The Author Wheel Podcast
The Author Wheel Podcast
From Writer's Block to Brave Storytelling with Dani Abernathy
". . . my job is as a coach is to help writers recognize the things that they have control over and that they don't."
This week's interview is with Enneagram teacher and Author Accelerator book coach Dani Abernathy. She helps people write the stories they need to tell so their readers can feel seen and can see others. She believes that stories can change the world, one reader at a time, and are one of our most powerful tools for having less war and more love. She's the creator of the Rooted Writers Mentorship, a year-long writing mentorship that helps people write brave stories.
From writers' block to using the Enneagram for character development, Dani has great advice for all of us on building a sustainable author career.
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Dani Abernathy
Website: http://www.daniabernathy.com/
Mentorship: www.daniabernathy.com/mentorship
Instagram: @daniabernathyauthor
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Greta Boris:
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Megan Haskell:
Website: www.MeganHaskell.com
Facebook & Instagram: @MeganHaskellAuthor
TikTok: @AuthorMeganHaskell
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Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel podcast. I'm Greta Boris, USA Today Bestselling Mystery Thriller. Author.
Speaker 2:And I'm Megan Haskell, award-winning fantasy adventure author. Together we are the Author Wheel. This week, we're excited to be talking with book coach Danny Abernathy. We cover a bunch of different topics, including author personality using the Enneagram and what it takes to be a brave writer. But first, how are you doing this week, greta?
Speaker 1:Well, probably not feeling very courageous or brave.
Speaker 2:Well, you can listen to the episode or listen to the interview again and be inspired.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think I do need to. Yeah, things are going along OK. We went camping at the beach this past weekend, so I'm trying to snap myself out of vacation mode.
Speaker 2:To be perfectly honest, it was a little chilly though, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:Only at night. The days were gorgeous.
Speaker 2:Oh, really OK.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was beautiful. It was just very short and by the time you're kind of like in vacation mode, it's over.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know but it was nice.
Speaker 1:So in the writing news I am in the third book, rewriting the third book now, of what will be the almost true crime series, formerly entitled the Sanctity of Sloth. So I would like to tell readers or listeners out there, do never write a book about sloth. I think I never fell asleep so much as I did writing that book. I mean, I would say it was the longest and I overwrote that story. It's the longest book in all of the seven and it's really overwritten and I am having to cut lots and lots of words. I am cutting an entire POV, wow, rearranging chapters and it's like I feel like you know how they always say Michelangelo, he just would chip away at the stone to uncover the statue beneath. Yeah, that's what I feel like I'm doing Chipping away at all these words to kind of find the story that's buried in there somewhere.
Speaker 2:It's so funny, though, because I feel like this idea of be careful what you write and when or how it affects you on a personal level is so true, because I was thinking back when I was writing the Winter Warrior, which is set in the mountains. Basically I was cold the whole time I was writing that book. I remember distinctly just being cold the whole time I was writing that book. So, yeah, be careful what you write, I guess. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:So the new title is the Hiding Place, which is kind of what I feel like doing right now is kind of hiding out in my house and getting it done. There you go, but it's going to be a lot better. I also started my first author cross promotion. We were setting it up, but this is the month that the first one launches, so I've been kind of thinking through that, like how to present it to my list and this, and then next month I've been invited into another one, so I have the one I set up, which is a cozier one for my Martician series.
Speaker 1:That one is Unconventional Sludes is what we're introducing our readers to, and then I'll also have a grittier one, for that'll be kind of pushing the almost true crime series. And so it's going to be interesting to see how my readers respond to both sets of authors, because I have this one set of authors that's the more funny cozy, and then the other set of authors that is a little more gritty, realistic crime. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that goes. I will report in. But what is happening with you?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I hate daylight savings time. I agree it is the worst. Yep, I felt all Monday especially, but even Tuesday a little bit. I felt like I was walking through jello, like it was just. Everything was so hard and so slow and I just didn't want to be doing it. Yeah, so that was good. No, but it's funny to me how just that one hour difference can completely derail everything that you're trying to accomplish. It's not that big a change, it shouldn't be that hard, but I decided it's because it's not gradual. I was actually talking to my husband about this that you know, like a week ago, before daylight savings time, you'd wake up in the morning and it was already light out and it was even my 6 o'clock, 6 AM writing. It was so much easier because it was light out and I could see what I was doing and it felt, you know, breezy I guess. But now it's pitch black again and it doesn't feel right because there was no gradual approach to it Messes up your circadian rhythm.
