Welcome to another episode of Writing with Coach McCoach. We are going to enter a new series and this is going to be our motivation series for writers. The ironic thing about this series and me recording this episode today, ironic or maybe it's more perfect because of it, is that I don't want to do this. I don't want to record this right now. And I have been making excuses not to record this and not to do a few things that I really want to do.
And so I think it's actually a better time to record this to talk about excuses. So we're just started this motivation series in like, let's start where we're all struggling, right? So how do we even get motivated? I'm going to go through the series and go through a few different things and talk to some other authors. And I think that this will be really inspiring series, especially if you're listening to this when it's going out live, it's November. So it is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. And a lot of people right now are trying to write a novel in a month, 50,000 words in one month. So this is probably a good time for this sort of topic. Especially as we end the year, what are some ways we can stay focused when life is chaos and when life is great, but you just have a lot going on.
I want to start our first episode with excuses. We're going to talk writing excuses. We're just going to go through a few different excuses and I'm going to break them down and I'm going to say, Hey, did you know you're doing this? And here's how it's showing up. And here's how your brain is tricking you to not do something. And this is, as you can probably tell, by the way, it started as extremely topical for me right now. This is something I'm going through. And if you've been listening to me for a while, you know that I like to share what I'm going through while I'm going through it with you so that you don't feel so alone. And you know that, Hey, someone else who is trying to do things with their life, with their business is also going through this stuff in real time. It is not, we are not alone in going through these things. We might be doing it at different times. But I think at some point we're all going to go through similar struggles for lack of a better word.
So let's talk about writing excuses and just the excuses in general that lead you to say things like, I don't have the time for it. I don't really know what to write about. If I do XYZ first, then I will write. I have writer's block. Life is too hectic. What things do you say to yourself that in the end are just a bunch of excuses to not do the thing? And why are we doing it?
I've spent a lot of time in this space lately of why our brains are telling us things that aren't true. And so sometimes this leads to having a lot of strong feelings. For example, you have the story you really want to write. You're really excited to write it. But for some reason, you can't, it's been two weeks and you've never written anything. It's been three months. It's been a year. And you're like, why am I not writing the story I really want to write? And we think, oh, maybe it's because I'm not supposed to. Maybe I shouldn't be pursuing that.
What I've realized tends to usually be happening is when we want something really bad, it sends up that response in our brain, the fight or flight, right? Our brain and our body wants to protect us. So when we want something really bad, our body starts to notice that there are more sensations. We're going through more experiences. And we are more invested, which means we have more to lose. And our brain is like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want to lose anything. That's scary. We don't do scary things. We protect ourselves. We stay safe. So we're not going to do that. We are going to create every single possible way to make you not do that because that thing is scary. And we don't want to do scary. Scary is dangerous. And danger is a way of life or death, right? So our brain suddenly will go from, I just want to do this thing to this is life or death. It's not. But if you are someone who deals with anxiety, this is very, very prominent in your life. Almost anything can suddenly be life or death, fight or flight. And so that fear response kicks in.
And so this happens a lot of times with anyone who I feel like if you are trying to do something big and it matters to you, that's when it feels like suddenly everything difficult shows up in your life. And it says, hey, this is why you shouldn't do it. That's too much work. That's scary. That's dangerous. And you somehow have to learn how to recognize when these things are coming up that they are not, they're not supposed to stop you. They're things it's your brain kind of telling you to stop and you have to go over and work through it, right? You have to basically come up with a new way to tell your brain, no, we're safe. And this is something we're going to do. I don't really give a fuck what you have to say about why you think I shouldn't do it or how this is not going to keep me safe. Instead, I'm going to do it anyway.
And maybe you talk to yourself and you're like, Hey, some people name their fear and anxiety and they say, Hey, Sandra. And I apologize. Any Sandra's was just the name that popped in my head. Sandra, you, you're so sweet for thinking of me. You are so sweet for trying to keep me safe, but shut the fuck up. Or Hey, thank you. But we got this. We're totally okay. So some people have success talking to themselves. Not everyone does. And so I'm going to go through a few different typical excuses that come up and how they might be showing up for you and ways that you can hopefully work through them. And also the ways that you'll, I'm going to give you some very clear examples of how this is showing up for me and, um, the tricky ways that these things show up where we don't recognize it at first. Um, and it's really hard to pinpoint at times.
