Episode 203 #HowtoWorkAnyway

Well, fellow writers, when we recorded this we were just at the beginning of it all. It’s safe to say things have already changed—all of us have families at home, we’re all shut down, with noisy houses full of people trying in various ways to work online.

We went from “trying to work anyway” through “I give up for a few days” and now we’re back to “trying to work anyway.” So this advice still applies—we’re setting small goals, giving ourselves schedules as best we can, and trying to strike that balance between cutting ourselves necessary slack and still trying to be who we want to be as writers.

It’s true that this keeps happening:

And when it does, we’re trying to find things we CAN do with absolutely zero attention span. Like share our friends’ books on Instagram. Or record a podcast about how crazy we feel. Which we will keep doing. So, same time, next week?

Now’s actually a good time to check out our sponsor, Author Accelerator—get matched with a book coach, or send some of your forced isolation time becoming one! Here is a list of great writing-related resources that are all available for FREE. Those marked with F are great for fiction, M for memoir, and NF for nonfiction. Feel free to share them around!

* Author Accelerator's Writing Challenge – This mini course introduces you to the first six steps of our Blueprint for a Book process to help kickstart your next book or figure out what might be missing from your draft. F M NF

* The Inside Outline course – We're offering our renowned course on how to use an Inside Outline to transform your story for FREE until the end of March. Take your book to the next level and propel your draft forward. Use the coupon code SPRING2020 at checkout. F M

* The Outcome Outline course – The Inside Outline equivalent for nonfiction writers is the newest tool in our arsenal – and it can be yours for FREE. Use the coupon code SPRING2020 at checkout between now and April 1. NF

* Writing fun for families – Certified book coach Jen Braaksma put together some writing activities that you can download and use for yourself or with your kids.

And for the aspiring book coach:

* Author Accelerator's The Basics of Book Coaching – This mini course introduces you to the world of book coaching, where it came from, who makes a good coach, and how you can get started, even if you've never edited before. If you've been thinking about dipping your toe in the water, why not now?

We create transcripts of the podcast every week with the help of an AI. That means there are always mistakes. We usually try to clean them up, but I won’t lie. This one is particularly bad.

Hey, fellow potential carriers. Welcome to our #Howtoworkanyway episode.

Will it be the first of many, or outdated and boring in no time at all?

We can only hope for the latter and probably do a lot of sighing, but hey, as long as we're all going uber virtual, let me suggest spending some of your screen time at authoraccelerator.com Get matched with a book coach, or look into becoming a book coach. The side gig many of us are perfect for, complete with social distancing. If you've got some unexpected downtime maybe now is a good time to set yourself up to do something new.

That recording now it's recording. Yeah, in a... It is the part where I stare blank and so I remember what I supposed to be doing. Alright, let's start out award has...

I'm gonna wrestle some papers. Okay, now one to it is a one-to-one OneNote. I'm delete.

And this is a hanging Ting-

A-team writing is the podcast about writing, all the things under all the circumstances, fiction, non-fiction, proposals, pitches emails. This is in short as I say a very weak the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done, and I'm justly I am the author of The Gift of Failure in the forthcoming addiction inoculation. That'll be out in 2021. and yeah, I write at various places including The New York Times, The oleic and The Washington Post and I'm seeing about the author of 30 old romance novels and my newest one is going to be called sure shot and it comes out in May, is an even number. And you gonna start saying 30, I don't know, or even a... Do you know... What do you know how many Suresh makes by the way, in?

Okay, so I think it's amazing. It's an amazing number.

Yes, we love it. Well, I am Jess Lahey.

Yes, I come on. You guys know who I am, but that you... At the author of "How to Be a happier parent and of the novel, the chicken sisters coming out in June of 2020 and super excited about that one. I also write for a number of other publications occasionally including the New York Times, and we are recording this on a... Oh, I, 5th and the Ides of March indeed 20020, and the world has gone crazy. And so the title of this is so that you guys know because you all are listening is hashtag how to write.

Anyway, I quick got a... At first, at first I really resisted this topic because I didn't think that I was a very good advertisement for it, it just took me twice as long to do the final edits on a project because that's what happens when you refresh the New York Times, home page all day long.

Yeah, and as we've been talking all week anxiety was a problem, but then, while I sort of settled down and got to this place of...

Okay, so this year is not going to go the way that I thought. And as we discussed this in March, we haven't been personally affected by everything that's happening yet, but still it requires a big attitude adjustment, and as we all know, writing through an attitude adjustment is pretty tricky.

Actually, I think Jess and I would both differ with the... Haven't been personally effective. Yeah, for me, it's taken me. I'm finally getting to a good place today where I was in a holding pattern until I knew whether or not Is my speaking gigs. Were gonna be cancelled and for me I couldn't plan ahead until that happened, and people were taking really wanted to wait till the last minute to make those announcements. So for me, and because a lot of my travel is a domino effect in then I was scrambling to plan the travel from somewhere else instead of where I was supposed to be, but it's actually been a relief in a way in a... Now everything is cancelled for the most part, because I'm not having to constantly be playing catch up with. Okay, well, so what next? So this week has been really emotionally challenging for me, not only because of the financial problems I make. A large percent of the majority of my income was coming this month, so that's been an adjustment. But for me being able to get myself in the headspace of, of... Okay, well now is gonna be for at home.

That really was a big adjustment, right? And when I sa