Speaker 1:It does. It really does so.
Speaker 2:I've been fighting through that, but good news is, we did finish up the layering your story world course last week. So, kickstarter backers, if you supported that course or chose that course for your rewards, you have been included in the course. Now you should have received an email that gives you all your login information and so forth. So check that out. If you weren't a Kickstarter backer, the course is now listed up on the website if you are interested. And then now that that's done, I can focus on finishing the campaign prep for the last descendant special edition hardcover Kickstarter campaign, and I'm really excited because I got some of the images, like the 3D renders from the printer back and the book is going to look just gorgeous. It's got the foil inlay on the cover and I've got sprayed edges and I love the new artwork. It's just absolutely beautiful. So I can't wait to actually launch that campaign and get it going. But I have a bit more work to do on that. So if you listeners are, if you're interested in following along, make sure you click the link in the show notes. That will take you to the Kickstarter campaign page and then click the green notify me on launch button so that when it does go live, you will be one of the first to know. So I think that's it for now.
Speaker 2:Let's get on with the show. Today, we are thrilled to have Danny Abernathy on the show with us. She is an Enneagram teacher and author accelerator book coach who helps people write the stories they need to tell so their readers can feel seen and can see others. She believes that stories can change the world, one reader at a time, and are one of our most powerful tools for having less war and more love. She's the creator of the Rooted Writers Mentorship, a year long writing mentorship that helps people write brave stories. Welcome, danny, we're really excited to have you here.
Speaker 3:Hi, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, before we get into the questions, megan Megan, that is such an interesting bio that stories can change the world one reader at a time, and one of our most powerful tools for having less war and more love. Gosh, that just makes me feel so important for being a writer.
Speaker 3:You are important. I mean stories are so important.
Speaker 1:I love that. And just a quick question before we get into the other questions. So with your coaching based on this bio, I'm wondering if your coaching is more for people writing memoir or nonfiction, or is it fiction or is it just everything it's fiction.
Speaker 3:So I do get a lot of people who write memoir, who want to join the mentorship, but I don't feel like equipped to coach, mentorship or memoir right now. So it's fiction. Yeah, okay, it's all fiction. I think stories are just like transformational. You know, when you experience a story and it changes you. Yeah, so it's fiction.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I do think that stories are kind of like mind melding. You know the you get inside someone else's head like no other way and the more we can wait. We're just diverting already. I haven't even asked you the first question. The more you can get into other people's heads, the broader your worldview is you know because of what? You can. You can understand the way other people think, which is huge huge.
Speaker 2:They've actually done studies. I think that people who read a lot are more empathetic, and kids who read a lot are more empathetic and have a higher emotional IQ, which I think is very interesting.
Speaker 1:I wish.
Speaker 2:I. I don't have the study. I would quote it if I could, but I'm pretty sure I've read that that's like been proven, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've seen that too, and I know this is like totally idealistic and unrealistic, but I just feel like if all of the world leaders would read more fiction people are not like them that we would just be a much more peaceful, happy place. I just want to like give everyone, like say, read these 10 novels please. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think the key right there that you just said is that reading stories about people that are not like them, that's the important thing, you know. It's the, it's the broadening your horizons through experiencing quote, unquote, the other, you know which I, which I think is what fiction is particularly good at, which is why I write fantasy, because there's nothing more other than being in the in the shoes of an elf, I love fantasy.