So let's try and pinpoint this together. Let's work through this together. So what is your current excuse? If you are in a situation right now whereyou have not been writing or you keep getting overwhelmed and it just, you're not hitting the goals that you believe you can do, or you know, you can do you've done before. And you're like, why am I not doing it this time? And especially something that you really want to be doing. And you find that you keep having reasons why it's not happening. And maybe you're saying things like, I just don't have the time or life just keeps knocking me upside the head. Or I don't, I don't even have anything to say. And you start really talking yourself out of it. Like maybe I don't even have a story that's worth reading. This isn't even worth writing. Why am I even bothering? Right?
A lot of these things will come up all the time. We need to diagnose what's happening and then how to change that, how to reframe it and do something different. So for example, what current excuses, what's your current excuse? That's the first thing I want you to ask yourself. What is your current excuse?
Here's what it could be. Time, right? This is a very obvious one. And in some cases, yeah, time can be really hard. But if we were to really, really look at ourselves and the way we spend our time, is it that maybe we just are deciding not to use our time a certain way? I hate, I hate looking at this because I, time has always been my favorite excuse. I don't have time to do these things. It's gotten even an easier excuse, right? I have a toddler. I really don't have time to do these things, but it's not true. It's just that I don't want to, I don't want to use my time doing that stuff.
I have the time, but instead I, when I have some extra time instead, I like watching TV. So I kind of love watching the golden bachelor right now. I enjoy watching bachelor in paradise. I'm bachelor, bachelorette follower, right? In a kind of low, low key way. I love rewatching the vampire diary. So once a year, you're going to find me rewatching that show. Even when I'm like, no, I don't want to watch it again. I find myself watching it again. I love playing games on my iPad. I love coloring. I, now I'm getting more into crafts and arts, so I'm painting. And these things like, you know, they have their benefits. There's nothing wrong with doing that. It's me saying, telling myself, Hey, it's totally okay. That's how you want to spend your time. You need to recognize that means you don't want to spend your time doing this other thing and just fucking own it because you pretending you don't have time for it is just a bunch of bullshit. It's really that you just don't want to give time to it. And that's okay. Let it be okay. If that's okay, then you, then it's open to you. You either do the thing or you don't do the thing, but don't tell yourself you don't have time to do the thing when that's not true at all. We can always find time. We can always make time. And our lives might be very overwhelming, but if this is the thing that's going to lead to less overwhelm, then isn't it worth putting time into if it's going to lead to more overwhelm, then do you want it?
I think it's an important question to ask ourselves if we're creating a bunch of excuses, is it because of fear or is it because we just don't want it? And I think writers are afraid to ever say, I actually just don't want this because a lot of our identity is wrapped up in being a writer. So once we've decided we're a writer, if we don't want to write, we're kind of like, well, there's got to be a reason, right? It's not just because I just don't want to. That's that's not who I am. I'm totally a writer. I write all the time. Right. I'm a writer. But sometimes maybe you just don't want to. Is that okay?
Yeah, a hundred percent. It's okay. You don't have to write. If you want to write, awesome. Then let's work through it and figure out why you're not. But if the reality is you just don't want to, that's okay. There are so many other awesome things you can do with your time and energy and creativity. So is it life? Right. The next excuse is, so we got time. We know we can go work through that and figure out what's the root cause of not putting the time in. That's one thing.
Is it life? Are you like, you know what? Life is just holy shit. Life is so freaking overwhelming right now. I'll be honest with you. That is that's me right now. We've got, I think two or three weeks of no podcast episodes. And that's because I've, I've, I've trying to be careful with my words here, but I'm going to be honest and say I've let life be overwhelming. And that's why I haven't put in that energy here because life has had some difficult things going on. And I've just let that be difficult. And I've, I've just said, fuck it. Life's fucking difficult right now. I'll push through soon. And here I am pushing through. I'm gonna be honest. I'm not really enjoying it. And that's probably not something I'm supposed to tell the people who are listening to me that I'm not enjoying doing this. But sometimes we don't enjoy doing something we know we really enjoy to do. So right. Like sometimes you're going to be writing. You're gonna be like, I fucking hate writing right now. I don't want to be doing it. I hate everything about this.
But you'll by doing it, you're going to go through that hump and then you'll find your way back to, I freaking love this. This is so much fun. I am so glad I didn't stop. That's where I know I am right now. I'm in the, I know I freaking love this podcast. I love doing it, but right now I don't want to. Right now I don't, I don't love it. After I do this episode, you know what? I'm going to feel so much better and I'm going to love that Idid it and be so, so happy. And then I'll come back and do the next one and the next one and I'll feel better. So sometimes we have to go through the bumps of, I really don't want to do this right now. And the question is, is it a temporary thing or is it that I just really don't want to anymore?
