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Ken Carfagno: Letting Your Creativity Flow · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to the Saturday edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the Saturday edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailyriderlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I believe one of the most difficult things for us to do as writers is to get into a state of creative flow.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yet doing that is also one of the most important things that we can do.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's difficult, yet it's also vital that we do this.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because without a state of flow, it's hard to make meaningful progress in our writing.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Constantly have to deal with fits and starts in our writing instead of enjoying steady progress.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: My guest today is the amazing Ken Carfagno.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ken is a successful cleaning business owner, and he's also the host of the Smart Cleaning School podcast, which helps cleaning business owners take their business to the next level.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ken is also the author of the fantastic young adult novel Arctic Land.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ken wrote this book a few years ago for his kids, and now he's working on a sequel.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I asked Ken to share his process for writing this book, and in this conversation, you're going to learn a lot about great writing habits.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is almost like a masterclass in using great habits to start and finish book projects.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I took a ton of notes from this conversation, and I know that you are going to as well.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my conversation with the amazing Ken Carfagno.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ken Carfagno, it's so good to have you on the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe that it has taken so long for us to do this.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We've known each other for a few years, but uh apparently I didn't get my act together soon enough.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But here we are, and I'm glad to have you on the show.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much, Kent.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's an honor to be here.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And judging by the amount of books, for those that are maybe watching this on video, there are about 500 books behind Kent's head.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm guessing we're gonna be talking.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I guess we're gonna be talking to a group of people that are maybe into books and writing.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope uh I hope I can there that there's a there's a segment or there's a there's a there's a part of this of this podcast that I can touch on that maybe hasn't been talked about before and and hopefully can be of value to your to your audience.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm absolutely sure of that.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we're here today to talk about flow state, and there's a lot of directions we can go with this, but I guess my first question is why is this topic important to you?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're an author, you run a business, you're a content creator, you have a podcast, you're doing all kinds of things.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why have you found that getting into a flow state is so critical for being the best at what you do?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: There is a ton of science on this, and we won't go there.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's also a ton of emotion on this.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: We may go that direction more.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I would just share from personal experience that I have struggled in writing.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've struggled in business.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when I tend to break things up in small chunks, or if I sit somewhere to write or to work on a project and force my creative hand, sometimes it might not happen.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: You hear the term writer's block, and I'm I don't want to beat that topic because I'm sure that you have covered this.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some say, oh, that's not that's not real, writer's block.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll just I'll just think I'll just share that the the flow state is a place that you can get to and it's created.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And once you create this, it's you it's usually created upon a very strong structure and almost over tedious um sequence of events that have to take place in the exact order, and it puts your it can put your brain into a previous time.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: For example, and this if I'm if I'm losing you, you you let me know.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So this is great.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine showing up at your desk.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, you know what, I got a busy life.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have five kids.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I run two businesses, five kids, and I wrote a book in the midst of all this.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And this is going back 2010 to 2015.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote, I wrote this book.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love, I loved it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I look to do, I like to do this more, but I didn't know when I'd have the time to do this book.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: I how am I gonna how am I gonna write 200, 500, thousand words a day?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: How am I gonna do this?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'll just set myself a time.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Boom.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do it after work.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do it at night, I'll do it in the morning.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'd sit there.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what do I do?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't end up spending time on Excel, like writing things out, maybe what I would write.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then I finally get to the Word document and I'd start writing things, and I couldn't get too far.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: The next day I'd show up, uh, I don't know.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I just go through this repeat over and over again, not really accomplishing much.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: But then I didn't realize I had done it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just fast forward.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: There was a time when I would sit down in my chair with the exact circumstances that got me to that chair.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll talk about that.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: You might say, That's kind of crazy.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I had, let's say, I had written the prior day and I had covered uh a thousand words, and I felt oh, felt so great.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that euphoric feeling, like, oh, this is a great day of writing.