Speaker 3:For that reason because, like with world building and stuff, I mainly coach fantasy and I I write fantasy as well and, like with world building, you can do so much cool stuff to like talk around all of these really like polarizing issues so that like as the reader you're experiencing them and you're learning them and you're like confronting all these things that are so scary to confront in real life. But then when you do it in fantasy and fiction, then it's like it's easier and you come away like changed, without even realizing that you've been engaged in that conversation almost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. Yeah, it's. It's more, it's more subtle. Sometimes, especially like contemporary fiction that has a message can be too on the nose, where you can have that same message in fantasy and it's just under the surface, because it doesn't feel quite the same when you're talking about cultural differences and so forth and so on when they're, when they're magical, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we just dove right in, we did we started with the tangent I can no. I can just see that there's going to be a good conversation, so, but so we can dive back into all that important stuff. Why don't you like quickly? No, you don't have to make it quick. Tell us what was your journey like. How did you get here and become so brilliant about stories and all of that other kind of thing, Like what made you you and got you where you are today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. So, like everybody, I've always written and I started, I wrote, started to write my first book when it's eight. But somewhere along the way in, in like high school or college, I decided that I was like a technical writer and I wasn't a creative writer which is so silly when I look back, because I was writing like beautiful, creative things all the time. But somehow I got this message in my brain that I wasn't a creative writer. And so I I I've lived, you know, some years in my adulthood with that belief, and then, in 2010, no, how old am I, I can't remember. So some year, we, we moved abroad, my husband and I, and we'd been trying to get pregnant for several years and we hadn't.
Speaker 3:And then we had two miscarriages in like six months apart in in a foreign country in, and I started writing poetry as a way to cope with my grief and I know now like I have had depression for years and as a way of coping with that as well, and I think that poetry saved me in a lot of ways and so that kind of opened up this creative writing well in me. And we did. We did have, we have two kids now and when my children were little, motherhood is very hard and I just felt like I was losing myself and I I do think I had postpartum depression and these things I didn't realize. But so I started writing novels as a way to connect with myself and to have real conversations with the characters in my head and, and you know, just to like use my brain. So I wrote, I was writing, loving it, really committed to it, but I kept writing these novels that weren't working and I didn't know why and I didn't know how to make them work, and I got so frustrated at one point that I was just like, well, I guess I just have to stop. I guess I'm just not going to be a writer, I just have to stop writing.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, I had heard Jenny Nash, who's the CEO of author accelerator, where I became a book coach. I'd heard her on a podcast and so I knew this thing called book coaches existed, and a book coach is kind of like an editor who works with you while you're writing your book. And so I I worked with a book coach and it just was transformational. It helped me understand how story works in a new way and it also I didn't feel alone in my story anymore, which was like for me, huge.
Speaker 3:So all these story light bulbs went off. But also I was like I think I want to do this. I think I want to help people, as they're writing it, to not go through what I went through. So I went through the author accelerator certification program and in the past four years I've been coaching. For about four years I've just I use the Enneagram in my coaching and I've really kind of leaned into these things that I love and that light me up and that I've found really helpful as I shape my. I have a group coaching program. It's a year long and I just have have been more and more like thinking about what did I need and how can I provide that to people? That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great, but you also, so you've now have you published anything?
Speaker 3:of your own, so I haven't published, okay. Okay, I actually decided gosh, I think it was the beginning of 2022. What is time? I feel like time is what is time.
Speaker 2:Time is a construct of the human mind.
Speaker 3:It's not really. Actually, I gave myself permission to stop writing fiction because I wanted to put all my creative energy into the rooted writers, mentorship and to supporting my clients, and I was. I was writing out of obligation, out of the sphere that like I had to be writing in order to be a good book coach and I just released sort of that fear and that requirement of myself which was kind of an identity crisis. But so I expect I'll get back to fiction in a few years, but for now we're on a little break, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I understand that. I feel that as well. I've recently started to make the same adjustment for myself. Where writing is, it's my creative writing. Fiction writing is my creative outlet. So I do that in the morning, but it really doesn't matter how much I get done, and I've given myself permission to just do that little bit of work just so I have that outlet, but then focus energy more on this podcast and other things too. So I understand that.
Speaker 2:Because there is such a limited amount of time, you know you can't split your attention too many different ways and still move the ball forward, so to speak. Otherwise it just everything slows down if you're trying to, like you know, spread yourself too thin. So I feel you. I feel you on that one for sure. And that's kind of nice thing, though, too, is being a book coach is, yes, having the experience of writing or being a writer, even if it's as a hobby or part time or whatever, is valuable. But if you love story and you love, you know helping writers and being, you know teaching them how to be productive, that's also really key too. So I love that you've given yourself that permission. I think too often we don't give ourselves that kind of grace to make those changes in our lives when we know something's not working.
