Welcome to the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. I'm your host, Katie McCoach, book coach, confidant, and cheerleader. Since 2012, I've helped hundreds of writers become authors, gain confidence, and grow their best stories yet. Together, we'll untangle the vines of chaos and uncertainty surrounding how to be a writer so you can grow into the author you are meant to be. Let's dig in, writer.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Writing with Coach McCoach, episode 27. Today I'm going to expand on something that I had talked about in the last episode because I just felt like it needed a little more emphasis and a little more time because I think this hack might be something that could really help so many people. And if not, then hopefully you still gain something from listening.
Okay, so what is this thing? So let me just briefly say, we're going to talk about intentionally not finishing projects. So now you know, you can kind of give a heads up, see if that's something that you want to learn about, and let's just freaking dive in.
So I mentioned this in the last episode about this idea of intentionally not finishing something. I really wanted to explore this and give you some ideas of what this looks like for you and how it might help you, especially if you struggle the way I do. I struggle with not feeling like a project's complete. Like I, if I'm working on something that's going to take a long time, I really have a hard time when it feels like it's not complete and I don't like ending a session or a day of working on something and it's not done. Like I don't like that feeling. And honestly, this is something that I've struggled with for probably forever. And it's probably a good portion of why I procrastinate. That and learning I have ADHD, that also has opened up some, my eyes a little bit.
But I've been a procrastinator my whole life. And sometimes I just am starting to lean in. Like, you know what? That's part of my system. I procrastinate until last minute, but I also bust butt in that last minute. That leads to a lot of stress, but then if I'm, I know I'm intentionally doing it.
Anyway, I say this because if you are a procrastinator, there's so many reasons, right? But one reason that I think I do this is because I want to wait until I can do it all at once, which is just, that's a little silly, right? Especially project that's going to take a long time. Or for example, a book, like you can, you just can't do it all at once, right? You have to stop writing at some point. So there's that feeling of, well, gosh, when am I going to feel like this is complete? And you might never, right? If you really just look at it, I think a lot of writers have this problem is you write a book, you write the first draft and you're like, okay, well, it's not, it's still not complete.
You edit it a few times, still not complete. You have someone to work on it and give you feedback. You revise it, still not complete. You pitch it, you get a copy of it, you publish it. Maybe then you might feel like it's complete, but I know many writers, if they were to read their work after it's been published and put out in the world, they would still feel like I still have to do something to this. So that feeling kind of lingers for so long.
And how do you deal with it if you are someone who like me really needs to lean into the feeling of completing something? I either really want to complete something and I want to feel it and know that it's done or I don't like completing, right? So my mind is a funny place. I think all of our brains are.
For example, if I'm playing a game, I don't like feeling like it ended. So I will not play like the last couple of levels where I know once I finish those, then I've beat the game and it's over. And so I just won't, I just won't finish the game like ever. So I've played like Super Mario on the Xbox or Switch. Oh, on Switch. The Nintendo Switch. And it's so fun. It's like the Mario world. I forget what it's called. Galaxy maybe? Anyway, so much fun. I think I have like two levels left because I just don't want the feeling of like, oh, that's done. That's how I feel with TV shows, right? Like you binge a show and then you're done or you're caught up and you're like, oh, now what? Now what do we do? Sometimes I will intentionally not, well, I don't really intentionally do it, but I happen to do it where I'll be like, I'll get back to that. And I never do because I just like to linger in the feeling that it's still there to finish at some point. So it's either always or never, right? All or nothing.
I have learned that that's probably a pretty big indicator with, um, that's a big thing with ADHD, very all or nothing thinking. So if you are an all or nothing thinker, then this might help you. So if you're dealing with this, I have started to explore this and I wanted to share it with you. The idea of intentionally not finishing something, going into it and not only knowing like, oh, I'm not going to finish today, but what I would challenge you to do, especially if this was really a problem for you, like you really struggle, especially when you go back to write your book and you're sitting in front of the blank page and you're like, I just finished chapter two yesterday. Oh, I guess I'll start chapter three or maybe jump around. But you finished a scene before.
I wonder how much you feel overwhelmed when you go to start doing it again, right? You're like, oh my gosh, this is a big undertaking. Suddenly it feels big. It feel you got to start the scene from the beginning. You have to get back into the character's heads. And it's hard. It's hard every time you enter that project to try and do it again and again.