And that could change down the line. You could decide I don't want to write anymore. And maybe a year from now you're like, Oh, I cannot write. I'm so excited to be writing again. You are allowed to change your mind anytime in your life. Right now. I know that my lack of interest in recording podcast episodes is actually rooted in several other things. It's, it's some overwhelm. It's choosing to let overwhelm, overwhelm me. Honestly, it's coming up with excuses. It's fear, fear that I have nothing worthy of saying. It's fear that I'll say stuff and no one gives a shit or they hate it. It's fear of putting myself out there. It's also that I didn't have a plan in place for when I entered this state. That is one of the biggest things that I think writers and just creatives, they can do to themselves is if, if you don't have a plan in place for when things are hard, it will feel harder to try to put in effort. So had I had already created, I already knew every episode I was going to record. If I knew all the, I have put in the energy when I would have the energy and set myself up for the times when things were going to be hard, this would not be so overwhelming. But because I hadn't done that, here I am a couple of weeks, no episodes, and now I'm showing up and I'm trying to push through. And the push feels so much harder because I just didn't account for this, even though, I mean, this happens all the time. Like this is ongoing pattern. We get to this point, this is part of our life. So we go through different stages. We have different things we go through and we can't be fucking motivated all the time. And I heard someone else say this in a podcast of her own, and she was like, you're not going to love it all the time. And I was like, I can't believe she's putting that out there. I can't believe she's sharing that truth. And here I am like, oh God, she was so right.
You just, you can't, you're not always going to be motivated and you're not always going to want to do something. And sometimes it's okay to lean into that. And sometimes it's, man, if you had just had the plan in place for when that happens, because it will happen, things could have been much easier. It might not be such a big mountain to climb when you try to get back every time. I was going to say get back in the saddle. And I was like, I really need to pull back on mixing too many metaphors together, but okay. So maybe it's life. And again, that's a valid, totally valid reason life can be really overwhelming. Give yourself some grace. Is this a time where you can say, you know what? It's okay. I'm just not going to do this for a little bit. This is one of the times when you have writing excuses, is this excuse valid for a little while? Yes. If the answer is yes, okay, then just let yourself off the hook. If the answer is no, then what do you need to go do to work through it? In my case, I'm going to say yes and no. Yes, totally valid. I've been overwhelmed and it's okay. No, because had I had that plan in place, I think it would have been fine and I could have gotten through it, but I didn't. Life is life. So that is something that I will put into practice in the future. Hopefully, hopefully I'm not just like saying whatever. Hopefully I'm going to, after this, I'm going to put this in practice. Right. But sometimes we just don't, we just not, we don't account for things that we probably should have accounted for and you live and learn.
And so if you need to let yourself off the hook for a little while, do it because writing is always going to be there. And sometimes life is trying to say, Hey, I think you need a breather. I think you need to pull back. It will be okay. It'll be there when you're ready and it will be. So is time your excuse? Is life your excuse? Is your excuse? This is, this is one that's, um, this one gets me. Okay.
This is a pattern that I find myself doing. It's the, uh, when I have this thing, I can do the project, right? So is your excuse? I need something in order to do the work. Um, this shows up for me all the freaking time and it's gotten really creative. My brain has found fabulous ways to keep doing this. And I keep having to take my time to recognize the pattern. And I'm like, damn, it found a new way to loop that. Like it's a new loophole. It figured out my brain, our brains work very well to keep us safe. So what are you putting in front of your thing? You want to do to say, well, once I do this, or once I have this, or once I know this, then I can get the work done. This is my favorite excuse because I use it all the time. It's my favorite because it's like so obvious and it's so funny to dissect. And then you realize that and you're like, damn, my brain, you're good. So this has been, this is, here's how it's showing up for me. So I have this podcast too. I have a few other work related things, especially writing things, which is funny. So I've discovered quick backstory I've discovered in the past year. I love writing this content. I love the podcast and I love writing my emails. A few times I've had other people do part of that for me and it makes me very uncomfortable because it's just not 100% my voice and I don't like it. And I've tried a little bit. I've tried like, you know, uh, asking even the AI like chat GBT for some maybe ways to re-say something. Right. I hate it. I still don't like it.
