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Four Pillars of Successful Completion w/ Cami Ostman
18 Plays1 year ago
This week I’m joined by Cami Ostman, the founder of The Narrative Project. She’s written for Adventures Northwest and the Psychology Today blogger series as well as her own blog: 7marathons7continents.com. Cami has been profiled in O Magazine, Fitness Magazine, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post. Cami believes words are powerful and that we CREATE our identities with words—as we write, we become! We chat about Cami’s original creative wound, how she came to write her memoir, Second Wind: One Woman’s Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents, and her four pillars of successful completion—the ingredients necessary to finish writing your book (or tackling any big challenge in life!).
Cami runs The Narrative Project, which offers programs and resources for writers to get their books done. Cami’s nine-month program provides the four pillars we talk about in this episode so that you can finish your story. At The Narrative Project, they believe that writers are the change agents and movement makers in the world, and that everyone deserves to share their story. If you’d like to get involved with them, go to thenarrativeproject.net and sign up for their free monthly Mastermind Your Book meeting, complete their Inner Critic quiz, or apply to the nine-month program!
References:
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Ugly Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Ugly Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Alexander, she, they, and this is the place where creatives are encouraged to make messy, ugly art and let go of perfectionism.
00:00:14
Speaker
I started this podcast with my creative partner, Emerson, and we've since grown into our businesses. And this podcast is now evolving into a space where I interview other creatives to discuss our creative processes and how we navigate the mental mind field of creativity. This podcast serves as a reminder that you and your art get to be whatever the hell you want to be, ugly and all.
00:00:41
Speaker
Welcome back to the Ugly podcast. Thank you for coming back every other week after every other week. Today's podcast might be especially ugly with my voice going in and out. I've got the tail end of a cold, but you know what?
00:00:57
Speaker
It's healing, so I'm very excited about today's guest.
Guest Introduction: Cammy Lynn Osman
00:01:02
Speaker
Let me give you a brief introduction. This person is the founder of the narrative project, and I'm really excited for her to share more about what exactly the narrative project is.
00:01:14
Speaker
but she believes that words are powerful and that we create our identities with our words. She has a bachelor's in English and theater education from Western Washington, a master's in marriage and family therapy, and her first memoir, Second Wind, One Woman's Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents, was reviewed in O, Oprah's Magazine, and highlighted on ABC's Afternoon Show.
00:01:41
Speaker
And she's written for Adventures Northwest Psychology Today and has her own blog, Seven Marathons, Seven Continents. She's been profiled in Fitness Magazine, The Atlantic and The Washington Post. And today she lives in Seattle, Washington, where she runs the narrative project, giving writers everything they need to get their books done.
00:02:03
Speaker
Can you please? Yeah, that's a lot. Very accomplished.
Understanding Developmental Editing
00:02:10
Speaker
Would you please state your full name for us and your pronouns, please? Yes. Cammy Lynn Osman and I go by She Her. Amazing. Welcome, Cammy. Thanks. You don't have to call me Cammy Lynn. Not unless you're mad at me. Oh, OK. All right. Sounds good.
00:02:27
Speaker
Welcome, so glad to have you on. You were one of the first people that started showing me more about what it means to be a developmental editor, what it means to be a book coach, a creativity coach. I've learned so much from you. That's sweet.
00:02:46
Speaker
So, first let's talk more about the narrative project because I'm sure we'll be referencing it throughout so tell us more about what the narrative project is, and who it's for.
The Narrative Project Explained
00:02:57
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, so the narrative project is a nine month program, we have we have a handful of programs but our signature program is a nine month program where we take writers.
00:03:08
Speaker
from wherever they are in their book writing journey to a completion of their draft. So we do this with classes, skills building classes and critique groups and retreats and deadlines and support and
00:03:26
Speaker
And it culminates at the end with an anthology so everyone gets to come out with a publishing credit. So our program really gives writers everything they need to get their books done. Some writers come in with nothing but an idea. They have had an idea they've been noodling on for decades. And some come in with 70,000 words that they don't know what to do with and everybody in between. So we really have crafted a program where we can take people from where they are
00:03:57
Speaker
but they're stuck usually to the next level so that ultimately they can get to publication. And then when they get through that program, we have a second tier and a third tier. So we can move people all the way through the pipeline. So that's it. That's amazing. Yeah. So good. Yeah. And so one of the things that I've gotten the most out of is your mastermind sessions that are once a month.
