
  Rachel: And for many people, there's not much you can do about your health.
• 31:32
  Rachel: Yeah, like, I can't change my migraines.
• 31:35
  Rachel: They just happen.
• 31:37
  Rachel: I got in a better medication.
• 31:38
  Rachel: I. I see a wonderful neurologist.
• 31:40
  Rachel: I found like a treatment plan that works for me, and that's helped extensively.
• 31:44
  Rachel: It's also fucking expensive.
• 31:46
  Rachel: And like, not everybody can pay for my migraine shots that I get every month because they're like twelve hundred dollars and thank goodness I have insurance.
• 31:54
  Rachel: Well, actually, that's another funny thing that.
• 31:56
  Rachel: I'll update you, Em.
• 31:57
  Rachel: I don't have insurance right now.
• 31:59
  Rachel: I don't have any health insurance.
• 32:00
  Emily: I knew that was happening.
• 32:02
  Rachel: So this month I can't take my migraine shot because I can't pay $1,200 out of pocket for a shot.
• 32:09
  Rachel: So good luck to me in five days when my migraine shot runs out.
• 32:15
  Rachel: But anyway, my point being is that you're.
• 32:17
  Rachel: I think your health can often be a practical disruptor, but in the small time that you do feel good, let's deal with the belief disruptors so that you can show up to it.
• 32:28
  Rachel: So for me, it was like, I can have a healthy Creative life.
• 32:31
  Rachel: Even if I have chronic migraines, that was like, a belief I had to ingrain in my body.
• 32:36
  Rachel: Like, my migraines don't need to disrupt my relationship with my creativity.
• 32:41
  Rachel: Actually, they mean that I need to make my relationship with my creativity healthier so that I can rest more.
• 32:47
  Emily: Yeah.
• 32:48
  Rachel: And then we got that figured out.
• 32:49
  Rachel: And this summer was a whole different set of challenges.
• 32:51
  Rachel: But, yeah, I just feel like I. Sometimes I really want to address, like, the chronic health question because it's so hard when you feel shitty.
• 33:03
  Rachel: You want.
• 33:03
  Rachel: But you really want to write.
• 33:05
  Rachel: But your body, your literal body is your disruptor.
• 33:08
  Rachel: There is nothing more discouraging than that, truly.
• 33:12
  Rachel: And. And that's coming from me as, like, my body is relatively healthy.
• 33:17
  Rachel: Right.
• 33:17
  Rachel: Like, migraines are usually my only problem.
• 33:20
  Rachel: And there are some really.
• 33:22
  Rachel: There are writers out there that I know with severe chronic health problems that all they want to do is show up to write, and it's their body that's not letting them, and that's really hard.
• 33:32
  Rachel: So I think, like, that's why I feel so strongly about mindset work, is so that you can take advantage of those windows where you feel good enough to do it.
• 33:40
  Rachel: Like, let's give you that ability instead of the perfectionism showing up on the one day of the month where you're not in pain.
• 33:49
  Rachel: Yeah, no, like, let's deal with your perfectionism so that on that day when you're not in pain, you're ready, you can do it, and you feel good about it, and it's fun.
• 33:56
  Rachel: Anyway, that's my little.
• 33:58
  Emily: No, I think that's so.
• 33:59
  Emily: I think that's so important, and I think it's really the.
• 34:03
  Emily: The stark difference.
• 34:04
  Emily: Right.
• 34:04
  Emily: Between your approach to how you managed your creativity last summer.
• 34:12
  Emily: Yeah.
• 34:13
  Emily: Right.
• 34:13
  Emily: When you were not feeling healthy and you really had to take a lot of breaks and do a lot of rest and all of that versus summer, where it was like, the disruptors were different.
• 34:22
  Emily: Right.
• 34:22
  Emily: It was your kid being home.
• 34:23
  Emily: It was work.
• 34:24
  Emily: It was, you know, the client book they unexpectedly had to write and, like, all this other stuff.
• 34:29
  Emily: Right.
• 34:29
  Emily: You're.
• 34:30
  Emily: You're actionable.
• 34:31
  Emily: I. I keep wanting to say coping mechanisms.
• 34:33
  Emily: Like, that is not right.
• 34:35
  Emily: Sometimes it feels like that your strategy was very different.
• 34:38
  Emily: Right.
• 34:39
  Emily: And, like, you are approaching it very differently.
• 34:41
  Emily: And so I think, again, download that.
• 34:45
  Emily: That free masterclass, because what you need to start to do is start to.