Sometimes I'm like, oh yeah, I could probably tighten it up, but I still end up writing something different because I just, I, I, for some reason I have to be the only voice in my stuff and it makes me very uncomfortable when other people try to be my voice. So I will never be able to hire a copywriter. It's just not going to work because it makes me really uncomfortable. Um, and so I like writing so right. So like, I'm, I love it. I like writing episodes. I like writing these emails. I like talking to you, writer. But I've had the task to, okay, come up with some new episodes, Katie, uh, write a few more emails, Katie. Very clear, like know what I need to do, know how I'm going to do it. Wow. The amount of things I've put in front of this is fascinating. I have told myself, well, once I rearrange my office, I'll be able to write the emails. Once I create a new offer, what I'll be able to then easily lead into the other offers that already exist. Once I learn a new copy writing method, then I'll be able to write the emails. Once I learn a new way to do some backend tech, well, then I can put the emails into practice, right? Then I can put these things together. Once I have a better microphone, then I can record for the podcast. Once I, whatever, right? I've done so many of these things. It'll even be as small as, um, like coming up with what, like food, like, uh, once I eat this thing today, or once I decide what I'm going to have for dinner, then I can write these emails. Like, it's amazing the things that we will put in front of something we want. And I say that as something we want, because I think a lot of times we've, like I said earlier, we think, well, if I'm putting all these excuses, maybe I don't really want it. I think that's bullshit. I don't like that mentality. I don't like when people say, well, if you wanted it, you would do it.
No, the more I want something, the harder it gets to do it. The more I want to do this podcast and really help writers, the more I start freaking out and thinking I need other things to make it better. The thing is I have everything I need right now to get started. And then I can always shift. I can always make changes later. So right now, all the information I have, all that I know, all my expertise that I have, I can share that now, and then I will grow and I can make adjustments. So then I can also be taking a copywriting course and learn new ways of writing copy, and I can implement that as I go. But if I wait until then, there will be, I will still be in the same starting point of needing to go through the process to get to the point to be able to utilize it, right? Like if I just keep waiting until I have all this knowledge, but I never apply it, I'm still always going to have to go through the process of learning as I go or learning through application. So this is a, this is where it showed up for me so much where I will buy courses and programs and products, and I'll be like, I need to learn all the things and then I won't do anything. Oh boy. So is that something that you find yourself doing?
Are you like, I have said I was going to do NaNoWriMo, but I don't have an outline. So I guess I should try to figure out an outline. Oh shoot. You know what? It's the second week of November. I mean, I probably won't end up, so I'll just change my goal. It'll be something else. Instead you could have just been like, if the goal is I just want to write a book in 50 days, I don't care what it looks like or anything. It's part of me. My process is I want to have written 50,000 words in 30 days. Okay. Who cares if you have an outline, write whatever. Who cares if you get stuck, start somewhere else. Just write something different. It doesn't matter because you said your goal was to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Now if your goal is to write a full story that feels complete somehow, another episode for another time, right? In one draft, well, then your goal, then what you need to do is different, right? Then if you want to write something that feels really complete in one draft, well, then trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days is not the way to get that. Right?
So is your goal matching your, I don't know, is your plan matching your goal? I guess that's the question. What you've created to do, is that actually going to get you where you need to go? So I, uh, I'm realizing I need to do these podcast episodes that might feel a little ick to me. I don't know. I might feel a little incomplete. They're a little more off the cuff. They're a little less figured out. I'm a little messier, maybe, maybe it's just in my head, right? But that's how I'm feeling. But if I don't do it, then I get further and further from the, the action of doing this, of recording these podcasts, of working through the times when it's harder, that I will not be in a position to be able to provide great content because I'll be like, well, if I wait until I have the best content, none of it's going to be useful at that time. Or it's going to be like, okay, cool. I know some stuff, but I never put it into action. So how well do I know it really? Right?
So I'm sorry, I'm showing up extremely imperfect for you today. And I'm doing, I'm doing the work right now with you on working through the discomfort of feeling like, well, I'm not good at this. After today's episode, I want to be maybe like 1% more comfortable. So then the next episode I record, I'm going to show up just 1% a little better. And the next time 1% better. So hope that helps. That's the way I end things when I'm like, I've lost my thread. Did that help you? Okay.
Here's another one. Writer's block, right? Writer's block. What a vague concept. There are so many things that contribute to writer's block, fear, anxiety, lack of motivation, all the other excuses or creative block. And so it's important to figure out what you think your writer's block is. I think it's usually one of these other things we talked about so far. But if it's creative, it's worth then figuring out what usually helps your creativity and how can you charge that up, essentially. So I noticed that I'm getting a little, I get overwhelmed sometimes when I have a task at me for writing that is really open ended. It really overwhelms me if it's like, okay, Katie, right. You just got to write an email about your course coming out. I'm like, okay. Well, what do I say? There's so many things I could say. Now I have no idea what to say. There's nothing to say. So to me, the wider the net or the wider the options or the blanker the page, right? The more empty a page is, it is the emptier a page is, the more I am overwhelmed and I feel like I get writer's block, quote unquote.