00:04:23
Speaker
So I was coming into editing with just like kind of a proofreading background, like quality control. I knew how to like look at a document, find typos and grammar. But what I wanted to do was like get into story. And so I got connected with Ani, which then got me connected with you and learning kind of that
00:04:44
Speaker
not only the spine, the story spine that you teach, but then also kind of how you dig into what the writer's really trying to say based off of the surface information. You have such a magical talent for doing that. And I just, yeah, I admire it so much. Thank you. It's been really fun. Ani, so for listeners, Ani is my, started out as my administrative assistant and has, her role has grown to where she's
00:05:14
Speaker
lead coach and actually really we say she's my handler. As the program has grown, we have so many balls in the air and things that we need to take care of and she keeps me on track.
Cammy's Creative Origins
00:05:28
Speaker
So the mastermind that you're talking about is a free monthly
00:05:34
Speaker
one-hour class, not really a class, it's a group meeting that we do throughout the whole year. And anybody in the community can come over and join us and get a sense of who we are as a community. And we choose one writer and we mastermind their book. And by mastermind, it's exactly what you're saying, Lauren. We just go in and
00:05:56
Speaker
and listen to what the writer or the would-be writer in some cases, people haven't even really started, what they're wanting to write about. And oftentimes what they'll tell us is the plot, you know, they'll give us the plot points. And what we're looking for is what we call the guiding question. What is the main character really trying to figure out or understand or get to?
00:06:19
Speaker
And so by determining what that guiding question is and using the story spine, which we didn't invent, but we love it. It's a really simple way to help people get at what their core message is and how they're going to get from their idea to the end of the book. And so it's not an outline. It's akin to an outline, but less structured than an outline and more structured than a bunch of sticky notes all over your house. Right.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, great. Yeah. Well, narrative project is such an amazing, amazing group. You do such good work. I want to shift towards you. So tell me about your history with creativity. How what was your connection to creativity when you were younger? And then kind of when did the writing and like more of this creative monster kind of
00:07:15
Speaker
take center stage in your life. Yeah. It's fun to talk about this because I think we all, I think everyone has a story about where their creativity was either encouraged or squashed. And, you know, for me very early on, I can remember being in the first grade and our teacher giving us an assignment to draw a clown or to paint, rather paint a clown.
00:07:40
Speaker
And that one of the classmates was, you know, there's sometimes these kids who have this innate sense of depth and capacity to render something on the page. And there was a girl in my class whose clown looked like a clown. And the rest of us are clowns, didn't look like clowns. And so she hung, the teacher hung this student's picture up on the painting, up on the blackboard, before we had whiteboards.
00:08:10
Speaker
And as the example of, you know, a really great example of a clown, but I mean, what that served for me was to realize that I couldn't paint. And so, and I think a lot of us have a story like that, where we have a creative wound because someone has criticized, criticized us. So, you know, fast forward a couple of years. I was a quick reader and I learned to read and write very quickly. And, uh,
00:08:38
Speaker
I went to the beach with my mother and my father shortly before their divorce. So the family was kind of in this difficult moment.
00:08:49
Speaker
It was the ocean. I live in Seattle and so we see the, you live in Seattle too, don't you? Yeah. So yeah. So, um, so we get to see the Puget Sound and we see water everywhere, but I had never seen the ocean. So there at the ocean, uh, as I, as I climbed the hill from the campground into the ocean and I saw this vastness, I was, I was so overwhelmed with, um,
00:09:15
Speaker
the enormity, you know, and that you couldn't see, you could see the curvature in the earth and the sound, also the sound of the ocean blooming away. And I was about eight years old. So yeah, so it must've been second or third grade that this happened shortly after the painting, you know, kind of discouragement. And by the time I went back to my tent, I just dove inside and grabbed a coloring book and a color crayon.
00:09:45
Speaker
And I penned out a poem AB AB rhyme scheme, you know, and I thought the relief that I felt in my body was incredible was like I rendered the inner experience in an outer way with the words. And I have a lot I've since lost that poem. I don't know. I don't know where it is or what it was. But I knew that I had to write. I knew that that it was the way that I wanted to be able to express myself. And so, of course, I
00:10:16
Speaker
told everyone.
Support and Encouragement in Writing
00:10:17
Speaker
I read the poem to everybody and I'm sure they nodded politely and said, Oh, that's nice. You know, I was in children's, a child's poem, but, um, but then immediately you can imagine when I announced that I was going to be a writer that immediately the grownups would say things like you'll never make any money at that, which is like the dumbest thing in the world to say to a kid who doesn't even know how money works. I mean, I'd never heard of this.
00:10:42
Speaker
off market, you know, or retirement. So, you know, except for except for two people, two people in my life took me really seriously. And one person was my my Uncle Bruce, who said, Well, great, Kami, you should be a writer. And he'd always wanted to be a writer. It's a it's a dream. I don't believe he's ever realized unless he's doing it privately, which he may be doing.