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: I got so much out.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: I love what I got done.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then you you're like, well, I'm nervous once I close this, once I close this chapter of my day, can I get back here tomorrow?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get back here?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to do, well, maybe I'll do it once a week, twice a week, whatever.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'd show up at the desk the next at my chair the next day.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when when I opened up my document, there was no, there wasn't any like, well, what should I do?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't even like that.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's my my brain was it's it's like my brain went back.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I had paused the movie and I lived my life for 23 more hours, showed back up at the chair, hit on pause, and I was in the exact place I was mentally, emotionally, psychologically, all of that.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was there and I just started writing in the exact place I was from the day before.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's flow state.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I could do that, and I pounded out.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: It took me four and a half years to learn how to write because I had no writing ability prior to that.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and I go, I went through rough draft after rough draft, never completing a book.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: But once I figured out the flow state, this was in 2014, I believe.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I knocked out a 45,000 word book, I think it was 45,000, in about three months of just going after it day after day.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: But that was flow state.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we can go any direction you want, but I was disorganized and I couldn't get things done.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was frustrated, and then I figured this out, and I saw that there's a different level of creativity, not just in the moment, but there's a continuing level, a continuation of creativity that you can tap into.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will record an intro for this episode later, but and then mention your book, Arctic Land.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: But give us kind of a rundown of what this book is so listeners have a context for what exactly you were writing.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I do have a print copy in front of me.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's um close to let me look here, it's 157 pages.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and this is, I believe, six by nine.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The print version?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm looking at it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It it's really sad that I know that, but I spent so much time around books and stuff.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I can I can look at a book and just tell you what the size is generally.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So six by nine.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not a tiny little short book.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you wrote this a few years ago.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Give us some context for what this book actually is, the story, um, the audience for the book, so so we have a better understanding of what you were actually creating.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Arctic land is in the written form, but it's it's it's an adventure.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's an adventure in relationship between father and child.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: In 2010, in March of 2010, I had my oldest son was five years old.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: That that young man is now almost 17, which is just mind-boggling.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: But him and I spent a lot of time together, and I'm a very creative storytelling person.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I would make up stories for him at night.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would read stories for him.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: We've always been a read aloud family.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: The benefits of reading aloud to your kids is oh my goodness, this could be a whole nother topic.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was seeing the effect of the relationship that was forged between reading to our kids at night out loud.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I still do that today with my almost 17-year-old and all my children.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we started making up stories like, hey, let's uh let's do the story called Kenny Carfagno, you're you know, the greatest baseball player of all time.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just make up a story.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Kenny, and he started his career at nine in the little league and going through boom boom, and I would just create a an arc of life.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was showing him a struggle victory.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was painting, I was trying to teach him like a lesson.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here's what it takes to become the greatest.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then when he's like, I love that.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Can I be the greatest?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, you used to be an engineer, dad.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Show me greatest engineer.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if there is a greatest engineer of all time.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Kenny Carfagner, the greatest engineer, engineer of all time.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Kenny Carfagner, the greatest construction uh guy of all kinds.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Dad, I want to do another one.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Kenny Carfagner, the greatest adventure discovery man of all time.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's do it.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started making up a story, and I would make up these stories.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the first story that I made up, it was about uh this this boy Kenny and his dad.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: That would be the two of us that were there, and the other character involved was the like my grandfather, my grandfather have always called him pop up, and it would be with pop-up, and he was missing, and pop-up was a member of the greatest adventure discovery team, GAD, G A D, agreed.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the GAD team of all time, and Kenny wanted, you know, the young boy Kenny wanted to be a part of that team, but uh pop up and his other team members of the GAD team, they had found all these lost lands all over the world.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm making this up as I go.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: You've probably heard people talking about this, they make up stories, yeah.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so the the last lost land they were looking for called Arctic land, that was uh that's where their demise met.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: They they saw separated, they they lost, they got lost, and pop-up's been missing, and the team's all missing.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what happened?