So sometimes that it's works better for me if I actually have more parameters. I might be, I'm someone who, if I have a few more parameters, then my brain is able to be like, ooh, okay, we got some, we have something to work with here. So if you told me, Katie, you need to write an email that talks about this time you lost something and relate it back to how this will help someone learn one aspect of a character arc. Go read the email and now that I just created that, I'm like, I need to go write this email, right? And you guys need to go sign up for my list so you can see this email come out. But then it gives me like, okay, okay. So I have a bit of a frame and now I can start filling it in. And that actually leads to more creativity for me. So boundaries create more room for my brain. And that's my trick is how do I create more, more space for my brain to, to explore without it feeling overwhelmed by exploring being like I can explore anything that overwhelms me. That's too much. So I like having a narrower focus, a little tunnel action. I don't know.
So how, how to, how, what, what helps you when you have a creative block? Now other things are sometimes people are like, well, I, so there's the writer's block of like a blank page. Here's a trick that I was just thinking about recently, which is, which might be like a really fun trick for some people. So I was thinking about the years, the, the joy, and there's this feeling of like intentionally not finishing something. I am someone who I'm like, I, I really want to feel like something's complete the moment it's done. I don't like having open projects. It makes me uncomfortable. It's why writing a book is very overwhelming to me because that will literally never be finished, air quotes, finished for freaking ever, right? It'll be years. And that overwhelms the shit out of me. I want something to feel like I did that. It's done. Okay. Complete. It's part of why I think I've changed my editing services so that there are so many reasons, but one reason that I've changed my service so that I actually deliver my editorial feedback via a 90 minute call is because those open ended, those edits that were, they would take 30 hours per book on average would never feel great because I would just be like, but I can't, I'm never finished until I'm done. So I don't get to feel finished until I'm 30 hours later. Do you know that is so much time because that's not, I'm not working a 30 hour. It's not like I'm working 40 hours a week and 30 hours around the book. No, because my brain would, would just shrivel. It would be like, you can only do maybe the best days would be six hours of edits, but that would be in a massively intense day. But usually it's like two couple hours a day. So 30 hours for a book would take a long time. You know, that's several weeks. So that's several weeks of just feeling like I don't have something finished and that would really mess with my brain. So of course I created another way of doing it that made me feel better.
Now I recognize, oh, it's because I didn't ever have that feeling of feeling complete. Well, if that's part of you, if that's something you struggle with, I've been toying with this idea of what if you just really intentionally lean into not finishing. This is a mind trick that I just have been starting and it's actually been really nice and it's been surprising because I do like to feel complete, but now I've been going into my projects, any sort of craft or writing or anything, and just saying, I am intentionally going to not finish this, this session, this will not be finished. And I'm going to feel really good. I'm going to actually, I'm going to be excited to end my session, but not finish it. And so I've done this with now, like with some crafts, I've done this with painting and things because I've always wanted to just be like, well, why would I even start a craft project if I have to leave it in the middle? And now instead I'm like, I am intentionally going to not finish this. And I'm so excited to go into it again the next day to do more. And every time I'm going to keep going, I'm intentionally not finishing this. I can't wait to start, stop in the middle because then I'm so excited to dive back in the next time. And that feeling that like, our, that creative oomph is much stronger because I'm not going into it like, damn, I finished that piece. Now I have to start this whole new thing.
Or it's like I'm, I'm every time opening a blank page. So the way that this would translate for writers is instead of finishing a scene and then be like, well, call it for the day. I finished this scene or I finished this chapter. I'll come back tomorrow. I'll start chapter four. And then you come back to start chapter four and it's just this blank page. And you're like, oh my God, this is so much. I don't even know where to start. What do I do? What if instead you were like, I'm intentionally going to stop in the middle of a scene? I'm sure you've heard this in a version of this idea before, but what if you intentionally were like, I am going to just not finish the scene today. This scene is so much fun to write. I'm going to stop right now. I'm going to stop in the middle of it because then tomorrow I'm going to keep going in the scene and I'm going to, I already know what I'm feeling. I already know the vibe. I don't have to do any mental prep work to start this. All I do is open it and start writing because it's already there. So maybe it would help you if you find you keep hitting blocks. Can you intentionally tell yourself, I'm literally just not going to finish this or I'm going to stop in the middle because I can't wait to pick up in the middle. It's honestly, it's like readers, they want to feel like they've entered in the middle of the action, right? We talk about that all the time. In like writing, there's just like the thing you'll hear in writing tips, right? Start in media res and media ray. I don't know the proper way of saying it. I know I should, sorry, but it basically means in the middle of things. And that's how people a lot of times will say, start your book in the middle or cut all the backstory. You probably should cut three chapters because it's probably all backstory and you want to start in the middle of things. This is that same experience.