00:11:11
Speaker
but he bought me a subscription to the writer magazine. It was a, I don't even, I haven't seen it in a long time, but, or it might've changed names, but it came every month and I would rush to the mailbox and get it because it was validation that I was a writer and it was way over my head, you know, in the third, fourth grade as you know. So, um, but I would do my best with it and I would look at the back and see the submissions page and think one day I'm going to start to submit things.
00:11:42
Speaker
And my great aunt Margaret also, who bought me a journal. So fortunately, I did have some people in my life who got behind the dream. It only really takes one or two people to get behind the dream. And truthfully, that's one of the reasons that the narrative project is such a near and dear to my heart.
Embracing Imperfection in Art
00:12:03
Speaker
business because I get behind other people's dreams. And there are a lot of people who've had the dream of writing a book for, as I said, sometimes decades who don't know or don't believe that they can do it or even have a writing phobia because something like the clown picture happens to them with regard to their writing. Yep, exactly. Yeah, it just takes that one wound to feel like, nope,
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, the the creative gene did not land on me. I clearly don't belong in this. Yeah, in this group of people. Yeah. Yeah, which have you read Big Magic Elizabeth? Oh, yes, a couple times. Yeah, just that idea of an uncreative person is laughable. We are inherently creative. It is part of who we are. It's how we've evolved as a species. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, agreed. And in fact,
00:12:54
Speaker
I now believe that creativity is something that extends to all areas of our lives, even when it's not an artistic endeavor. So for example, with my business, I think of my business as a canvas, that I am creating a gorgeous picture on. You know, sometimes we have to get creative with our checkbooks, you know? Yes. Yeah. That's how, that's exactly how I've had to approach this business too.
00:13:25
Speaker
It's also why I was so stagnant in my business when I first started it because I didn't see myself in this creative camp.
00:13:32
Speaker
And so then when it came to creating content for marketing or sharing who I am, I just felt so stuck. And then once I started embracing this creativity and being like, Oh, no, I can experiment with all these things and it doesn't have to be perfect. I can play with it. I can make it messy. That's when my business started to expand and become this creative project that I just love coming to every day.
00:13:59
Speaker
I'm so glad you came to that because it's the one thing that I'm preaching all the time is that we have to embrace the, as Anne Lamott says, the shitty first draft. And that, if we can apply that to all the areas of our lives, it just lifts so much pressure. I mean, even relationship, right? Like, so you broke up, you learned a lot, you know, and it's going to make you who you are in your next iteration.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. We have this idea of like everything has to be fixed. Like you get married, you get, you have kids, you get a house, you do these things. It's check, check, check. And then inevitably when all that falls apart, you feel like a complete failure. Right. It's like, no, it is all.
00:14:43
Speaker
a part of the creative journey of life and none of it needs to be perfect. Yeah. I'm so glad you came to that, um, younger than I did. It's going to set you free. It really has. And I mean, that's, this is why I do this podcast. And that's what it's all about is that I started making ugly art on purpose because I couldn't let go of that idea that if I was going to make art or I was going to write
00:15:11
Speaker
It had to be perfect. And so then I flipped that on its head. I'm like, nope, we're going to make it ugly on purpose then. Okay. I can't make it good. I can make it bad. And that's how I shifted it and got, I was like, okay, now I can do it because I know I can do it bad. I know I can make ugly stuff. No problem. So that's how I step in. And that's been like the most freeing thing about, I mean,
00:15:36
Speaker
my whole life has just been like, oh, I can make literally anything ugly and it'll get better as I practice and who cares if it ends up at any certain end point. I love that so much. My favorite quote of all time is G.K. Chesterton's quote that anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
00:15:55
Speaker
I love it because it applies to, it applies to creativity and even to work, you know, in a way, which as you and I have just said that even work is creative, but it applies to dancing or singing karaoke. I mean, all of these things that I love to do and relationships, right? And if you're just shooting for your best version of bad, then I think, you know, that's really all the universe can expect of you. I do have a cousin who,
00:16:23
Speaker
leads tandem skydiving experiences. And he said that that's not true of everything. Yeah, I think anything life threatening might not apply here.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah. Amazing. We have this idea that everything we do has to be good or have value. This belief leads us to burnout. It can hold us back from creating altogether. But in my Ugly Art 101 course, I break down these restrictive beliefs and lead you through exercises that intentionally subvert perfectionism and bring playfulness back into your creative process.
