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Jennifer with Coffee - Episode 29 - Reading to Writing Pipeline (Solo Episode) · Jennifer with Coffee

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Jennifer with Coffee, a mindset podcast for people who are looking for real change.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jennifer Lauer, writer, yogi, and fitness fanatic.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lately, I've been having lots of coffee meetups, long,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: honest conversations that delve into mindset,
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  SPEAKER_00: identity, choices, and habits that shape our lives.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I kept thinking how I wanted to share these conversations.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode moves in three beats.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: An inspirational story,
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  SPEAKER_00: an interview with thinkers,
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  SPEAKER_00: builders, athletes, and artists, people who want to share their own transformations.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll end with a brief meditation to practice calming the nervous system.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you've been connecting with the stories and conversations here,
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've also written some fiction that explore emotional spaces.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: One is an AI dystopia and the others are part of a paranormal mystery series.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ever curious, you can find them on my website, jenniferlauer.com.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today's inspo is about following the breadcrumbs of life.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: A breadcrumb could be an experience,
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  SPEAKER_00: a place, a person, a job, a class, so many potential breadcrumbs.
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  SPEAKER_00: Following breadcrumbs has led me to many unexpected paths.
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  SPEAKER_00: It has been great for nostalgia.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I remember something that I always wanted to try as a kid is I follow that breadcrumb.
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  SPEAKER_00: An example of that is when I tried the trapeze.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a corn maze.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's Halloween, the corn maze time of year.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know how you're headed down the labyrinth of a corn maze and you don't know
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  SPEAKER_00: if it'll be a dead end That is what I feel like when I'm following a breadcrumb.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you do this and you listen to your body and you listen to your heart,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can find so many things about yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: And lately, I've been searching for my next breadcrumb.
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  SPEAKER_00: Creatively, I always have a giant pile of breadcrumbs that I'm parsing out.
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  SPEAKER_00: But just in general, I really want to focus on fun and joy.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I can be a little bit serious.
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  SPEAKER_00: My true nature is pretty joyful and whimsical.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am I'm curious, do you follow the breadcrumbs of your life?
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  SPEAKER_00: Usually I follow that curiosity,
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  SPEAKER_00: although I think I'm getting better at noticing the stale breadcrumbs
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  SPEAKER_00: and passing them by.
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  SPEAKER_00: I overturn every stone kind of thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can learn so much about yourself by doing this.
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  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm learning when it's worth my investigation or not.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let me know if you do this and what you think of breadcrumbs and corn mazes.
• 3:06
  [music]
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about reading and how it affects your writing.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're a writer, I would assume that you're also a reader.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are some writers who say they don't read a lot,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I think it could only behoove you to read that makes you a better writer,
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  SPEAKER_00: knowing what books are out there, What is current?
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  SPEAKER_00: Follow the thing that you love to read.
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  SPEAKER_00: Classic fiction.
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  SPEAKER_00: It could be contemporary, rom-com, self-help.
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  SPEAKER_00: Historical, you're apt to find one that suits you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how my reading does affect my writing.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've been kind of on a nonfiction kick.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was reading a lot of self-help and research,
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  SPEAKER_00: 10 Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is this old telling of Nellie Bly was a journalist who checked herself into,
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  SPEAKER_00: secretly, checked herself into an asylum for women back in the day.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's very fascinating.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, I love reading her essays in a series, in a paper.
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  SPEAKER_00: I recommend looking up Nellie Bly.
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  SPEAKER_00: She's a really interesting person.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's in research for my next Strange Chronicles book, which is the asylum book.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I've been writing on it off and on for a year now,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I really have gone into the research and I will make my way back out
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  SPEAKER_00: and finish it soon.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I am really enjoying the research.
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  SPEAKER_00: I also read Dear Writer by Maggie Smith about being a writer.
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  SPEAKER_00: That one was really good.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, I had been on this nonfiction kick and I was just like starving for some fiction.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it just so happened that the books that came up for my Libby...
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  SPEAKER_00: And the ones that were recommended to me recently were all very literary.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I've been on a literary kick, to be honest, quite dark.
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  SPEAKER_00: After this literary kick,
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  SPEAKER_00: which I'll tell you what I'm reading,
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  SPEAKER_00: but after this, I definitely need some lighter fare.