And so I want to challenge you if this was a struggle for you. What if you ended your session in the middle of a sentence? I want you to really end in the middle of a scene, something really exciting, but even try to end it in the middle of a sentence. I have found that when I have intentionally started to go into my projects and I've said, you know what? I know that I'm going to quote unquote, end my work. In this case, end my session. This time I'm going to spend on project. I'm going to end it so much in the middle of it that I can't, I cannot keep myself from doing it again the next time. Right?
Like, so lately I've been applying this to like painting or a craft project. I am intentionally going into it and saying, this is not being finished today. I am going to work on this again tomorrow or soon. And so I will end in a place that's very in the middle of things, like only half through a tree. Right? So I just, I just painted like a snowy Christmas scene or a snowy scene with a big tree in the middle. I'm very new to painting. And I knew that the tree was like not colored in all the way. So you got to kind of let paint dry if you want to layer in colors and then not have all the colors mixed together. Right? So I chose to know that I was leaving it where it was like barely colored in. So I did like a lot of it and then I just left it half done. And I was like, I can't wait to do it the next day.
And you know what? The next day I pulled that stuff out. It was still, some of the brushes were still almost wet because I had just been using them and I dove right back into where I left off. And here's the funny thing is the last time I finished, I did not pick a intentionally intentional middle place to end. And now it's been like a week since I've touched it because I didn't have that open ended intentional choice. Now it felt like I completed a huge piece of it. I'm overwhelmed with trying to get back to it. So it's like literally just this snowy scene of a Christmas tree. I don't know what to do next. Because I left it in such a place where I'm like, do I touch it? Do I not touch it? I know it's not done, but I didn't, I didn't leave myself in the middle of a decision or yeah, I guess that's the way to think about it. I left myself in a place where I have to make a decision before I start the project.
Ooh, I just unlocked this. So as I'm talking to you guys, this is a totally off the cuff episode and you can probably tell because as I'm talking, I'm like, Oh my God, that's, that's it. It's the decision. That is what it is. Okay. You're just with me here as my brain starts exploding because with ADHD, especially making decisions is probably the harder piece than actually implementing. Once you've made the decision, you already know what you're going to do. It's so much easier to start your day. At least that's what I found.
So if I've decided the day before, this is what I'm doing today. Then when I start my day, I wake up and I'm like, okay, I don't have to wonder what I'm going to do. And so any decision level decision can overwhelm the crap out of me. What am I going to eat for breakfast? If I didn't already decide what I was going to have, I get very overwhelmed with that decision. I could sit and just stare off or let's be real, crack my knuckles and stare off for 40 minutes straight. If I haven't already decided what's going to do today or eat or literally anything like that, right. I'll sometimes have to call my husband if I haven't thought about what our kid's going to have for dinner or toddler. And I'm the one in charge because my husband works far. So I'm picking them up and I'll call my husband while he's driving home. And I'm like, can you help me figure out what I'm going to make for dinner? Like I have all these options ahead of me. I've got all the food. I just need someone to help me decide sometimes. Sometimes I just need to like get my brain focused. And sometimes that's the harder part for me.
Maybe this sounds familiar, maybe not. So if I go into something and I've already made the decision about what I'll do next time and that's my way of intentionally not finishing. So if I end my session in a project and I say, okay, I'm literally ending right here in the middle so that I don't have to think about where I start next time. So for example, in writing, if I ended a scene at the end and I like completed a scene, I'm going to feel like, cool, I completed. That feels good. And then what I'm going to do is the next day I'm going to be like, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? This is too much. I don't know what to do. I haven't, I don't already know where it's going. So instead, even if I finish a scene, I'm like, that feels really good. What I'll do is start the next one. Maybe I'll start it with a line. Maybe I'll leave a couple notes. Like I want to do X, Y, Z in the scene. So at least I already know what I decided to do. Maybe I'll, I'll start it or just put a phrase, a dialogue that gets me right back into the, like the, the feeling, the vibe, like a line, a paragraph or something that calls out and like re-triggers the decision I had already made about where the scene's going to go. And that's all right. And even if I'm really excited and I'm like, Ooh, I can't wait to write the scene. I stop because then the next time I log in, I will say, Ooh, that's where I was. Oh my God. Okay. My brain is going already. Let's do it. And the flow is snap, snap. It is very quick and I can dive right back in.