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so now Kenny and and dad are are like a uh are are alone to to solve this, and I just told the story, blah, you know, and I did this night after night.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: It took three nights to finish the first story.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: My wife got got wind of this because Kenny was like, Oh, this story is amazing.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, You should start recording that.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, so I went back and I re-recorded it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: I redid the story, Arctic Land, recorded it, and then we went on to record nine more adventures, which lasted from March through August of 2010.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was so much fun.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then in August of 2010, I'm talking of all people with our pastor at the time.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, uh, it's the first time I met him, it was a new church.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're at, and I'm like, Yeah, hey, Pastor, nice to meet nice to meet you.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, so what do you do, Ken?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I have a cleaning business and uh I do a little writing.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Writing, what are you doing?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, just you know, I uh started writing down some ideas for a book with my son.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: You need to do that.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so it put this thought in my mind, I've got all these, I have 20 hours of recorded stories.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: What would it take to turn that into a book?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now I am not.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you look back at my SAT scores, I was like a 700 math and a not available in English.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was like 270 or 300, something terrible in the English portion.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So are those good or bad?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I took the ACT in high school.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't have a context for what's good and bad with SAT.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: 800 is the best you can do in.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it's still the same now.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a verbal section and a math section.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: The best you can do overall is 1600.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Set, and so I had one of the highest you can get on the math side of things, and then on the verbal section, it was very, very, very bad.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: So people listening will recognize like a 300 verbal is not good.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have to like a literate people could probably score 100.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm the least likely person to write a book, and so I had to seek that out.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: But it's so this story was forged bedside with my son, and then the next three and a half years, where how do I turn that story into something that could be for him, first of all?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then as that that dream and vision got bigger for others, and then I started getting super excited and passionate about bringing the story beyond just to others, but to fathers, because I saw the benefit of doing this story with my son, making him the main character.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, ideas and uh ideas around adventure came in play all throughout this book.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the story itself, I compare it to like an Indiana Jones Meets Adventures and Chronicles of Narnia.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very much talking animals, goofy.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's like the portal into the fantasy world, there's the real world, there's the fantasy world.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was studying over 50 books in the genre.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I read in 2011, 12, 13 when I was writing, I probably read and listened to audiobooks, uh I think a hundred books in my genre in about a year and a half time to really study out well, what are the rules?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was learning that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are the rules of the genre?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: I had to learn that.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was taught by writing mentors, you can't break the rules until you know them.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like you got to know them, you got to follow them.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe as an established writer, you can start breaking some of this rule.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me generate what the rules are.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: What what types of rules come in from other books?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let me adopt those.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there's talking animals, there's the portal, there's the fantasy world, there's the fun, there's the adventure, there's the there's the the relationship aspect between father and son, which I wound through.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then me as a as a Christian, I wound, I also put in um character development.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the main theme of this of this first book is is really forgiveness.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it really, it really, I love the way it developed in the end and how forgiveness transforms a beast into a non-beast.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to give the book away.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a great, there's this, there's a plot to the book, but there's more to a plot.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what I want to show you, I don't know if you can see it in the video, but I'll explain it to those that are just watching a podcast.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to turn through the pages, what you'd see are blank lines.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And 2014-15, when I was publishing this, the technology wasn't where it is now.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to create, I didn't want this to be a book where I published it and the character would be Kenny and me.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't want other people to read about me and my son.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to create a book that it was based on me and my son, but I wanted other dads to get a benefit, the same benefit.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So what if I found a way that every every dad that read it, he was always dad, and the pop-up was always grandfather or pop-up or whatever that relationship name is.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then the child was the actual child's name.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I used the the you know, the high-tech knowledge of a blank line, essentially, where the dad now has to when the dad sees a blank line, he reads through your child's name is Ben, you know, it's dad and Ben, or if it's a daughter and it's and it's uh Sarah, it's dad and Sarah.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so now it it it it creates this ownership of the adventure, which draws the child into this plot with his with his or her father.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the the first component I wanted.