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  SPEAKER_00: I need some like dungeon crawler, rom-com, super light, fun stuff.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to read more Percival Everett after I read James, which won the Pulitzer, is amazing.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I read The Trees.
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  SPEAKER_00: He has many books, so I'm excited to really dig into his library.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is kind of this moral corrupt college student story.
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  SPEAKER_00: These Greek scholars working out philosophy into life.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of...
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  SPEAKER_00: Reminded me of Talented Mr. Ripley or that kind of Nietzschean story.
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  SPEAKER_00: Really good read but again like pretty dark and so then I was like my next book
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  SPEAKER_00: that came available on my Libby was a Daniel Krauss book and he wrote Whalefall
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  SPEAKER_00: which the film is coming out and I'm interested in seeing that and
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  SPEAKER_00: so I was like oh well this will be interesting to read a book by him
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  SPEAKER_00: and this one won the Pulitzer called Angel Down.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a World War I Sort of immersive.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm halfway through right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: I haven't finished it, but his brutal World War I story.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is an incredible writer, of course.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like, he deserved the Pulitzer.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of in this dark literary fiction space.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about how what I'm reading informs what I'm writing.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'm writing...
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  SPEAKER_00: Three different things right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to kind of look back at the last few books I've read
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  SPEAKER_00: and how they've informed because I don't really like to read what I'm writing.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm writing science fiction,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't really like to read science fiction because I'm afraid of it seeping
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  SPEAKER_00: into my writing like in a plagiaristic way.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to accidentally I know that all of
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  SPEAKER_00: the sci-fi I've read has informed my writing,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I don't want it to be that current.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'll try not to read what I'm writing.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking about the projects that I'm writing right now and how different they are.
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  SPEAKER_00: Reading certainly informs me as a writer.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it takes time to let it all melt in.
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  SPEAKER_00: For instance, I've noticed that I was reading all that nonfiction and craving fiction.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then as I started reading this literary fiction,
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  SPEAKER_00: I started writing a self-help nonfiction book.
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  SPEAKER_00: Writing-wise,
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  SPEAKER_00: I must have,
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  SPEAKER_00: like, I don't know if it was just an osmosis, but I just connected with an idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Muse dropped this whole thing into me and got really into this whimsical self-help book.
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  SPEAKER_00: I do see a cohesion between what I was reading and how it kind
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  SPEAKER_00: of brought me this It's a totally tangential work
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  SPEAKER_00: because I was definitely not planning to write this book.
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  SPEAKER_00: This one will probably be my next book coming out soon.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of that to say, I think that it does kind of seep in at the right time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I do think that you find there could be a book that someone recommends to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I put it on my list and And then I see it in the bookstore or I might not remember
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: the person's pitch or why I wanted to read it in the first place.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm just not feeling it, I pass it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a stale breadcrumb.
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  SPEAKER_00: I pass it by and I figure it'll come back to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: If it comes back to me maybe I'll read it then.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah I have to kind of be in the mood for a certain book.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious do you connect your reading to your writing?
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  SPEAKER_00: If so how does it work for you?
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  SPEAKER_00: Do you read what you're writing at the same time?
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  SPEAKER_00: Do you pause?
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  SPEAKER_00: Do you You have ideas come out of left field because you had been reading that for a
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  SPEAKER_00: while, which is what I think kind of happened with my current book.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let me know.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious.
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  SPEAKER_00: Connect on Substack at The Delicate Papers or on Instagram at jenniferlauer.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And now for our three breaths together.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today, we take open heart breaths.
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  SPEAKER_00: As you breathe in and you allow your belly to expand, Can you feel the heart expand as well?
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  SPEAKER_00: Inhale, letting the belly expand and the heart expand.
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  SPEAKER_00: Exhale, slowly letting the air release whatever's on your heart.
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  SPEAKER_00: A second inhale,
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  SPEAKER_00: Expanding, opening the heart.
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  SPEAKER_00: And exhale, releasing any heaviness, anything holding on the heart.
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  SPEAKER_00: Last one, inhale.
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  SPEAKER_00: And exhale, slow release.
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  SPEAKER_00: May you go on and have an open hearted day.
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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Jennifer with Coffee.
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  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on Instagram at jenniferwithcoffee and on Substack.
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been a Kings of Content production.
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  SPEAKER_00: Music by Oreo CC.