So I do this episode today because there's, I know I am not the only one who does this. I am not the only writer with ADHD or business person, especially a female entrepreneur. This is very common with female entrepreneurs to actually have ADHD. It's very kind of a funny thing because we want to make our own rules and we buck against certain things, but then it can be really overwhelming too. So a lot of this is probably common stuff that you're feeling where, you know, if you have trouble with this entering a project and you're like, man, what am I going to write about today? Then I encourage you to do two things.
One intentionally don't finish the day before or whatever, when you stopped before and make the decision on what you're going to do next in that moment. So already know what you're going to do next time so that you can dive right in. And so I think that as much as that decision can help, if you put time between your stuff and you don't give yourself an indication of what decision you already made, you might lose track. Right? So that's why I think make the decision what you're going to do next time and then intentionally start that scene or something about that so that you don't have to ask yourself what you decided. You can log into your page, you see you've already started writing and there's no, you just, you don't have to spend, you don't have to waste any time. You don't have to spend any time trying to get back in the vibe because you read one line and you're like, oh, I'm back in it.
Anyway, this is really quick. I just, I felt like this was something I wanted to explore a little bit more. Or if you didn't listen to the last episode, I wanted anyone who was struggling with this idea to just get the snapshot quick, hopefully helpful tip so that if you are someone who really struggles with the overall like, damn, writing a book is so big. I've always wanted to write one, but this is too much. And I encourage you to intentionally not finish, go into your thing saying, I am not finishing this today. We will not be complete today. I will intentionally leave this in the middle of it. Just like when you write, when we talk about stories and a lot of times we're like, oh, you want to start your book in the middle of things. The same thing. You want your, you want your readers to start in the middle of things? Well, you want to start in the middle of things because you feel like you dive right in. It's the same with why we start our books and stories in that sort of frame of in the middle of things. So we just go right in and we just start sailing along with our characters. So try and do that for yourself. Try and start in the middle of things.
I just had a client who had emailed me and I'm not sure if we even even talked about this before, but she'd emailed me and was like, oh my God, finishing a session in, in the middle of a scene is so good because I just dove right in and I was already in the vibe and I just helped so much. And I don't even think we talked about this. I think she just did that, happened to do it and it worked out so well. So that is what I encourage you with today. If you really struggle with this feeling, if you're an all or nothing, try it out. Let me know how it goes. Send me a note. You can tag me on Instagram at Katie, my coach, or you can just send me an email, log into my site and fill out my contact form. Send me a note. Let me know how this worked out for you. Or please leave a review on the podcast. I would really love to know how this content helps or doesn't help and how I can continue to help you in the future.
And then last thing I'll say is if you didn't know, I just launched a website shop. So I'm very excited if you like coloring or you like DIY courses, workbook, eBooks, then go to my shop, go to katiemccoach.com slash shop and you can buy some courses that I've created over the years. I've got courses on how to write in deep point of view. So if you're not really familiar with that, I really go deep into this topic. That's called diving seven miles deep with deep point of view. It's like basically seven elements. How do we really get deep and under the surface? And so that is one of the courses I've got a course on. Of course, you know that I've got my nail your character arcs course. That one is katiemccoach.com slash nail your arcs.
But on my website website store, you can find some different digital downloads. So it's not quite the same as that course. These are workbooks that you can do on your own time. You can just sit and read them on your commute. You can download the speechify app, listen to the courses and learn some stuff on your own time. When you are just like, I need to learn something new. Let me learn about deep point of view. I can learn how to ground your readers from page one. So grounding your readers is really important. And a lot of people kind of miss some of these aspects of it. You will learn about show don't tell. And last but not least, I have a workbook on crafting a captivating submission package. So this is for anyone who's trying to pitch their book. This gives you everything you need to know on how to get started, what you need to know, how you're going to find agents, what a pitches a query letter, a synopsis, what your first five pages mean. So if you are someone who's needs a little guidance in that, I've got you covered. So go check out the shop, especially if you love coloring, please check out the shop and see all the coloring pages I have on there.
I actually commissioned a illustrator. So I have this illustrator. I love her coloring books like so much that I commissioned her to make me pages. So they're very like author focused, have some encouraging prompts and words on there. So you can color them and even display them if you want. I got some really good stuff for authors on there. So if you love coloring as much as I do, check them out. Anyway, get him a coach. That's brand new. I'm super excited about that.
And again, if this episode or any others have helped you, please don't hesitate to leave a review or a rating. I would super appreciate that. And until next time, writer, keep growing.