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a plot that I that that would inspire adventure because I want I see that adventure has a tremendous impact on building and forging a relationship between two people, especially a father and son.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then so how do I enhance that ability to create that relationship?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, first was a really fun plot, and that's the book Arctic Lynn.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: The second piece was make it personalized, and there's better ways of doing this now.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's like electronic versions I could make, I could have a survey.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: What's the name?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, it populates the book.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure I could do that now.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the third piece I added was an interactive portion, and then I came up with this.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was gonna, I never got the actual trademark from the uh you know US patented trademark office, but I have a logo in the corner, which you may or not be able to hear, or you can't see if you're listening.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Dynamics and reading.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: The logo is actually a silhouette of me and my son when he was six years old, me reading a book to him, and dynamics is the the brand I came up with.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And apologize, did my voices go out?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, okay, you're still here.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're just I just lost a little bit.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just edit that part out.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so and in this logo, Daddy Amex was the brand I came up with with dads being dynamically building a relationship with their sons.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And after publishing the book, I did a blog and audio uh video blog series on this for about three years, and then this was the interactive portion and dad's daddy's and reading.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then what the interactive portion looks like, which again, I for the podcast listeners, they can't see this, so maybe there's a video portion.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll just describe it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: There are logos throughout the book.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Every time the father and son see the logo in the back of the book, there is a list of activities that are survival activities, which are super fun.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Get outside and do something where you're you have to survive, like how to get water out of a tree or purify water out of a creek or how to build a lean to shelter, how to survive a volcano.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's one, how to survive a polar bear attack.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's these fun survival things that we'd researched, and and my son and I are very much into that.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a uh there's there's maps.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I had a good friend of mine who's a graphic designer, designed these maps that the father and son, as they're going through the book, there are maps you can look at and figure things out.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's riddles, and then I have this this what's called GAD.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: GAD again stands for greatest adventure discovery, GAD log book.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And there are 37 different interactive uh adventures.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And just to see, you can see what it looks like.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And again, um, I know you the listeners can't see this, but I'm just gonna show you.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is the one I've just done with my son Colby.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: At nine years old is a perfect age.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's meant for boys and girls, eight to twelve.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: What I find is nine and ten is like the absolute sweet spot.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say I had this one printed and and bound over at uh the UPS store.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you print these out, and then the first activity was it's in the book.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's the logo.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then the first activity was drawing a picture.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few pictures as you go through them.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is my son actually doing them.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, there's a picture of the boat.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a picture of my son and I.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Whoops.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: When we created a wood whistle, we found wood outside, we bored it out, we put a fluting piece inside, and we built a whistle out of wood.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's so awesome.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there's the picture.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Again, you can't see this if you're listening, but it's a picture of my son and I after him holding up his whistle.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: It works amazing.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we painted it, he wrote his name on it, we put the date, and so this book is now a journal that the son or daughter fills out as the as they go through the book with their fan with their with their dad.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it could be a grandfather that does it too.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then the end of the journey, they have a great time, but then the the journals remains, and a year, five years later, the child can go back and say, Remember this, dad?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it just it was the third piece that I wanted to have.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: So great plot.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I also wanted to have the personalization that it was the actual son and father, and then the third part was interactive, which would enhance it more.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole my whole heart and desire behind this was relationships between fathers.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw just such a tremendous void with great relationships between fathers and their kids.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I was hoping that this could be something that was an invention, never been done before.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: It would get out to the world, and I would just become this super successful author.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'd publish this thing, and you know, just like Field of Dreams, this is so amazing.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna publish it, it's gonna go out.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna come and everyone's gonna love it.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I can quit my cleaning business and I can just write.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: I have nine of the books to write, and boom.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I released the book and it was crickets.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, wow, um, you know what?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: This didn't go as I planned.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I probably need a marketing arm behind this.