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When Are You Going to Write? · The Daily Writer

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I am so excited that you're joining me for today's episode.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just the first episode of 2022.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is also the first new podcast episode that I've done in, I think, five or six weeks.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been tuning in the last few weeks, you know that we have been doing best of episodes.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we've taken content from the last year or year and a half of the podcast and selected the best daily episodes and the best interviews.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we've kind of done a replay of those.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a lot of fun when you do a daily show because you allow people to revisit content that maybe they haven't heard in a long time or they never heard in the first place at all.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's one of the benefits of doing a daily show is that you have, you know, hundreds of episodes to choose from, which is a pretty cool benefit, if you ask me.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: But today's episode is a brand new one, and I'm really excited to be diving into a whole batch of brand new episodes, and not just the daily episodes, but guests as well.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some really fun guests coming up.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to give you a quick update on something that I mentioned a few weeks ago, and this is kind of before I get into uh today's daily episode.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So a few weeks ago, I mentioned that the reason, the main reason that I was doing a few weeks of best up episodes is because I was working on a client project that had a really, really tight deadline.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I can't tell you about what this project is just yet, um actually I will be able to tell you about it in probably two or three months when the publisher does a cover release and some marketing stuff to kind of prepare people for a quarter four uh launch of this book.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be able to do that publicly because my name is actually on the book.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I negotiated for cover credit for this particular ghostwriting project.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really, really exciting project with a major publisher.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually my first book with a major publisher.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but the deal when I signed on to this project back in, I think it was November or so, was that they had a super, super tight deadline because of some extenuating circumstances.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I've had to put some other things kind of on hold for uh for a few weeks so I could really get a good running start in this book.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you a quick update on my progress on this since I mentioned this a few weeks ago.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this book is going to be right around 60,000 words or so.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a memoir-based book.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I have written around 30,000 words in the last four weeks.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So just in the month of December, I've been able to crank out 13 chapters of about 22 or 2300 words each.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that I did that was uh, well, one thing is I just spent a lot of time doing it, but I was also really focused in uh the questions that I was asking the client and how I approached our calls together.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was really disciplined in my writing time, and I used every trick in the book that I could think of to really focus and get this, uh get a great first draft of this book done.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would light candles, I would have background music playing, you know, using the Pomodoro method, which is, you know, 25 minutes writing, five minutes break.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've used every trick in the book I could think of to help me to be really focused and productive during this time.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I've also been doing a few other client projects as well as some of my own stuff.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I've had a lot going on the last few weeks.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to mention this project because I want to encourage you in your writing.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Here at the beginning of this year, you probably have a project or two that you want to get off the ground in the first or second quarter of this year.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage you to get a good running start on this, to block out the time, to do whatever you need to do to make time to work on this project, because cool things happen whenever you put books out into the world.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I really do believe that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to give you a quick update on that project.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited in the next probably three or four months to be able to tell you what this book is and to be able to promote it on social media, because I guarantee you 100% that you have heard of the subject of this book.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the the the subject is an extremely well-known uh person.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I've it has been really, really fun to write about uh this topic and this individual.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So excited to share that with you a little bit later on.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive into today's episode, which is called When Are You Going to Write?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: We humans have an amazing capacity for deception.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: We will go to almost any length to avoid facing the truth or giving a concrete answer to a question that makes us uncomfortable.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And let's face it, we writers are pretty good with words and language, but this gift of language comes at a really steep price.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the price is that it's easy to dodge the question of when we are actually going to write.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty easy to deceive other people.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: We can tell them that we're going to write later, or perhaps we'll do it after dinner or on our lunch break or in the early morning hours, or maybe late at night.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But as long as that person is not physically checking in on us, we can kind of squirm our way past the question of when we're going to write.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a much more dangerous kind of deception, and that is when we deceive ourselves.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can make up all kinds of stories, reasons, and excuses as to why we're not going to write today.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because we're sick, we're tired, we have too many other things to do, other people messed up our schedule, and the list of reasons goes on and on and on.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I have given all those things to other people at times as well.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've given those reasons and excuses, don't feel bad because we're all in the same boat.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the author Natalie Goldberg gives us some great advice when she says this.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I hear people say they're going to write.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I ask when.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: They give me vague statements.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Indefinite plans get dubious results.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: When we're concrete about our writing time, it alleviates that thin, constant feeling of anxiety that writers have.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the reason you feel anxious about writing is that you haven't yet set a firm, concrete time when you're actually going to get the writing done.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be vague.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try to dodge the question.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just be clear and direct.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Set a time and a place and have a goal for how long or how much you're going to write.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that this single habit alone will clear up a lot of your stress and anxiety about writing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: When you've already made the decision about when to write and you simply get to work, everything becomes much easier.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's today's daily question When are you going to write today?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Be specific.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.