• 34:50
  Emily: To introspect into, like, what are your goals right now?
• 34:52
  Emily: Like, what actually matters?
• 34:52
  Emily: Right.
• 34:54
  Emily: We talked about how I realized that, you know, Finishing my draft.
• 34:58
  Emily: This might have been last episode, but finishing my draft for my Alpha reader didn't have to be a finished, fully written draft, right?
• 35:03
  Emily: Like, my goals, I was ascribing external expectations to my goals that didn't need to be there.
• 35:09
  Emily: So, like, being really clear on, like, what do you actually need to do and what.
• 35:13
  Emily: What are the stakes, right?
• 35:14
  Emily: Like, there are some stakes.
• 35:16
  Emily: There are some real external monetary stakes to you not reaching your deadline, right?
• 35:21
  Emily: And so that's very different from me, right?
• 35:21
  Emily: I have no external monetary stakes other than, like, future ones, right?
• 35:27
  Emily: In terms of, like, when my book may or may not get published.
• 35:31
  Emily: But even those don't really matter because I know I don't want to publish next year.
• 35:34
  Emily: So, like, getting really clear on, like, what are the goals that you have that are yours, right, that are not coming from external sources, but that are your goals that you want to meet and your definition of success?
• 35:45
  Emily: And then what are the stakes, right?
• 35:47
  Emily: What are the stakes of the deadlines that your brain is telling you you have to keep is really important?
• 35:52
  Emily: And then from there you can kind of interrogate, okay, how are you actually feeling, right?
• 35:55
  Emily: What are your actual blockers right now?
• 35:58
  Emily: What actual time do you have to write?
• 36:00
  Emily: And, like, how is that time being used, right?
• 36:00
  Emily: And are there mental voices that are keeping you from making progress when you sit down to write?
• 36:07
  Emily: Because those voices, we like to tell ourselves that they are forcing us to be productive, right?
• 36:12
  Emily: Like, oh, my perfectionism and my, like, guilt and my shame, like, they're gonna drive me to success, right?
• 36:19
  Emily: That is not what happens ever.
• 36:21
  Emily: It might happen for, like, a day, maybe a month, right?
• 36:23
  Emily: If you're lucky or unlucky, right?
• 36:27
  Emily: Because then you're gonna crash even harder.
• 36:29
  Rachel: You're going to crash no matter what.
• 36:32
  Emily: It's not.
• 36:32
  Emily: That is not sustainable.
• 36:34
  Emily: Like, those voices will tell you that they're gonna help you succeed and help you avoid shame and future shame and vulnerability.
• 36:41
  Emily: But really, they are just dragging you down.
• 36:43
  Emily: They are just holding you back.
• 36:45
  Emily: And if you look at the reality of, like, the progress you're making right now and, like, really look at it and be honest with yourself.
• 36:52
  Emily: Like, are you showing up to the page?
• 36:52
  Emily: When you show up to the page, are you making progress?
• 36:55
  Emily: And, like, if not, like, those voices are holding you back, right?
• 36:59
  Emily: And so you have to deal with those voices to make the most of the time that you have.
• 37:03
  Emily: You have to.
• 37:05
  Emily: So go watch the Masterclass.
• 37:07
  Emily: Even if you've seen it before, go watch it again.
• 37:10
  Rachel: Yeah, watch it again.
• 37:12
  Rachel: Because it hits it hits different, and it asks you to think of different things.
• 37:18
  Rachel: And I think, like, when you.
• 37:20
  Rachel: If I would give you some questions to mull over for yourself personally to.
• 37:25
  Rachel: To bring more awareness to the difference between a practical disruptor or a belief disruptor that you're experiencing and what's going on inside your head, in your body when you sit down to write?
• 37:36
  Rachel: I would be like, what do you hear in your head when you do sit down?
• 37:40
  Rachel: Like, if you open up your computer or you get out your notebook and you're ready to write, what's going on inside your head at that moment?
• 37:48
  Rachel: What do you feel?
• 37:49
  Rachel: And when you.
• 37:50
  Rachel: When you have that narrative, the next question is, where did that come from?
• 37:56
  Rachel: And what is it?
• 37:56
  Rachel: What does you feel like that's doing for you?
• 38:00
  Rachel: Um, because at the heart of it, all of these different narratives that we have, the inner critic, she can be mean, but she's trying to protect us, right?
• 38:09
  Rachel: Like, she's trying to do.
• 38:11
  Rachel: She's doing something.
• 38:13
  Rachel: She's probably not just being mean.