Put it into your, give yourself that experience as a writer to just start in the middle of something. So this might mean you end in the middle of a scene, you end a session in the middle of a scene, or you could do something like write the first line of the next scene. So you could just know that, Oh, I already know where I'm going to go from here. So you don't even have a blank page. So if you're like, no, I really want to end a scene well, but, but then you still get overwhelmed when you approach your project every day. Then what if you just created like one or two lines and it was the first line of the next scene and then you stop and you're like, okay, now I know where I want to start tomorrow. So sometimes being intentional about what, what you tell yourself, maybe the words, the sort of words you use are, is helpful.
And another reason writer's block comes up. I mean, there's so many reasons. And so I, I'll, I could do another episode, but I feel like I'm just going to talk about a couple more. So, well, I'm just gonna talk about one more. This is the actual block. When people say writer's block, some people are like writer's blocks bullshit. It doesn't exist. I'm not sure I believe that. I feel like there's a block for a reason. So is it a creative block? Is it a motivational block or is it actually a problem with the story and you actually hit a block in the story? And now this is different. This is a lot more practical of how do you diagnose what's not working and why this block happened.
I will, I actually am going to teach a master, um, I was going to call it a master class, but it's not because it's not, I'm going to teach a workshop. It's going to be a two hour workshop. It's coming up. So if you, this sounds interesting to you, just go to katiemcoach.com and just sign up for my newsletter because I have this workshop I want to teach soon. And it's basically how to diagnose what's not working in your story. And this could be something you use at any point, whether it's after you wrote the whole thing in the outline, you can use it. Or if you have hit a block in your writing and you're like, I don't know where to go from here. I just wrote myself into a corner. Ooh, I've done that so many times and it has literally made me, I still have stories in my head from, Oh God. Now if I say it out loud, it's so many years ago, but from like 20 years ago, I'm not even that old. Um, but from like 20 years ago where I'm like, I still want to go back to that, but I know I wrote myself into a corner and I never wanted to put in the work to get out of it. But of course I help my authors do this all the time. So if you have literally written yourself into a corner and you put, you are blocked, you're like, I don't know what to do with the story and you are ready. And it's not just excuses of not writing. There is something that's keeping you from moving forward that is actually related to the story and the characters.
And this is what I want you to do. I want you to take my class, of course, but what I really want you to do is I want you to look at your story, go back to the beginning and figure out what, what, what did you fuck up? No, it's not true. You probably didn't fuck it up, but what did you write? Usually the problem is in the beginning, usually we write something and we, especially if you write by the seat of your pants, you'll find that, Oh, I wrote myself into a corner, but the problem was you did something in the very beginning that led you to, that was the only direction your character or story could have gone because that's what you had set up already. And so it's a matter of looking back and diagnosing what did you set up that forced that to happen and what needs to change. And so of course, in my workshop, I'm going to teach you how do you diagnose these issues. But at least you know, now that sometimes the blocks are just from something we wrote in the first 15 to 30 pages. I find that when I will work on a client's book, most of the things that I predict like to happen later or the problems to come are things that I already noticed in the beginning. So I'll be like, Oh, this character is like this and this. And then later when they're trying to do something different, I'm like, well, yeah, it doesn't work because you try to have your, you set your character up to be like XYZ, but now you want them to act like ABC and you didn't bring it bridge how that could happen. Yeah, it doesn't work.
So if you're literally in an actual block of cornering a hole, whatever you you've written to yourself into a block, then it's probably something that you wrote from the beginning that needs a tweak or reevaluation. And then of course there's age old, like just fucking kill someone or throw something at them. You can always do that just to see what happens, you know, see how your characters interact. It might not be the thing you keep in your book, but if you're really stuck, yeah, throw something crazy at your characters, see what they do. And then later you can figure out, okay, what is I really need to do there? Or do I just keep that? Is that just what the story needed? Maybe it's just that can help you at least step out of that place. And let's see there.