00:16:58
Speaker
You can get the first day absolutely free by going to my website, scribeandsunshine.com and signing up on the homepage. Join me in my weird, ugly art revolution. Back to the show.
Crafting a Memoir: Cammy's Approach
00:17:12
Speaker
So when did you start writing your memoir? My memoir story is really interesting, Lauren, because I did it out of order from the way that most people do it. Most people live through a thing when they're writing memoir.
00:17:28
Speaker
And then they think about the thing for a while and then they write about the thing and then they publish the thing. So for me, it wasn't like that. I started running marathons when I was, I think I ran the first one when I was around 36 or something like that.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I have to go back and read the book to remember for sure. But anyway, I ran the first one in Prague and started writing about it and blogging about running. And then I ran the second one in Australia.
00:18:05
Speaker
So then I thought to myself, well, you've been writing about running and you've run them on two different, run marathons on two different continents. Why don't you do one in your own backyard and knock off three continents, then you'll only have four more. My plan was just to write about all of the continents and the marathons and to do race reports. But in the midst of all of that, I went to a writing conference.
00:18:31
Speaker
And really just for fun, I decided I would pitch the idea of a book about running a marathon on every continent. And the first agent that I, that I pitched it to was not a runner.
00:18:47
Speaker
She had a terrible cold. She read the first paragraph of my first race report and just handed it back to me and said, I don't know why anybody would read about someone else writing a marathon. And I said, okay, but I had readers on my blog, so I knew some people would read it. The next person I pitched to,
00:19:12
Speaker
was an editor who was a runner. So she wasn't an agent. She was an editor at a publishing house and she was a runner. But she did say to me that she said, your writing isn't ready for publication. But she said, I do have a side gig where I coach writers and I think you're a solid writer. But essentially what she was telling me, Lauren, is that I needed to learn
00:19:40
Speaker
about the guiding question and the story spine. She didn't use that language. I crafted some of that language that we use in the narrative project later. But basically what she is saying is that you need to figure out what your takeaways are for your reader. And so I worked with her for like six months. And after I turned in the third chapter,
00:19:59
Speaker
She called me and she said, this has never happened to me before with a private client, but I want to publish your book with the publishing house. So then I had a deadline and I had to finish running the other four continents. So I got the book contract before I even finished doing the thing that I was going to write about, let alone thinking about the thing. So I had to write about the thing while I was doing the thing.
00:20:23
Speaker
Um, but that actually put some fire under me, you know, like I had to get it done. Yeah. So how did that then work with, I mean, cause you have the guiding question. Did your guiding question change constantly based on what your, what your transformation was in the moment? Yeah. Here's the, here's the cool thing about writing a memoir while you're doing the thing that you're writing about.
00:20:50
Speaker
And I think you can only really do that if you're doing an immersion experience or a stent memoir. Some would call my book a stent memoir because you have the experience with the full intention of writing a book about it. Most memoirs, let's just be really clear.
00:21:06
Speaker
are about people who've lived through something and they later want to render that on the page with some clarity about the meaning of that experience. So for me, what I was able to do because I was having the experiences and then writing about them 10 minutes later, I was able to craft the guiding question. And so people know what we're talking about. The guiding question is a question that you craft for your
00:21:35
Speaker
Main character and in a memoir that's you so you craft a question that is specific to the character's life, but universal enough that the Reader has a takeaway from it, even if they don't have the same kind of circumstances as the character so I was able to craft the guiding question and
00:21:59
Speaker
what, how does a woman who's been through divorce and is feeling demoralized learn that she's a strong woman? And the answer would be whatever it was that I learned in the marathons. So I crafted the question to be general enough that anything that happened in the marathons, I could render on the page and focus the
00:22:22
Speaker
reader to the learning. And then I would of course have to pose another question at the end of each chapter to keep the tension building. So essentially each marathon that I ran after the third one, I ran those marathons as a writer. And there's this great quote by Henry James who says that a writer is one on whom nothing is lost. So we writers
00:22:53
Speaker
Maybe all artists, all people who engage in art consciously, because just let's be clear, everybody engages in art. If you're making cookies or dinner, that's art. But if we're engaging in art consciously and specifically in some particular art form, I think there is an eye that we keep out in the world. We've always got our eyeballs on what can we bring into our artistic process.
00:23:20
Speaker
So some people don't do that consciously. They may end up doing it. They may end up cooking a dinner that's inspired by the amazing meal they had at a restaurant, but they might not be conscious about that. But we writers in particular, when we see something happen on a bus, at EBS or anywhere, what goes through our mind is,
00:23:43
Speaker
Oh my God, that would be a great character or oh my God, let me write down that piece of dialogue or whatever. So, so as I was running, I was able to really pay attention to what happened in each race that might lend itself to, uh, engaging with my, my, uh, guiding question.