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's but that's the book itself.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I shelf the project in 2018, right before I sold my first company and our family moved from New York to Pennsylvania.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I shelf the entire Daddy Namics project in 2018 with the purpose to go build my cleaning company, build some time, life, and locate time, money, location freedom, and then get back to my books.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I love it as I love doing it as a project.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Even if I never made money, I just I enjoyed doing it so much.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to finish these books.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I also had in the back of my mind, what if this was something that could become the next career?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that I know that's a very long answer, but it wasn't a it wasn't a traditional book.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it was, it was an invention that had the written form to it, but there's more to it.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let me get back to and thank you, by the way, for kind of walking us through that to help us get a context for what exactly it was that you were creating.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an awesome book.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an awesome project.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: So walk us through Exactly how you established a flow state while you were writing the first draft of this book.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you said it took you three months.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: What was the routine that you had?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Were there any tricks or strategies or tactics that you used where you could stop writing one um the one day and then the next day come back to it and pick up right where you left off?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I have several things.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't jot these down beforehand.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna go out of memory, some different things.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's number one.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, I was immersed in this project.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it I wasn't just a flow state, that doesn't mean that I only thought about it during my one hour, two hours of writing in the morning.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was immersed in this project for a long time.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Here's I'm gonna give you the broad picture of what my life was like.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: At that time, I'm running a cleaning business where I am the one cleaning and I have I have time, I can listen to audio.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was listening to different things prior to writing a book.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And here's what I chose to do during that time.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had these 22 hours of recorded stories, 10 stories.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're writing a multi uh multi-book and a series, a series book, right?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many threads that once you open them, oh my goodness, it is tough.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like I look at what J.K.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rowling has done.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you can keep track of all those threads that go through seven books that are a hundred thousand words apiece.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It blows my mind how many threads.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: She probably has 5,000 threads she has to keep track of.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Some she'll lose in book one and bring back in book six, and she doesn't break any rules.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's just incredible if you study that out.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so the first thing is I listened to my own audio on a regular basis, me talking through the 10 books.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I would keep those in my mind.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: I also had a like an Evernote with different ideas that I wanted to incorporate in the current book or future books.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Those were those are two things I had.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd be listening to my books, or I might be listening to other books.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm listening to the whole Harry Potter series or the Lord of the Rings series or any number of fiction fan adventure fantasy books that I was involved in at the time, and I'm writing down notes.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what is the plot?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: What are the rules?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: What type of portal was it?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I would write down notes, like I would pause for my cleaning and I would get out my ever note and I would write things down.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I was immersed in the uh in the craft and learning.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was also, um, I also had found writing mentors like the Daily Writer, for example, which what you you run, right?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have that, I didn't have that that option, but I I would have loved something like that to have people around me.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have other writers around me, but I had writing mentors.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I would ask questions, I would email.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I went to I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator Illustrators, the SCBWI.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: I joined that.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was a member, I went to week uh monthly meetings, I had some connections.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I went to the Monday night critique groups at a at a at a library to read parts of my book.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: I went through that.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I was immersed in it daily.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just something I showed up for.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then on a then on a regular tangible level, at the you know, you know, the writing part of it, I had found that once a week I could not create a flow state.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: I found about three to four days was the minimum I needed.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And my schedule at the time was I I needed to be cleaning by about eight o'clock or eight thirty.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: I would get up at 4:45, maybe five.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, don't say that.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't say that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this is what I did.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I did.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I have I have five kids now.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: At the time I started this in 2012 and 13, I'm I'm doing this, and then into 14 is when I really hit the flow state.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: At that point, we had our fourth child.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we had a baby, and my wife was not getting much sleep, and I didn't have a separate office, so my writing area was in our bedroom, so I couldn't turn the lights on, and she was not getting up because she was trying to get sleep.