• 38:15
  Rachel: Maybe she is being mean on purpose, but maybe she's, like, being mean on purpose to toughen you up because you feel like if you're.
• 38:21
  Rachel: You're not tough enough, right?
• 38:21
  Rachel: Like, yeah, but then that's doing something that's still trying to protect you.
• 38:25
  Rachel: So most of the time, our inner critic narratives are doing something for us, even if we can't recognize where they came from or what.
• 38:34
  Rachel: What they're doing.
• 38:36
  Rachel: And that is the heart of it.
• 38:38
  Rachel: Of, like, well, that's.
• 38:39
  Rachel: That's the part that's not true.
• 38:41
  Rachel: It's like, you don't need to be tough to write a book.
• 38:44
  Rachel: You don't need to protect yourself.
• 38:46
  Rachel: You're.
• 38:47
  Rachel: No one's gonna hate you if that word isn't right.
• 38:49
  Rachel: Like, those are the voices that you can change, so you've gotta get to it.
• 38:53
  Rachel: But then also, like, the should conversation.
• 38:56
  Rachel: Where are the shoulds coming up, right?
• 38:56
  Rachel: So when you sit down to write or you think about, you look at, like, a schedule of your week and you think, oh, I should have written those nights, because those are the nights when I didn't have a commitment or the kids went to bed early or whatever it was.
• 39:13
  Rachel: I should.
• 39:14
  Rachel: I should write there.
• 39:15
  Rachel: Should you?
• 39:15
  Rachel: I don't know, like it.
• 39:17
  Rachel: Let's examine that should.
• 39:18
  Rachel: So whenever a should is coming up, that's a sign something's going.
• 39:22
  Emily: Is never, ever real.
• 39:25
  Rachel: I don't think so either.
• 39:26
  Rachel: I don't think so.
• 39:27
  Rachel: Like, whenever I hear the should, I'm like, I think you're wrong.
• 39:30
  Emily: Because the reality is that books are not life or death for 99.5% of people.
• 39:38
  Emily: Yes.
• 39:39
  Emily: They are not life or death.
• 39:42
  Emily: And so, yeah, you really have to, like, sit with that.
• 39:46
  Emily: Like, if it's not life or death, should you, like, is there a should ever.
• 39:52
  Rachel: Should you write every day?
• 39:52
  Rachel: No. Should you be published by now?
• 39:55
  Rachel: Nope.
• 39:57
  Emily: Yeah.
• 39:57
  Rachel: Should you be getting better reviews?
• 39:57
  Rachel: Nah.
• 40:00
  Rachel: Should you be done?
• 40:01
  Rachel: No. Like, just.
• 40:04
  Rachel: I think there's all this.
• 40:06
  Rachel: Should you write more?
• 40:07
  Rachel: Nope.
• 40:08
  Rachel: You only have 10 minutes.
• 40:09
  Rachel: Should I find more time?
• 40:10
  Rachel: No. If that's all you have, you can
• 40:12
  Emily: if you want to.
• 40:13
  Emily: Should you?
• 40:14
  Emily: No.
• 40:14
  Rachel: Did you?
• 40:14
  Rachel: No.
• 40:15
  Emily: No.
• 40:16
  Rachel: I think looking at that.
• 40:18
  Emily: Who said you should?
• 40:18
  Emily: Who's the should coming from?
• 40:21
  Rachel: Who said that?
• 40:23
  Emily: We have a whole episode on Should I think where I just, like, got on a soapbox and, like, lost it.
• 40:29
  Rachel: But there's also a difference.
• 40:30
  Rachel: It's okay to say, I want more time to write, not I should have more time to write.
• 40:37
  Rachel: Like, if you want more time, how can we make that happen?
• 40:40
  Emily: Yeah.
• 40:41
  Rachel: And there's a difference between I wish
• 40:42
  Emily: I had written last night and I should have written last night.
• 40:45
  Rachel: Yes.
• 40:46
  Emily: There's a huge difference between those two statements.
• 40:49
  Emily: And the more you can retrain your brain to start to.
• 40:51
  Emily: To learn that, like, I wish that I had done something because, like, yeah, maybe you did start scrolling and you lost an hour.
• 40:57
  Emily: That maybe you wish you hadn't.
• 40:59
  Emily: Right.
• 41:01
  Emily: But that's because you're a human being.
• 41:03
  Rachel: Yes. There's a. Well, you're.
• 41:05
  Rachel: You're experiencing in that moment regret versus shame.