00:24:04
Speaker
And the other really cool thing about that was that because that was a genuine thing that was going on in my life with the divorce and needing to find my way into being a strong person, that I actually got to craft a heroine on the page out of
00:24:18
Speaker
my own experience. So I made myself into a stronger person through the writing of the story. I think much stronger and clearer about what I believe than I ever would have been had I just run the seven continents and not had to render it on the page for a reader.
Evolution of Narratives
00:24:39
Speaker
If that makes sense.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah, I love that quote that you've said on your website and here, but as you write it, you become it. Yeah. Yeah. And that power that you can take your story and find your own meaning in it. It's not just about the events that are happening. It's about how you changed at the time and how, as you're writing it, how you want to change going forward, because you can still change the meaning as you're writing it. Yeah.
00:25:09
Speaker
I think one thing that a lot of memoirists get hung up on is that if they go for many years without writing about the thing they want to write about, the further away from an event you get, the more your
00:25:25
Speaker
the meaning you pour into that event changes. So even now, when I go back and I look at Second Wind, if I were to write that book now from scratch, I would write a different book because I've grown so much that my eyeballs would be on different experiences.
00:25:47
Speaker
You know, and I would have rendered the, um, particularly in second wind, the relationship with the man that I was with during that whole time. I would know something different about that relationship that ultimately we would break up, you know? And so, but I didn't know that at the time. So the book, the book is a slice of time. It's a moment in time and it's the author's understanding
00:26:12
Speaker
during their writing period of the slice of life that they're writing about. Yeah. I think the way you just described that is a really interesting thing to keep in mind with memoir too, especially like sharing your writing, sharing your story can be really daunting because you
00:26:34
Speaker
You feel like it's a part of yourself. But you're right. It's a slice of time. It's not even a slice of you. That will exist separate from you and you will grow and change separate from that book and that book will not always remain true to who you are. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't worth writing the book.
00:26:53
Speaker
Right. And it doesn't mean that there isn't truth in it. All of the things in that book are true. And they still live in my consciousness. But there's been an additional growth. So I think what happens to a lot of writers is that they'll start writing their book. And then by the time they get to the second draft, and so I'm sure you've heard me talk about the seven stages of
00:27:23
Speaker
from writing, from becoming a would-be writer to a published author. You know, there's this journey that we go on. And by the time you get to the second draft, what you've written in the first draft doesn't even feel true anymore. And a lot of writers will feel kind of freaked out about that. Like, well, so what do I do? Do I hold to the original meaning that I wrote six months ago when I was younger? Or do I evolve the storyline right now?
00:27:50
Speaker
And what I say is that your original draft, your first draft is going to be the catharsis draft. That is going to be where you are dumping on the page all of the things that you believe about the event or the character in the case of fiction at the moment when you're writing it. And by the time you're done writing that catharsis draft, you will be a different person than you were when you started it.
Four Pillars of Project Completion
00:28:12
Speaker
So now you're going to dive back into what I call the meaning making draft.
00:28:16
Speaker
And I'm saying draft as if it's one, but really it's not quite the stage of writing. Yeah. It's the stage of writing. And so diving into that, that second layer of meaning now you're, you're turning over every rock and looking at the little, the little crabs scurrying around underneath, you know? Um, yeah. So, so you're going to change. And then by the time you get to this, what I call the story making stage, you will be in a place where.
00:28:46
Speaker
you're attending to the reader. You're now looking away from the deep gaze of the story from your own perspective, and you're thinking about what the reader needs. So if you don't know that there are different stages, it can feel really freaky to see that you've changed your mind about what you wrote. That's normal.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yes. That's a great thing to keep in mind. Yeah. So you teach that there are four pillars to successful creation. Let's dive into what those are. Yeah. Okay. So, um, so the four pillars of successful completion go like this.
00:29:33
Speaker
And these are for anything to, this is, I always say to the writers that I teach that I'm going to talk about this in terms of your writing, but these literally apply to everything in your life that you would like to complete, whether it is a
00:29:49
Speaker
to get your house clean or to train for a marathon or to lose weight. It doesn't matter. You have to have these four things in place to get it done. So, uh, so the first thing that you, that you need to have is you need to have a stand. You need to be able to take a stand. So in writing, what this means is that you've got to know what you're talking about. You have to know what your guiding question is and why it matters to you.
00:30:16
Speaker
So we have writers do some exercises where they pair up and they say, one person asks, what are you taking a stand for? And the other person will say, sometimes I'm taking a stand for my rights to spend time writing.