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I woke up, alarm clock, 4:45, and it may have been five, whatever.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm pretty sure it was 445.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Alarm go, boom.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh but I wasn't, I was excited.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was excited because I was in the flow state, and I'm like, I can't wait to write.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: There was just something there's excitement about this, and I'm just I'm showing you the day, a day in the flow state, not how I started it, but what a day looked like when I was in it.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you you can you can visualize how I got to that point.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so now at 445, boom, I'm out of bed.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can't wait.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I would go to the bathroom, and this is this was exactly the steps bathroom to the kitchen to get my glass of water.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would down a glass of water.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was always a health habit I wanted to do.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'd get a cup of coffee.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I made it the exact same way, exact same way, I mean, every single day.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Got that cup of coffee, got nice and hot.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: I remember walking it from the kitchen to my bedroom, and it was always challenging because everything was dark.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of times I might spill it because I always overfilled it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: But like walking the coffee to the bedroom, there was like this nice uh chair that I had on my writing chair.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like a lounge chair that I use as my writing chair.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: I would sit down, I had a place for the coffee off to the right.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I got my laptop, I opened it up, and I went to the notes of the day before, where in other words, I had a word document where I'm writing the book.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the, at the end of my writing, I would actually read another 250 to 300 words of of my summary of yesterday and the things I wanted to write about today.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I would read those two or 300 words.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, look at this.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I wrote about yesterday.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I remember this.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, and I there is a couple ideas I wanted to make sure I got out today.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, here's the ideas, and snap.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: That started to trigger.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I had done the the with the delivery and the habits and the routine of me getting to that, getting to my keyboard was exactly the same as the day before.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe this is Wednesday, same thing happened Tuesday, same thing happened Monday, same thing happened the prior Friday, prior Thursday.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And once I started, I took in that 300 words, I went back to where I stopped writing.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: I also would take a look, I kept an a book outline in uh Excel, which outlined every chapter and every scene in every chapter.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was keeping track of word count and a bigger picture goal of each of what each chapter was going to be in the book.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I had kind of designed that out also.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I could just glance at that boom.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Here I'm in this chapter.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Here is the the scene I'm working on.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the one I did yesterday, and I've got all this kind of rehashing of the day before.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Boom.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just start typing, and it just it's it's like my fingers and my brain all went to the same place I was 24 hours ago.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to think about it.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to um try and do any kind of uh you know tricks to get myself into a creative place.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: The flow state is a it's it's almost it's almost like you're driving a manual transmission and you are already in fifth gear and you just kind of hit the clutch to coast for a moment, which is the rest of the 23-hour day.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Then I come back and I'm back on the highway again.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: That the super highway, the flow state's the super highway of creativity.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I never I didn't have to shift from first gear to fifth gear again.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was already there, but I'll tell you, there's days, Kent, where I may have skipped two or three days and it was a Monday, I didn't I didn't get back till Friday.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: I may had I had to drop into second or third gear, and it took a while to get back to fifth in that flow state.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I also remember when I stopped writing altogether and then I started to pick up.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: For example, when I wanted to write the second book, I started doing it and I had a lot of trouble because I was starting over that momentum, that idea of pushing the boulder.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a lot of momentum to get it started, but once it's rolling down a hill, it just goes.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So flow state is a momentum, and to create the momentum requires consistency.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: It requires, I think it requires a good note system, note-taking system, so you can keep track of where you were the day before and where you're going.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I also believe it requires a exacting routine.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I've heard you've probably talked about this.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: There are authors that have routines that are borderline obsessive compulsive, but that's what they do.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I I didn't, and I I was studying authors too, but this is this is the overall, you know, there was that higher level of I was immersed in my book and in what I was doing and learning about what I was doing throughout the day.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I was at my computer, it was such a regimented routine that I built, and it was just a couple things, but I needed those triggers to get my mind back into the place it was the day before.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is a lot of really, really golden stuff.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know we only have a few minutes left in here.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let me, for my sake and for listeners' sake, let me do a quick rundown of all the things that you mentioned.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually put my mic on mute.