• 41:09
  Emily: Yes. Yes.
• 41:11
  Rachel: And there is a difference.
• 41:12
  Rachel: And you do not need to shame yourself when you feel regret.
• 41:17
  Emily: Yes.
• 41:17
  Rachel: Okay. There is a big difference.
• 41:20
  Rachel: Like, if you look at something and wish you would have done it differently, that's something for you to try again differently next time and see what happens.
• 41:29
  Rachel: But for me, the other night when I chose to scroll instead of line editing, I would have gone to bed, but I'm not.
• 41:39
  Rachel: I'm a piece of.
• 41:39
  Rachel: Because I didn't do that.
• 41:41
  Rachel: You know, I got up the next day and I was like, well, still
• 41:44
  Emily: tonight I'm going to bed.
• 41:47
  Rachel: That was a bad choice.
• 41:49
  Rachel: But I'm not being there being like, oh, my God, I'm what a idiot.
• 41:54
  Rachel: I can't believe I did that.
• 41:55
  Rachel: I'm a piece of shit.
• 41:56
  Rachel: Like, that's like.
• 41:57
  Rachel: Then the.
• 41:58
  Rachel: Tonight when I go lay down in bed and I'm about to scroll, I'm going to be like, what do I need right now?
• 42:04
  Rachel: Because actually, what I needed in that moment was just to turn my brain off because I'm exhausted and I'm tired, and I was very overwhelmed.
• 42:13
  Rachel: So as much as I wish I would have gone to bed sooner, that was still my effort to, like, reclaim some relaxed time.
• 42:21
  Rachel: So really what that's telling me is that I need more rest.
• 42:25
  Rachel: And I know that we've been talking about this.
• 42:28
  Rachel: I'm aware.
• 42:30
  Rachel: But I'm not gonna sit there and beat myself up about it because it doesn't do anything.
• 42:34
  Rachel: I'm allowed to have grace.
• 42:36
  Rachel: I'm allowed to give myself grace.
• 42:37
  Rachel: I'm allowed to be like, I'm literally trying my best.
• 42:42
  Rachel: I'm trying every day.
• 42:44
  Rachel: I'm just.
• 42:44
  Rachel: I'm just a girl.
• 42:47
  Rachel: Just a girl trying her best.
• 42:49
  Rachel: So just give yourself grace.
• 42:51
  Rachel: Don't.
• 42:51
  Rachel: And don't, like, don't do the should game.
• 42:54
  Rachel: It's just.
• 42:56
  Rachel: It's just, like, that's a sign that you have some internalized shame going on.
• 43:02
  Rachel: And.
• 43:02
  Rachel: And in that moment, you don't need the shame.
• 43:05
  Rachel: You need the regret.
• 43:06
  Rachel: You don't need the regret.
• 43:07
  Rachel: You need the grace.
• 43:08
  Emily: Yeah.
• 43:08
  Rachel: So, like, go easy on yourself.
• 43:11
  Emily: Yeah.
• 43:12
  Emily: And that's where I think a lot of should voices, if not most of them, come from hustle culture.
• 43:18
  Emily: And what hustle culture tells us that we should be doing or how we should be doing things.
• 43:26
  Emily: And so starting there, again, go download this masterclass.
• 43:30
  Emily: But starting to dismantle that is a really good place to begin because it will help you start to rewrite some of those beliefs that are holding you back just by weighing you down with shame and guilt that you don't need and by halting your progress when you do have the time to write.
• 43:50
  Rachel: So, yeah, like, I. Again, I wish this summer I would have spent more time with Rose.
• 43:56
  Rachel: I, like, just literally could not have.
• 43:59
  Rachel: Right.
• 44:00
  Rachel: I had too many practical commitments.
• 44:03
  Rachel: I have a job.
• 44:04
  Rachel: I work full time.
• 44:06
  Rachel: Like, I. I just couldn't.
• 44:08
  Rachel: So that's the best I can do.
• 44:09
  Rachel: But I'm.
• 44:10
  Rachel: I'm working really hard to.
• 44:12
  Rachel: To let her know, like, how much I love her and how this is a struggle that every parent faces, and I'm trying to talk to her about it.
• 44:22
  Rachel: And next summer, I'm gonna do something different.
• 44:25
  Rachel: Right.
• 44:25
  Rachel: I'm not, like, being like, oh, I'm a shit mom because I chose work over my daughter.
• 44:31
  Rachel: It's like, no, I literally.
• 44:32
  Rachel: You don't have a choice a lot of the time.