00:30:33
Speaker
Great. What else are you taking a stand for and we push that we push people to go deep into What really are you taking a stand for so that they so that writers get really clear? Wow, I'm taking a stand for Women to be able to leave abusive relationships or I'm anybody not just women. Let me be clear about that I don't care who you are if you're in an abusive relationship, you know or I'm taking a stand for
00:31:02
Speaker
finding voice or whatever it is. So that is so crucial because how are you going to keep the motivation going if you don't know why the world needs what you have to offer? So we get really clear on that. There's a second piece of that and that is working with the inner critic.
00:31:21
Speaker
the inner critic is a part of the psyche that splits apart to keep us safe, often by berating us to keep us small. And so we, I have a very loving way of looking at the inner critic. And I put everybody who comes through my program, my nine month program through the inner critic, a six week deep dive on the inner critic, because if we can't work
00:31:44
Speaker
Kindly with the parts of us who that are being mean I don't believe in violence against the self So I don't believe that you can kick it out or kill it or whatever You can you can maybe even divorce an inner critic, but you've got to do it peacefully. Yeah. Yeah collaborative divorce. Yeah, so So the stand is one
00:32:07
Speaker
Um, the second one is skills in, in order to be able to complete something, you really do need to know how to do the thing. So in writing, what that means is that you're going to want to study how to write dialogue, how to create a voice, how to make transitions, how to do a flashback, all of the different skills that you would need, that you would need in order to write a story, you will need to know how to do. So skills building is the second, is the second pillar. Um,
00:32:37
Speaker
The third pillar is structure. So structure is, you really can't get things done without structure. So just look at my laundry room and you will know.
00:32:51
Speaker
I rarely get all my, my laundry folded because I don't have any structure built up around it. It's not on my calendar. It's not, okay. So, but the areas of life where, where I have crafted structure, I will always get things done and so will you. So we talk about both the structure of the content of your writing. So that's where the story spine comes in, knowing what your, what your scenes are that you're going to be working on.
00:33:15
Speaker
Some people need an outline some people need a spreadsheet. So there's you know, we have different personality types, but everybody needs structure and Then structuring your space where you're writing, you know, some people work really really well at a coffee shop I do I love words in the air the more words around me the better
00:33:33
Speaker
Some people can't work like that at all. So you've got to structure your space and then you've got to structure your time. You must put your writing on your calendar. It will not happen if it's not on your calendar for most of us. So it's not something that most of us are just like, hey,
00:33:52
Speaker
I think I'll write today and then you might do that one day, but you're not going to do it repeatedly. It's got to go on your calendar. Then the last one is support and accountability. They're not exactly the same thing. Support is the people who hold you when you cry and say, okay, boo-boo, it's okay. It's okay whether you do it or you don't do it. We love you.
00:34:14
Speaker
Okay, you do need that. Yeah, because there will be hard times in the in the writing journey But you also need accountability and that is the people who will be tapping their foot saying Turn that damn thing into me. I mean it. You know, yeah, so
00:34:30
Speaker
We need both. So those are the four pillars. And I'm just giving you the quick overview, but we have some strategies around each one of these. But if you do put these four pillars in place, it's a lot more likely that you're going to get something done. And by the way, it's the marathon that taught me this.
00:34:49
Speaker
I was going to ask, where did the pillars come from? And so the marathons. Yeah, it came from training for a marathon because, you know, I think I've run probably around 30 marathons at this point. Yeah. And I know that can sound really impressive, but I'm here to tell you that I've often been the last one and I'm not an athletic person by nature. So like some people are, I have really had to craft a life organized around running. Now I do love it.
00:35:17
Speaker
So it has grown to be something very important to me, but this putting it on your calendar. So if I'm going to train for, if I have a marathon that is April 15th, I'm going to work backwards from there for when exactly my long runs are going to happen. And I've got to block out five, six hours for that run. So when somebody calls and says, Hey, can you have lunch? My answer is no, because otherwise I won't be ready for the marathon. So the marathon taught me this.
00:35:49
Speaker
Hey, writer, are you feeling adrift in your writing practice? Like the word swept you out to see, but you have no idea where you're going? Climb aboard the writer's helm. I'm Lauren. And I'm Gabby. And we're both writers and professional editors who are here to support you on your writing voyage. With the writer's helm, you get access to group co-writing sessions, Q&A sessions, our private community chat room, and group coaching calls to help you along no matter what stage of the writing process you're in.