The other things I wanted to tell you of like excuses is here's one as I got two more, right? Two more things I want to leave you with today. What's the I should have looked this up before. What's that phrase like you eat the worm, right? Start the day and eat the worm and oh my God, I'm now I need to like actually need to figure out what that phrase is because that's going to bother me. But so there is that phrase of, ah, looked it up. Okay. So it's eat the frog. I'm thinking tequila. It makes sense. I like tequila. So that's why the worm came to hit my head because that's, that's the whole thing. You eat the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle. Yeah. I actually haven't done that. I'm not going to do it.
But so Mark Twain, I like looked up famously said that the first thing you do in the morning is eat a live frog. You can go through the rest of the day knowing the worst is behind you. So your frogs the worst task. I feel like this should be changed to eat the worm because who wants to eat a frog? I guess that's the point, but also who wants to eat a worm? Okay. But basically do the hardest task first. Hardest task. Why does my word basically do the hardest task first? So this is a tricky one. I noticed this really showed up for me recently. And I mean, it's always showed up, but I just ignored it. Right. So this is when, if you really have something that you're putting off, the question is why. And then if you can't stop the thing, if you can't take it off your plate, then how do you get it done?
So for example, sometimes we're so overwhelmed with our writing or something we want to do, or maybe there's a scene that's really like, it's just really hard. We just are having a hard time with it. And yes, you could diagnose why there could be something in that scene that's not working. Sometimes though, you have better luck when you just do it and then see what happens later. And be like, Oh, that's why that wasn't working. That's why that felt icky is because I set this character up in a weird way and it didn't work out. Sometimes you just have to go through the process to see where that falls or how it unveils itself. So what is, what do you keep putting off? If you have, this is where the excuse comes out, right? I have this thing to do, but I keep doing all these other things ahead of it.
Before I said, you know, you make up all these other things you need in order to do it. My trick, the way that my brain likes to mess with me is it'll say, Oh, you have this really hard thing to do. You know what? You should probably get done these 25 other things before you do that, because that's going to just be, that's going to take a lot of energy. That's going to be too much. Maybe you can build momentum. Maybe if you do a bunch of small things before, then you'll get ready and you'll be able to do it. This is all bullshit. I found myself doing this last week and I, I noticed because I spent the day telling myself I was going to do the thing and it got time. It was, you know, I was like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to get to it. I'm going to do these other things first. They also have to get done. Right. I'm going to get to the big thing. They were not as important as the big thing. And so I spent the whole day doing these other things. I get to 5 PM and I'm like, you know what? Oh, well I, I got to go pick up my kid. So I'll do it after I get my kid. Yeah. I'll just pick up my kid, my toddler, and we'll just do some of our bedtime or nighttime routine and have dinner. And then I'll, I'll do the work after that, obviously, cause I have to get it done. It's like eight o'clock. It's you know, now it's time to put him to bed. My husband even takes over. He's doing bedtime. And so technically I have free time. Like, well, that was a lot. It was like a lot of toddler time. My energy spent. I'm going to eat. I'm going to sit and I'm just going to chill for a bit and then I'll get the energy and then I'll do the thing. It's like 10 PM. I'm like, okay, well let me just take a shower and like freshen up and then I'll do the thing. It's like 11 PM I'm in bed. I go to open the thing and I'm like, I'm not, I'm not doing this. My brain is not there. I'm exhausted. I'm not doing the thing. So 11 PM I'm finally admitting to myself, I'm not going to do the thing that was weighing on me, but it weighed on me all day. I spent all day telling myself I was going to do it. And so I realized that was just a bunch of bullcrap.
So the next day was Saturday, actually. So this was a Friday. So of course the end of the week too, like, so the next day is Saturday and I'm like, okay, I, I, my husband was like, you go and you can go to the office and work. I've got him for the day. And so I'm like, okay, I'm going to go to the office. I start almost doing this again. I start being like, well, what can I do today? What can I like just sort of start doing or what's a small thing I can start on and then I'll get to the thing. And then I was like, Katie, you just did this. You literally just spent a whole day doing this. Do not do it again. You don't have that much time. You want to spend the rest of your weekend with your son and your husband and you want to have a great weekend and not work. So what do you need to do? What is the thing you've been putting off? And I was like, oh, oh God, it's so obvious. It's right there. It's the, are these two big things I've been putting off? Fuck. Okay. Just do it. Just do the thing first. And so that's what I did.