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, listeners won't know this, but I put my mic on mute for a few minutes so I could furiously and frantically type some notes.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: So your habits were wake up at the same time, have a glass of water, make your coffee the same way, read a summary of the writing you did yesterday, and what were the other couple of things that you mentioned there?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I went to the bathroom too.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, oh, bathroom.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I gotta put that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's important.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I tell you what, it's whatever, it's whatever routine you create.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And for my for me, my routine was alarm clock, 445, go to the bath, get up, don't wake my wife, sneak out of the bathroom.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Put my slippers on, I was in my pajamas still, probably grabbed my sweatshirt when it was cooler, went into the bathroom, used the restroom, obviously wash my hands, go to the kitchen, have a glass of water, and then I would get my coffee made.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And while I was getting my coffee, because there's always that two minutes of microwave time, um, and my mind's just processing, thinking, considering, planning, getting myself back into the state of where I was.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking about it.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then I make I make my way holding my coffee very carefully, not spilling it, sitting down on my chair, putting my coffee in the exact place it was the day before, and grabbing my laptop, reviewing the notes from the day before, uh, reviewing the uh where I wanted to go today with my writing, looking at the last paragraph I had written from the day before.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: These all inspired that flow state.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: I also took a glance at my book, my book map I used on Excel, which I could I'd be glad to share a book map example if you ever wanted to see that.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I I had a boom, I look at it.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: What's the scene I'm in?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what's the scene I wrote yesterday?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, go there.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then once I kind of had that uh reconnection with yesterday, then I just started typing because my my brain already already knew what to write.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to think what am I gonna write today?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: My brain already knew because I I had done the same thing as the day before, and I was in fifth gear on the highway, and I and it's like I never left yesterday.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was there again, and somehow 23 hours and life had passed.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is so this is so fascinating.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I love your phrase, my brain already knows what to write.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I have found in myself, and I think other people feel this way also, that sometimes we perceive that writing is really, really hard because we're working too hard at it.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like we don't trust our creative brain to produce something good.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we feel like it it should be all this effort.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if we just let go, if we've done our prep work, we've done the outline, you know, we've gotten into the habits and the routines.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if we sit down, there is an element to creative writing, I think, where you just kind of need to let go and let your mind do its thing.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a sense in which a lot of writers talk about you're not creating the words, you're listening to the words.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, your creative mind is doing the dictation, and your job is just to be the transcriptionist to what your mind is creating.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And people frame that all kinds of ways, like listening to you know, the creative wind or listening to um their creative voice or whatever, however they want to frame it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I love that idea of just being obedient and listening and kind of just almost getting out of the way so that you're so that your brain can do what it needs to do.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's another huge component, there's another huge component of this.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, I was in mentorship groups and I knew the I knew this was a holdup.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are many writers.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I knew the stats back five years ago when I was as more involved, but the stats are something like 90% of people never finish a book.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then of the ones that finish, and I knew these stats.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, of the of the of the 10% that finish, 90% never find a publisher.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Of the ones that have a publisher, 90% never become a never, never recoup their investment.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: They never make much money.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, the there's the the acting, uh I'm sorry, writing is such a lonely profession, and yet so few people, it's so lonely, and so few people ever truly succeed.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we do it?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a different type of animal to do this.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this is also, we are we are also the most critical people of ourselves because it's so lonely.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: And this is part of what you're saying, the transcription piece.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I also had to get over something in myself where for three and a half years I was trying to make a perfect draft.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And because I was trying to make a perfect draft, I never finished a draft.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: My first draft never, never materialized.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would get through two-thirds of it, start over, three-quarters of it, start over, one chapter, start over.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I would rehash chapter after doing them over and over and over again.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was in this flow state, I also had to allow myself, just like you said, transcribe the creativity as a really amazing way to explain the flow state in terms of like that's that could be the title of this episode.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Transcribing your creativity.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's really good.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: But you also have to allow yourself, once you've written yesterday, stop going back to yesterday.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Look at what you did yesterday, but move on to today.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: And allow today to become yesterday, move on to tomorrow and to get through the stinking first draft.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Once I finished my first draft, I said, I now have the right.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I had mentors.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: They told me this, Ken, finish the draft.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Finish the draft, but I need to fix chapter.