00:36:15
Speaker
Members of our crew have said that they've reconnected with their excitement for writing and feel energized from the support they've received from us and each other. You can sign up for the writer's home at any time, which comes with a one-week free trial to make sure that we're the right crew for you. You don't need to navigate these stormy seas alone. Let the writer's home take you to New Shores.
00:36:36
Speaker
Are there any of these stages in particular that either you struggle with the most or you notice that people have the hardest time about one over the other?
Overcoming Inner Criticism in Writing
00:36:46
Speaker
I think probably the number one scary thing, I think they're all hard really for various reasons for people, which is why we created our nine month program where all of these things are in place.
00:37:00
Speaker
So the one thing I want to say, I'll answer your question, but the one thing I want to say is that what I think is really hard about these four pillars is that it's hard for people to find them. So for example, with support and accountability, we really recommend critique groups. Well, it's not always super hard to find a critique group, but it is hard to find a critique group that will genuinely
00:37:25
Speaker
Keep you accountable because it's really easy just to say I'm sorry. I didn't get it done So the way we've created the structure of the narrative project We just don't lose people because the accountability is really tight and with with a lot of loving support, but it's really tight and
00:37:45
Speaker
Everybody's on the raft moving together downstream to get their to get their books done So I think that finding all four of them is the hard thing But I would say that the one thing that is most problematic for most writers It's that inner critic and and it isn't always that it isn't always a mean voice. It's any sabotaging thought that we have and
00:38:10
Speaker
that other things are more important or that they're not, sometimes it's you're not good enough. Sometimes it's, I don't know what to do, so I'm going to throw up my hands. Any sabotaging thought. So learning to work with your sabotaging thoughts in order to stay committed to the stand you're taking is an ongoing journey. They're really all ongoing journeys, but that one I think because it's between our ears, that one's hard.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yeah, that one's really hard. Yeah, I have to intentionally journal about this stuff and like write down questions specifically to ask myself like, you know, where are we struggling? What is the holdup? Because if it just lives in my head, I just let it run my life. Right.
00:38:57
Speaker
But once I write it down, I'm like, oh, that is what I'm doing. Okay. All right. We got to fix this. And for you, is it enough just to, just the, just to have the awareness or do you have to take a step?
00:39:10
Speaker
when you discover what's going on? I definitely need to take a step. The awareness is step one, but I need to take that step two of either talking to somebody who will hold me accountable for that next step or just taking some kind of action, whether that's, all right, I'm going to just spend the next 10 minutes writing. I haven't been writing, I've been avoiding it. 10 minutes, just go. Right. Just to kind of get out of that slump because otherwise, yeah, it's so easy to just get stuck and to
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's like a.
00:39:44
Speaker
I guess it's kind of like the frog in hot water, where you're just like, oh, it's warm. No, it's fine. I don't need to write right now. I can do it later. And then all of a sudden, it's boiling. And you're like, oh, I haven't written in so long. It's been months. I've abandoned my project.
Celebrating Imperfect Creativity
00:39:58
Speaker
Now what? So yeah, you got to hop out of that water. You do. You have to hop out. Yeah. The metaphor that was coming to my mind as you were talking is like the kink and the hose. If you just kink it a little bit, there's still a little bit of water coming through.
00:40:13
Speaker
It'll, it'll, if it kinks up solid, then there's nothing coming out. So you're, you're writing about the, about the dilemma and then taking a step helps to unkink that hose. It sounds like. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Okay. So the last question that I ask people is what is something ugly you've made recently? So is there anything ugly that you have created?
00:40:38
Speaker
uh, recently that you'd like to talk about. And it doesn't actually have to necessarily have turned out terribly, but maybe it did. Okay. I got it. I thought, I thought I was going to have to give myself a little longer to think about it, but it came to me right away. So I have, you'll love the story. I have a piece of property in Eastern Washington. It's 20 acres that used to belong to my grandparents. And, um,
00:41:08
Speaker
I recently purchased it from my aunt. It's just sagebrush and this shitty old trailer that sits on it. That's like 35 years old and my grandmother was a pack rat. So the first thing I had to do was to haul all the stuff out of there and you know, take it to the dump. I sat on the idea of what to do with the trailer for a long time and
00:41:35
Speaker
I thought I might have it hauled away. I thought I might have it completely restored, which somebody quoted me as being like $40,000. And I was like, my grandfather would roll over in his groove if I spent that much money on this little thing. And so finally one day when I was staring at it, I was over at the property sitting on the deck that my grandfather had built. And I'm staring at this thing and I thought, you know, I'm just gonna slap together a few repairs.