Speaker 3:So yeah, thank you for sharing. It was a scary change, but I'm happy that I let myself do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So why don't you tell us OK, so we'll do? The next standard question what is the most common roadblock, then, that you see from the authors you coach as far as getting their books finished and published, or you know mindset, however you want to approach it, but what is that roadblock that is common amongst writers?
Speaker 3:So I think, both for myself and for my clients. First of all, I'll say that most of the people I work with are writing stories that they're deeply connected to Like. So they're writing fiction, but it comes from their own experiences. You know often their own wounds or questions, and so and that's also typically where I wear and why I write to answer my own questions, and so I think for many of us, the biggest roadblock is ourselves. And, of course, there's all these questions of, like you know, learning the craft and what is the character arc and how do you structure your book, and all those things. But so, depending on what you want to write, the people I work with want to write emotionally impactful fiction, so they really want to make their reader feel seen and known, and then they want to make other people see and know.
Speaker 3:And when you want to write that kind of book, it requires a lot of bravery, and you have to be willing to tell the truth, and in order to be brave, you have to be brave with yourself, like you have to be honest with yourself, and so I think that that is really really scary, and so first of all, you have to be really emotionally brave, and then you know, I work with mostly first time writers or unpublished writers, and, and so when, whenever you're doing something new, your brain is like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't, we've never done this before.
Speaker 3:This is uncharted territory, let's step back to what we know. And so both just are kind of resistance to newness, to possibly failing. And then are all of the all of the emotions that come up when we are writing from ourselves. I think those are the two biggest hurdles, because all the all the plots and structure and character, all that stuff can be figured out if you keep going, you know, if you are willing to persevere and to face the scariness and the unknown in yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting how many writers new writers or unpublished maybe is the better way to phrase that writers I feel like they approach it as well. I have this story that I want to tell or this thing that I want to read that nobody else is writing, but I'm not talented enough to do that. I could never do that, so why not? You're able to do that too. It's just, it's getting over that initial hurdle of, like you said, like allowing yourself to approach the story and be brave. That is, it is bravery. But how do you coach those authors to do that and to be brave and get over that mindset hurdle?
Speaker 3:Well, it's not a simple question. So there's a few things that ways that I've kind of structured my hoaching to facilitate that. So first of all, I think of story as a tree. So I use something called the story tree process and that's we grow your story from the ground up, and so I think the author is the roots of their story tree, because everything comes from them. So obviously that's like you know the plot, the character, the world, but also the meaning and the impact and the ability to finish, you know. So I think the more connected you are to your story, the stronger your story is going to be, and so so one of the tools we use in my coaching is the Enneagram personality system, and we use that both to develop characters but also to help people you know embrace themselves and understand what's important to them and how they show up in the world and what their like defense mechanisms are. So self discovery is a huge part of of my coaching process. But then I think the other big thing is my group program.
Speaker 3:The Routed Writers Mentorship is a year long.
Speaker 3:And it's a year long because writing a deeply personal novel is hard and I think many writers they're not really good at writing.
Speaker 3:It's hard, and I think many writers now, you know, look at successful authors like you guys and think, oh, I got to, I got to turn out this book, I got to publish in 90 days.
Speaker 3:You know, I have to publish every 90 days, so, like, I need to be doing all these things and sometimes that works for people and it works really well, and sometimes it doesn't. And so for the people who, like myself, who think, oh, I didn't meet my goal, I'm a failure, you know, or like this means I can't do it I wanted to provide a longer container so that they can keep showing up for their story when life happens, as it always does they, they understand that that's just part of the process and their stories and going anywhere, they can come back to it. And also because you know when you are writing brave, when you're doing brave writing, it's really. It takes a lot of energy and sometimes you need to recover and you need to allow yourself or you need to, like, gather your courage right. And so I think the, the spaciousness of, of the rooted writers, mentorship, is a huge asset to overcoming those, those hurdles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I'm reading a book right now and it's called Playing Big by Tara Moore I think that's how you say her last name and it's not for writing, it's not per se for writers, it's just for women in business in general and it's really interesting. So a lot of the things you're saying she, her premise is that women struggle with this a lot more than men do. And because it's kind of laying ingrained in us and she was saying that she does more business coaching not writing coaching but she would see these women who would have these brilliant ideas and, rather than bring them forward to their company or or in an entrepreneurial way or whatever you know, they would hesitate and they would be like, oh no, but I need more, I need to go back to school or I need more. This right, I need somebody to choose me or pick me.