• 44:35
  Rachel: And then all you can do is just give yourself grace and try to show up differently next time.
• 44:41
  Emily: And even when you do have a choice.
• 44:43
  Emily: Like, sometimes you just have to make a really shitty choice, first of all.
• 44:48
  Emily: Or you make a choice that you wish you hadn't, but that doesn't make you a horrible person.
• 44:53
  Emily: Like, I.
• 44:55
  Emily: I've talked before about how I spent my first maternity leave revising my book for.
• 45:00
  Emily: Because I had just.
• 45:01
  Emily: I sold it the week that my daughter was born, and I spent my entire maternity leave working on this book.
• 45:07
  Emily: And I had a lot of regret.
• 45:10
  Emily: And, like, for a while, that was, like, manifesting as shame.
• 45:14
  Emily: And I really had to let that go and be like, yeah, I could have pushed my deadlines.
• 45:17
  Emily: I had that choice, and I had to own that.
• 45:19
  Emily: Right.
• 45:19
  Emily: It's not like nobody was, like, holding a knife to my throat being like, you must have this book in by January.
• 45:25
  Emily: Like, I.
• 45:26
  Emily: I did have agency in that moment, and I have to own that.
• 45:29
  Emily: I had agency in that moment, and I made a choice, and I'm gonna live with that choice, and I'm gonna do things differently this time.
• 45:34
  Rachel: Right.
• 45:34
  Emily: Like, that's all that we can do as parents, as writers, as human beings.
• 45:38
  Emily: Like, is look back and be like, I wish I'd done that different.
• 45:41
  Emily: I'll do it different next time.
• 45:42
  Emily: But carrying the weight of that shame is just.
• 45:45
  Emily: It's not productive.
• 45:50
  Rachel: We don't say that word productive, in the sense of, like, you're not getting enough done.
• 45:54
  Rachel: You need to be more productive.
• 45:55
  Rachel: It just does nothing for you.
• 45:57
  Emily: Right?
• 45:57
  Rachel: Like, it does nothing for you.
• 45:59
  Rachel: It doesn't help you.
• 46:00
  Rachel: It doesn't make you a better person.
• 46:03
  Rachel: Exactly.
• 46:04
  Rachel: It doesn't.
• 46:05
  Rachel: Like, it doesn't automatically ensure that you will make a different choice next time.
• 46:11
  Rachel: It doesn't.
• 46:12
  Emily: Yeah.
• 46:13
  Rachel: Like, actually, when you're in a healthier mindset, that's when you make a different choice.
• 46:17
  Rachel: But the more that you shame yourself, you kind of continue to spiral.
• 46:21
  Emily: Yes.
• 46:21
  Rachel: It doesn't really help you become a better person.
• 46:24
  Rachel: That's also why there's a difference between guilt and shame.
• 46:28
  Rachel: Where guilt is, you know, that you've made a mistake, but shame is.
• 46:35
  Rachel: You feel like a piece of shit because of that mistake or you are a piece of shit because of that.
• 46:39
  Rachel: There's a difference between all these different emotions.
• 46:42
  Rachel: And for a very long time, I didn't know what they were.
• 46:47
  Rachel: You know, like in.
• 46:47
  Rachel: In the.
• 46:48
  Rachel: I also have to acknowledge, like, in the phase of doing this work was like, 2020 to 2022, and I was in my big Brene Brown phase.
• 46:57
  Emily: Yeah.
• 46:57
  Rachel: Right. Where I'm, like, learning so much about my emotions, but I needed that I didn't have any emotional intelligence to understand the difference between regret, guilt and shame within my own body.
• 47:08
  Rachel: And. And now I can identify they.
• 47:11
  Rachel: They actually all physically feel the same to me physically.
• 47:15
  Rachel: Like I. I have very few physical reactions and most of it is my body gets hot and I'm going to cry.
• 47:22
  Emily: That's it.
• 47:24
  Rachel: Those are the only physical things my body is capable of feeling.
• 47:28
  Rachel: But internally, I can tease apart the difference of those things now.
• 47:31
  Rachel: And if.
• 47:32
  Rachel: If you don't know what that is, do some emotional intelligence work, you know, because I don't feel like I had any clue what emotions were, how they felt and what they meant until I went through all of that phase.
• 47:47
  Rachel: And like, anyway, that's part.
• 47:50
  Rachel: That's part of where the awareness is coming from.
• 47:52
  Rachel: When you have that awareness of what's going on when inside your brain, I feel like you then can give yourself more grace.