00:42:04
Speaker
and so that I can sleep in it when I'm out here. And so I thought, who could help me with this? I have three younger brothers, okay? And they've all been in construction in some way, shape or form. Two of them are the kind of people who would want to do something right. One of them will Jimmy rig any damn thing. And I was like, that's the brother I need. So I called him and I said,
00:42:35
Speaker
you'll do a shitty job, won't you?" And he said, Oh, absolutely. So he came up to the property with me many times and we put a new floor in the, and I, I caulked all the corners and painted over the stains on the wall and it, it, it looks a little better, but it's still pretty ugly. Oh, that's perfect. Amazing. Yeah. Oh, so good.
00:43:02
Speaker
My, my thing that I've made that was ugly recently, I, uh, I was working on a proofreading project, um, that was a really fast turnaround. So I was proofreading like five hours straight, which is a lot for proofreading that makes your, makes your brain go fuzzy. And, uh, then I had my, my writing group session immediately after that. And I was like, okay, well, I might as well sit here and write. Um, but there was nothing.
00:43:27
Speaker
coherent coming to my brain. So it was just, I just decided to be like, all right, I'm gonna act like a dog at a dog park, who's just like, got the zoomies and it's just like, go in. So I just start typing. And it is just absolute nonsense coming out. It's just brain group brain goo. But then I ended up going on this very long rant about why typos are important. And
00:43:53
Speaker
why typos are kind of the little soldiers forging ahead in our writing so that we can eventually end up with a final draft.
00:44:02
Speaker
And if we didn't have typos, damn it, we wouldn't have any writing. And so it was this very long devotion to typos. I love it to typos. Yep. Yep. That's fantastic. I hope you can find some place to publish that. It's great. I will actually. So I shared a snippet of it in my writing group, which I can pull it up right now. Yeah. And then one of the people in our writing group turned it into a funny little graphic.
00:44:29
Speaker
So it says, all hail the victorious typo. May they dig, may they die gracefully. And if they should survive the red pens, the many rounds of editing, then may they stand proud and laugh in the faces of trolls who snobbily say they're T-H-E-I-R asterisks with their stupid little asterisks. We know the goddamn difference, but the typos snuck through their defenses and we honor their courage. I love it. That's my, my ode. That's so great. That was fantastic.
00:44:59
Speaker
That's free writing for you. You never know what's going to come out. Never know. Our brains are very strange and mysterious places, and I really appreciate that. Yeah, they store a lot of things. They do. Yes. Well, tell us more about what's going on in the narrative project right now, and how can people sign up or keep in touch with you? Yeah, that's great. Thank you for asking.
00:45:22
Speaker
If people go over to the narrativeproject.net, there are resources over there and you can sign up for our mailing list. Right now we've got a really fun inner critic quiz that's up on the website. And it's one of the tabs actually at the top of the website at the moment, the inner critic quiz. So you can find out what kind of inner critic you're working with. And people are liking that.
00:45:50
Speaker
The thing that's really big right now is that we are enrolling for our 2023 nine month program. So if people are interested, if anybody who's listening is interested, if you have a book project that you're working on and you really want the support of a community and coaches and skills building classes and all of the things that are true of the four pillars of successful completion,
00:46:16
Speaker
Then I would say head over to The Narrative Project and either sign up for a mastermind because we do private masterminds as part of our enrollment process. It doesn't matter if you enroll with us or not. We love to mastermind your book because we strongly believe that we want writers writing their books because that contributes to the collective consciousness. We believe that writers are the change agents of
00:46:40
Speaker
the culture. So even though books are changing and publishing is changing, we believe that writers are the people who think deeply and ask questions and we want you writing. So you can either sign up in the little pop up that says schedule now, or you can fill out an application to the nine month program, which does not obligate you to anything, but lets us know about your project. And then we can
00:47:03
Speaker
connect with you by phone or email and talk through whether or not it would be a good fit to work with us throughout the year. We're a really beautiful, fun, respectful, committed group of coaches at The Narrative Project. So I hope that people out there, if they have a book in their hearts, as Maya Angelou said, there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you. So please write.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me, Cammie. You're so welcome. It was great to be here. It was a lot of fun. Good. And thank you everybody for listening. As always, keep it ugly.
00:47:45
Speaker
The Ugly podcast is created by me, Lauren Alexander of Scribe and Sunshine. It is produced and sort of edited, also by me, and written and directed by absolutely nobody. If you like the podcast, be sure to rate and leave a review on your preferred platform and share with the creative people in your life. If you're interested in learning more about what I do, head to scribeandsunshine.com to learn more about my Ugly Art 101 course, my perfectionism workshop, my editing services, and The Writer's Home, which is an online community for writers, co-captain by myself and Gabby Goodlow. As always, keep it ugly.