Speaker 1:Whereas their male counterparts would get half an idea that was half as good, and just like march it out there in. You know, and I think that that bravery that you're talking about is is so important because the skill stuff like story beats and dialogue tags and you know, and how much exposition versus how much you know action or whatever that, all that kind of stuff is just going to be learned. It's like learning your scales when you learn music you know, or learning major and minor chords or whatever it's like. That's technical stuff. You can learn the technical stuff, but it's the more emotional bravery thing that you were talking about.
Speaker 1:Those are. That's the the part that trips us up a lot of the time, and you know, and that we don't have that confidence. So I just would think that even having a coach to roll ideas by and to read what you've written and to give you the pets on the back and to help you find the way forward, I mean that's just got to be super helpful, because I do think, like you said, insecurity is what what's. I know, even though I don't know.
Speaker 1:I've kind of published oh I don't know 11 or 12 fiction novels and a whole bunch of novellas. I still, every time I get in the middle of a book, I'm like Megan's probably heard me do this. It's like this is the stupidest book in the world. Who would ever want to read this book? This is so lame. Like why did I ever think this was a good idea? You know, and it still happens. But I now know that it's going to happen.
Speaker 1:And I can prepare myself for it going to happen and give yourself some grace during that period. Like you said, maybe give yourself a little time to refill your well and not feel like you have to churn out the words if the words are just stuttering and not coming. And you know, all of that is just fabulous advice and so good for you Holding them hands and doing it. Danny, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:So I'm curious about the Enneagram in particular and how you incorporate that into your coaching practice. I know Greta and I have done some Enneagram studies, so we know a little bit about it. But why don't you first of all explain what the Enneagram is and then how it applies to the writing process?
Speaker 1:And probably using it in a better way than me and my daughter sitting down and analyzing everybody and the family and deciding what they are.
Speaker 2:I mean it's hard not to.
Speaker 3:I was like, wow, this is fun, I'm constantly like who, who, what type is this person, especially my close family, and I find that they're the hardest to figure out because I'm, like, so close to them. Yeah, um, so the Enneagram is a personality system that there's nine types within it. So it's it's numbers type one, type two. I know you guys have talked about this before on the podcast, but the reason I love it so much is because it doesn't just focus on behavior Like you're an extrovert, you're an introvert, that sort of thing. It's like why do you do what you do? Um, what, what's, what are your motives? You know what's your desire and your fear that are motivating all these behaviors you develop.
Speaker 3:And one of the things about the Enneagram is you can't just look at behavior, so you know, um, different types can have the same behavior, but it's really about why are they doing? That thing that determines what type they are. And so you know, I think it's helpful for writers in a few different ways. So you know one, as the writer yourself, it's helpful to understand, like, why you're writing. So, like, if you're a type three, are you guys threes? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a three, four and and grad is a three, two.
Speaker 3:Okay, so you know type threes, you probably want to publish and be successful, like in your writing. Yeah, Um, I'm a four, which is like the, the individualist, the romantic, and I write to know myself better and to to have people know me, like I also want to be successful, but it's more important to me like that, somehow that connection and that self-discovery is important, um and so. So, understanding your motive for writing, I think is really important because it helps you know the right choices and also not compare yourself to like me, to compare myself to you guys. Like it. We want different things and we're writing for different reasons and if we try to like switch like trade, it's not going to be helpful for us, but then it's also.
Speaker 3:The enneagram is so helpful in your writing for for character development, and so, um, one of the first things I do with my clients is help them find the point of their novel which is kind of like the worldview or the message of their story, like theme. But yeah, it's theme, but it's also like more specific. So, um, for example, the point of my, I guess theme can be specific. But so the point of my last work in progress was you can only embrace your power once you've embraced yourself. And so having a a point is, it's like a, a lighthouse or a map just you know where you're heading and so you know what choices to make in your story to to get you there.