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, finish the draft, Ken.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went and finished the draft.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And now that I had a draft, I was able to give the draft to my mentors who were editing the draft.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I then gave myself permission to go back through and I rewrote it, which took me another three months with the help of mentors to rewrite the entire 45,000 words, but this time I did it with uh more of a critical eye.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: But you've got to finish the first draft, and that's the problem, is that if you're you won't be able to get to a flow state.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe you'll get you'll get to a flow state if you can't allow the create creative mind to continue down the road day to day.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you keep rehashing the day, if you keep rehashing previous days' work, you're you're you're pushing the brakes.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're in fifth gear, but you're pushing the brakes and you're dropping into fourth in the third.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't even realize you're doing it, but you are.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Man, this is fantastic.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Ken, I appreciate you sharing all this.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is absolutely golden stuff.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where can our listeners find out more about your work and grab a copy of the book and just get to know you a little bit more?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Kent.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's two answers to that.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, um, thank you for having me on the show.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed talking about this.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't had a chance to share this with many people, and most people would think I'm nuts talking about stuff like this.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I have a I perceive that your audience will hear this and relate to it.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for giving me that chance.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: As far as uh places to find me, I have a podcast which would be a fun place to connect with me.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually in my industry, which is the cleaning industry, it's the smart cleaning school podcast.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in that podcast, I really talk business owners' mindset for cleaning business owners.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're even as a writer, I believe you can get some valuable information from there.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you know someone in the cleaning world, pass it on.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: And as far as the book Arcticland, just check out dadnamics.com.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: D A D N A M I C S Dadnamics.com backslash Arcticland, or you can just navigate to Arcticland from that website and you can read about the book.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: That'll direct you on where you could buy it.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if any of your listeners can't would like a copy of the book, then just let me know.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Reach out to me.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be glad to sign one over.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can I have some in stock.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: I can sign them over to the father and the son and make it even more personalized.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: So let me know if anyone is interested in that.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Ken, thanks again so much.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: This has been an absolute blast and a pleasure.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this is going to be really, really helpful for listeners.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've already helped me a ton.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is wonderful.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks again.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's my pleasure.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ken, have an amazing day, and thanks for having me on the show.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, wasn't that a fun conversation?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I mentioned at the beginning of this, I took a ton of notes and I really did.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just learned so much from Ken and his process for actually getting this book done when he wrote it.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: My main takeaway from this conversation is the process that Ken used to describe how he starts each day's writing.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: He goes back and look at what he wrote yesterday and where that is in the story outline.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then he looks at his book map, you know, which he's got outlined in in Excel and figures out what scene he's in, and then he just starts typing.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, your brain already knows what to write.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is such a critical insight, I think, because so many times we make writing just really difficult.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you just let your brain do the work that it wants to do instead of trying to force it to, you know, you figure out where you are in the story and then you just write.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Man, some really, really cool and amazing things can happen.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a good insight, not just for fiction, but also for nonfiction as well.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do this all the time with client books and my own material in nonfiction where I review what I wrote the day or two before or last week, and I just dive in and start and start doing it.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when you take this approach, it really is pretty amazing how much you can get written in a fast and efficient way.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just really, really pretty amazing.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you to get a copy of Ken's book and also check out his podcast where you will learn a lot about not just the cleaning business, but business in general.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a great, great business podcast.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can find all the links in the show notes, so I definitely encourage you to check those out.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again to Ken for making the time to be a guest on this episode, and thanks to you for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take a moment to let you know about our daily writer membership community.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the very best ways to develop better habits and impact more people's lives with your writing is to spend time around other successful writers.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're tired of feeling isolated and chasing success on your own, then I know you're gonna love the Daily Writer community.
• 41:35
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• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the features include weekly writing sprints, monthly community calls, book discussions, calls with guest experts, and much more.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: For more info, you can visit dailywriterlife.comslash community.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.