• 48:01
  Emily: Yeah, that's an important step.
• 48:06
  Emily: You got to get to know those voices in your head and what they're trying to do and where they're coming from and who you are really.
• 48:12
  Emily: So, you know.
• 48:13
  Emily: No, don't worry, guys.
• 48:17
  Emily: I'm just kidding.
• 48:17
  Emily: It's definitely not easy, but it's worth it.
• 48:19
  Emily: It's what for me, I feel like this work has just made me feel like a better human being and love my life more.
• 48:25
  Emily: And, yeah, it's made me Learning to be a better writer, has made me a better mother, has made me a better human.
• 48:32
  Emily: So this work is worth it from every standpoint.
• 48:36
  Emily: So, yeah, we've listed the Antsy Hustle class.
• 48:40
  Emily: We'll put that in the notes.
• 48:41
  Emily: And then Brene Brown, if you haven't heard of her, all of her books are fantastic and a really good resource for starting some of this emotional intelligence mindset work and rewriting shame and stuff.
• 48:55
  Emily: So definitely go check out those.
• 48:57
  Emily: But above all, just like, be kind to yourself.
• 49:00
  Rachel: There's.
• 49:01
  Rachel: There are a lot of.
• 49:03
  Rachel: Really helpful there.
• 49:04
  Rachel: You know, there's recently some controversy around Brene Brown.
• 49:09
  Rachel: And if you would prefer to find other resources, there are tons of emotional intelligence resources that can bring you this awareness.
• 49:19
  Rachel: But every step you take forward in knowing yourself better benefits every area of your life.
• 49:28
  Rachel: And again, this is why in our work at Golden May, you can't.
• 49:33
  Rachel: We don't believe you can isolate your writing life.
• 49:36
  Rachel: It's just your life.
• 49:38
  Rachel: And when life is hard, all these other pieces become factors in your ability to show up for your creativity.
• 49:45
  Rachel: But if you know how to treat yourself with grace and respect and love, it ripples into all of your other choices.
• 49:54
  Rachel: And that for me, got rid of a lot of the belief disruptors.
• 49:59
  Rachel: So that in the time that I have, in the crazy, challenging life that I'm experiencing right now, I can make the most of the time available to me.
• 50:08
  Emily: Yeah.
• 50:09
  Rachel: And for me, that's how my books have.
• 50:11
  Rachel: That's literally how I've gotten every single book completed.
• 50:14
  Rachel: If I didn't know how to do this, I still would not have one book out, let alone four.
• 50:20
  Emily: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Emily: You guys got this.
• 50:25
  Emily: If any questions came up during this episode and there's any piece of this that you want us to expand on more, please shoot us an email.
• 50:34
  Emily: Podcast info.
• 50:36
  Emily: Nope, nope.
• 50:38
  Emily: Podcastoldenmayediting.com and, um, just subject line podcast question.
• 50:45
  Emily: And just let us know what's going on.
• 50:46
  Emily: Um, we'll take questions, personal stories, whatever.
• 50:51
  Emily: Whatever your challenge is, however you can articulate it, we'd be happy to chat through it on the podcast.
• 50:57
  Emily: Um, yeah.
• 50:59
  Emily: And just.
• 50:59
  Emily: Yeah, check out those resources in the.
• 51:02
  Emily: In the show notes.
• 51:03
  Emily: And just be kind.
• 51:05
  Emily: Be kind to yourself.
• 51:06
  Emily: Be easy on yourself and
• 51:10
  Rachel: look inward.
• 51:11
  Rachel: Yeah, yeah, we're here.
• 51:14
  Rachel: We're.
• 51:15
  Rachel: We're doing the same thing.
• 51:17
  Rachel: Listen to our last episode.
• 51:19
  Emily: Yeah.
• 51:19
  Rachel: You want to hear about all of our practical disruptors and how we dealt
• 51:25
  Emily: with them very differently.
• 51:26
  Rachel: Exactly.
• 51:27
  Rachel: I mean, that's why this work is ongoing.
• 51:29
  Rachel: But it does benefit you in every phase.
• 51:33
  Rachel: It just continues to benefit you.
• 51:38
  Emily: Alrighty.
• 51:39
  Rachel: If you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
• 51:46
  Emily: Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs.
• 51:49
  Emily: After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
• 51:53
  Rachel: Link in the show notes.
• 51:54
  Rachel: We'll see you there.
• 51:56
  Rachel: Bye.
• 51:57
  Rachel: Bye.