Speaker 3:And so we use the point to then develop characters. And so if you know that your point is, you can only embrace your power once you've embraced yourself, we know that that character, that protagonist, needs to be a protagonist who struggles to embrace themselves. So like a type eight probably isn't going to be the right protagonist, because a type eight is really a self assured and they're like not taking crap from anybody and they are like they the sense, and also a one like the sense of um what's the word? Like self assurance and like um, solidity in themselves is confidence maybe confidence, yeah, Like an inner confidence.
Speaker 3:Um is not going to make for a very great character arc If the the character is trying to learn about accepting themselves. So we can use it to help um figure out the best type for a protagonist and then, like you know, kind of approaching it from the other way, we can figure out your antagonist. And then, of course, it's really great for character differentiation as well and just making your characters like real, authentic people, not just sort of cardboard cutouts of people that you're moving around on the page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. So we teach a course, live, um, that's using the enneagrams, develop characters, um, but we actually not to give too much away Okay, I'm giving it all away, but whatever. Um, but we use the Cinderella story and apply the enneagram. So if you had different personality types, how would Cinderella be different? Because that really does make a huge difference to the story that you are trying to tell.
Speaker 2:Um and I know for myself too that I I've used the enneagram kind of in the same way that you're describing, where, like, and sometimes I'll get halfway through the story and I'll think the character is one type, and then halfway through the story I go wait a second. No, no, no, no, no, this is not right, because XYZ thing, this motivation doesn't quite work. And so you realize that that understanding that that enneagram type or that personality, gives you that sense of what's right or wrong for that character and keeps you from going off track. Um, because what's one of the biggest complaints, complaints that readers have? It's well, that character would never do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, if you understand their personality, you won't have that problem.
Speaker 3:Right, and if you understand like the beliefs that are driving their personality, then you can like be grounded in like what that character believes about themselves and the world's kind of that every moment as they are growing and changing, and so it it it's really like a safeguard against, yeah, your character just becoming another person suddenly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love using enneagram for the evil bad guy because you know, it's so interesting to me to see how each personality, when it devolves down into its most unhealthy levels, it's very different. Like, some personalities, when they get devolved and get uh you know very unhealthy, they turn inward and so those people are maybe more inclined to become substance abusers or even commit suicide or get very depressed, or you're talking about the four here. Other character, other personality types go outward and they might be the kind that would get a gun and shoot somebody, some, you know, shoot up a church or something. So it's it's like.
Speaker 1:So if you have a bad guy that you want to do evil things, you have to choose your personality type. So I had a bad guy in one book who was OCD and then I realized like and not by the way, please don't email me, I do not believe that OCD people are villains. I have some very adorable friends who are OCD. I'd love. I think I'm a little OCD myself. Just so happened this bad guy was, and then I realized I had completely used the wrong personality type because only certain personality types are prone to becoming OCD.
Speaker 1:So that was something that I had to, you know, address and, like Megan said, go back and kind of adjust some of the earlier chapters, realizing that I had chosen poorly and I had to fix that. But it's so fun to have those kind of tools that I think a lot of the time back to your coaching, a lot of the time brand new writers they don't recognize all the tools that are available to them that other people have gone before and said. Here you go Enneagram is a fabulous tool and having somebody to help you learn to use it is really, really interesting too. So, apart from Enneagram, what other tools or tips or advice do you give to writers when they start getting stuck?
Speaker 3:So I gave a talk on writer's block some time ago. What is fun. I think it was about six months ago.
Speaker 2:I think we've already established time is a construct, it means nothing.
Speaker 1:I can really tell I'm talking to two fantasy authors. Come on, you mystery, thriller, crime people. Where are you? Time is everything. It's body decomposition.
Speaker 2:Come on in you guys. No, my head is in my work in progress and I'm dealing with time and space and the lack of it, and my head's just in that zone right now. Sorry. Time travel just warrants my brain in a way that nothing else does.
Speaker 3:So anyway, I gave this talk on writer's block. I'm kind of using a tree as a model. We've got root level writer's block, kind of structural, so tree trunk and branch level writer's block, and then leaf, which would be the word, so manuscript level writer's block, and so at the very top level in the leaves in the manuscript, there's like grammar and like, oh, I'm not portraying my characters well, and then a layer down, so that's like you need to fix something in your story. That's a story problem, right, that's that kind of writer's block, so a layer down. You've got this structural kind of this branch and tree trunk level of writer's block and that's like it could be.