And I just said, do the hardest task first. I ate that fricking frog. Oh my God, I felt so much better after because I knew it was stressing me out. I knew I didn't want to do it. And the only way I knew I didn't want to do it is because I kept saying, I'll do it soon. Or I put all these other things in front of it. And so if you have something like that in your life that you're like, oh, I'll get to it or I'll do it. Or once I get these other things done, once I have, you know, all of my chores done at home, then I'll do it. Instead really do try the age old task of do the hardest thing first, because it really does make a difference. It really feels different when you finish and then you're like, oh, okay, well now that's done. I feel so freaking good. These other things are really easy to do, or I don't even need to do these right now because that was the whole point, everything else seemed important just because I didn't want to do the one thing, but everything else actually can wait. This was what needed to happen now. So eat the frog or the worm if you want to think of it that way. I like it, whatever. Do the hardest task first. So do that scene that you really don't want to do. Just do it. And don't try to convince yourself there's another way of doing it. Get it done, or if you don't have to do it, then don't do it. Get someone else to do it. But if it's like a writing thing and you're like, I just don't want to write the scene. Well, just write the scene and then have it done. And then you don't have to think about it anymore. Then you're off the hook, right?
I've realized how much I love that feeling of being off the hook. So I'm pushing through doing the hard things. Honestly, that's today. It's later than I intended, but here I am. This is what I, this was the thing I was putting off the most is recording a podcast episode. And so here I am doing it.
Okay. And then the last one is a mantra that might help you. People have different ways of saying this one. Here's the way that I like looking at it is if you want things to be different, you have to do different. If you want things to be different or look different than you have to do different. I really, this one, we don't, sometimes I think we don't like it. We don't like this, this idea. So we, we tend to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect new results. So I keep, I'm trying to see what's a good example. I keep, so I keep basically, like I talked about earlier, I keep telling myself to record podcasts, podcast episodes, but I haven't created a plan for when I'm having a hard time. And yet I still think I'm going to magically be able to create an awesome podcast without being consistently having episodes out. How does that work? How am I going to help people and have a podcast that grows if I never actually put anything into it? It doesn't work. Right. Um, but we do this all the time. We keep being like, well, I want to, let's just say, I want to write a book. Are you writing the book? I'm thinking about the book. Okay. Well, if you want to write the book, what do you have to do different? I guess I have to write it. I have to sit down and write. Huh? Weird.
So if you want things and outcome to be different, you actually have to do something different than what you're doing now. Yeah. I love and hate this realization, um, because it does make you say, well, am I doing is, if is what I'm doing right now, creating that outcome? No. Then how do I create the outcome? Because if I'm not doing anything to make it happen now, then it's not going to happen. So I have to do different. So if you want things to be different, you have to do different. This comes up with, uh, working out. So I guess content warning, weight exercise, dieting, but a lot of times we'll say, well, I want to lose weight. And it's like, okay, cool. What are you doing to lose weight? I mean, I'm just doing my same thing. Huh? How much weight do you think you're going to lose? It's like, no, I'm being, I'm thinking about it. That doesn't do anything. You have to choose to do differently. Are you doing something that you weren't doing before? That's what will make you lose weight. If you want to run a marathon, how are you going to run the marathon if you're not running or if you're not putting in any effort? So if you want to write a book, but you're not writing the book, how long are you going to talk about wanting to write the book and think that somehow you're going to start doing it? You have to make the change ahead of time at any point. Just now, now's the time, right?
And say, I mean, if I want to be an author, I have to write to be an author. If I want to publish my book, then I need to do the next steps for getting it out there. So this, this one's tricky. And this one has really helped me because I will constantly say like, oh, well, the way I'm doing things now is working. And then be upset that things aren't working, that I'm not getting results. And it's like, well, what do you have to do different? Unfortunately, it's uncomfortable. Doing different is uncomfortable. That's why we're not doing it. So that one I think is self-explanatory. But if you want things to be different, you have to do different. That one, that one's tough. All right.
So I feel like I had enough excuses today. This was longer than I intended. My producers are going to be like, Katie, why do you record longest episodes? I hope that this helps you guys. I really hope that if there are excuses in your way right now, that at least now you can put names to them and maybe some quick strategies and do different, step out and try a new path. Because right now, if you're stressed, your current situation, your current path, plan of attack, it's not working. So you have to do differently. And what is that going to be? Something I said, and I think my very first podcast episode, and it still is valid now, is if you already were a published author, what would that version of you be doing every day or every week? What would your life look like if you were? And maybe list out the qualities or the things that you would do and who you would be and how you would act. If you were a published author, what would that look like? How often are you writing? How do you spend your time? How do you prioritize things? And are you doing that now? And if it's no, well, then how are you going to become the published author if you're not doing those things that a published author does? I'm going to leave you with that today. All right.
So until next time, we'll talk more on motivation. Keep writing guys.