Speaker 3:I don't know what a character arc is like. I don't have the knowledge I need to solve this writer's block problem. I don't have feedback, so I don't have a community, or I can't remember what the other one was. There's another one, but then at the lowest level, kind of at this root layer, is these internal writer's blocks, right? So like fear or like maybe I'm, maybe I don't want to write the story anymore, or maybe life is really hard, and so I think so. So in my community we have group coaching calls and so you know, everyone gets together and I do one on one coaching with people on the group calls, and so many times the writer will come with a story problem and then really, as we talk, it's actually like a personal problem, you know.
Speaker 3:And so one of the things that I've really, I think, discovered for myself this year and my clients is that, like we can't fight our reality. And so, for example, I learned this year that I have major recurrent depressive disorder. So I have depression like two times a year, in the fall and the spring. Despite being on medication, despite like doing all the things to try to not have it. It just is something that happens in my brain and my body, and trying to act like it doesn't exist or to like will it away doesn't help me. It actually makes it worse, because then I just feel terrible about myself.
Speaker 3:So, for example, as I was looking at this year, I was like, okay, how do I structure my year and my business around these periods when I know I'm going to have less capacity? And so I think part of this is maybe a weird answer to your question, but like part of what part of what I think my job is as a coach is to help writers recognize the things that they have control over and that they don't. And so you know if you are dealing with some sort of systemic external force of oppression in your life, sure, you have a certain amount of agency in your life, but you can't remove that circumstance. If you have a disability or a mental illness or you lose your job or you know like things happen in your life, we can't what am I trying to say, ignore them and just try to push through them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we honor our stories when we honor our bodies and our brains and our circumstances. And so if you have a problem in your story, yes, you can get help and you can read books and you can get coaching and all those things. But also, like, is there something bigger going on that you know a podcast episode isn't going to solve? Or, you know, a line edit, by recognizing what's going on in ourselves and in our lives, we're going to be better able to finish our books and to get them out into the world and to have, like, long writing careers Like Megan. For you, you know, like choosing to engage in fiction writing as a creative, not as a churning out the work, you know like that's going to enable you to keep writing, Whereas if you didn't do that, you probably burnt out and not write anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's exactly the dilemma I was facing, where I was putting so much pressure on my fiction to be the income earner that I stopped wanting to write as much. And now I might not write, you know, for hours at a time or I might not write. You know, my 2000 word it used to be a 2000 word goal every single day. I might not hit that, but at least I'm writing every day and I'm still getting that outlet and all the pressure has been taken off so that I can focus on that. And I think you're right. I think that that kind of dealing with it's part of it is understanding personality, part of it is understanding like doing that deeper dive into why do I write, what do I want out of it.
Speaker 2:Going to the plain big book that Greta was talking about with Bytara Moore you know I'm reading that one too, actually, but she talks about, you know, doing a visualization of your future self and using your future self as your mentor, and that was like so profound to me, so great.
Speaker 2:But I think all of that does writing is such a personal, emotional, self motivated, self driven activity that if you try to ignore all that other stuff, I don't think it's a sustainable career.
Speaker 2:I think, like I think you're absolutely right. I think once you start putting all that pressure on it, once it becomes the thing that is no longer fits with your life or with your personality, and you step outside that zone, whatever that zone is for you, then absolutely it's not, you're going to burn out, you're going to be, it's not going to be sustainable for the long term. So, if you want that sustainable, long term career, which I think is what we're talking about here, you know, for the writers out there who do have more than one book that they want to write, who do want to pursue this, you have to find the system or the, or the aspect of your life that it works for. So, yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right, I think that that that it's all those combinations of things that you can't, that you're, that you have to, like, deal with when you're, with your, when you're a writer.
Speaker 2:It's not like going to a day job.
Speaker 1:You know, one thing I've heard Joanne and Penn talk about and I'm wondering if you have a take on this, Dani is she talks about beginning energy, the middle of the project energy and finishing energy, and I wonder if different personality types struggle more with different aspects, like I personally and I don't know if this is my personality type or just me, but I love beginnings, I'm a great beginning energy person, you know, and but I do think that each of those phases kind of takes a different mindset, a different headset, a different kind of energy. So, anyway, do you find that with your clients and how do you coach them through those those things, if you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean definitely. So you know, certain enneagram types are much more motivated by the beginning, by the idea. So, like a seven, for example, I just had a bunch of sevens join the mentorship. So I'm curious to see like what the vibe is moving forward, because sevens are like these adventurous, fun loving people who don't. They don't wanna get stuck in what's uncomfortable or painful and, as we know, writing a book is not exactly a quick and you're not just like bouncing from high to high. There's a lot of hard work.
Speaker 1:Sevens are kind of the tiggers of the Indian Grand Worlds right Enthusiasts yeah, and threes as well.
Speaker 3:threes, you know, typically they have so many ideas and they can see the process and they like to move quickly, right. And so then when things get slow and like tedious, for both the three and the seven, it's like oh, can I first of all, can I pass this on to someone else? That's probably what a three might say. And then a seven is just like nope, let's find the next fun thing. A one is the. Sometimes they're called the perfectionist or the reformer, and they're very like my one. Clients want to know.
Speaker 3:So sevens are much more likely to be Panthers and Discovery writers. And ones are almost always plotters because they want to know the right way to do everything right. They want the whole system, they're gonna plan everything out, and so ones actually have a hard time telling themselves they've done enough, so they will just keep refining and refining, and refining. They are more likely to finish because you know they hold themselves to this like such high standard. And then fours. I feel like fours are kind of in the middle, like fours are comfortable with like the sadness and the doldrums and the suffering, but we're also like so emotionally driven that we're like the muse isn't speaking to me, I can't write. Yeah, there's totally different energies among each type.
Speaker 1:That is really interesting and you know. But just know thyself and knowing that you know, like I said, I kind of now know myself like I'm gonna be super enthusiastic at the beginning of a book and a project and you're gonna love the ideas and jotting down some. You know I don't plot fully but I definitely have more of a plotting system than Megan does, for instance. But then that middle energy, that is just getting hard. It's like gee, maybe I should hire a ghost writer. I don't know, I really don't feel like doing this anymore.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I can really get into that. So that is good to give you know yourself and you can just say I know this, I've been here before and maybe here are some tools that will help me get through this and get the job done. You know, and not take myself too seriously right now because you know. But just as my father always said my whole entire life, feelings are not facts.
Speaker 3:That's a hard one for me to believe.
Speaker 1:Well, they sure feel like they are, but you know he's often right feelings are not facts and you just gotta push through. So, Paula, why don't you tell our listeners we're kind of moving toward the wrap up here of this fabulous conversation, and why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about where they can find you and all that you offer and your coaching services and everything that you do?
Speaker 3:Sure, so my website is danielbernathycom. Danny is spelled D-A-M-I. I'm on Instagram Danie Abernathy author. Pinterest. I have a quiz on my website. It's called Find your Untapped Writing Superpower. Ooh, I like that. It's fun, and then you'll get like a whole toolkit as well for your superpower. So that's a fun thing to take. If you're interested in learning more about the Routed Writers Mentorship, it's a year long group program for you to embrace, plan and write a novel you're proud of. You get one-on-one coaching from me. You get teaching. You also have a wonderful community. I just keep thinking like how did I get connected to all of these amazing writers Like these are like the best people in the world. How are we all together in the same place? So you can learn more about that on my website as well.
Speaker 1:Wow, that just sounds fabulous. So, listeners, if you are struggling through any of the things we talked about today which you probably are, if you're a writer, I mean, come on, join the neurotic band here. I think Danny may have some solutions for you. So go check out her website and we will have the link in the show notes. But also, if you are interested in knowing thyself in a different regard, we do have a course, a free course at AuthorReelcom, called Seven Days Declarity Uncover your Author Purpose and you will get an email every day for seven days that will lead you through the process of uncovering what it is you're trying to do and then writing an author mission statement and then taking that mission statement and turning it into a tagline. So if you're interested in that it is free at AuthorReelcom Pop over there and check it out and until next time, keep your stories rolling.
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