S1EP02: EMBRACING THE WORDMAKER MINDSET
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Last week, we talked about mindset and how to shift your negative thoughts to create positive outcomes that lead to success in your writing career. Today, I wanna share how and why I’ve become a mindset evangelist.
First, let me state that it’s not my goal to treat this podcast as some sort of audio diary where I tell you about all of my struggles as a writer. That’s not my goal here. But sometimes, sharing a bit of my writing journey will help me get to the point. Call it a cautionary tale or me sharing the good advice that I just didn’t take (cue Ironic x Alanis Morrisette).
Anyway, I said all that to say that I’m gonna get a little bit personal at the start of this episode.
If you met me in early 2020, you would have met a person who had recently quit their job in healthcare to write and edit romance full time.
I was burnt out from working in that field, and when they told me they needed to move to the night shift, that was the last straw. This wasn't really a hard decision for me to make. I’d planned my exit strategy for several years, had a good roster of editing clients, and had a file full of ideas I was dying to write. So I quit in December of 2019. Then, in January, COVID hit, lockdown ensued, and I had to rework my plan almost immediately.
At that time, I had one of the strongest support systems for my creative businesses that I’ve ever had. With the help of fellow creative entrepreneurs, I figured out how to rework my plan. I started Wordmakers Writing Community on the heels of a successful writing challenge, #20kin5Days. I wrote six books in two years when I was previously a one-book-a-year kinda author. It was quite literally my most successful period of writing and editing up to that point. I’m still super proud of what I created and accomplished during that time.
It was also my first time working from home full-time, and in the midst of lockdown, the words “work/life balance” meant absolutely nothing to me. Who can balance when you’re working from home in a capitalistic society that only rewards productivity?
So by the summer of 2022, the inevitable happened. I hit a wall. The relentless pursuit of my goals had led to an unexpected and unwelcome result: burnout. And let me tell ya, no one was more surprised than me. I spent three years joking about being ten steps ahead of burnout, only to be completely swallowed in by its flames.
Now that I’m on the singed edges of burnout and on my way to recovery, I realize that I didn’t truly know what burnout was or how it felt. If I had, I would have known that I was truly delulu to imagine that I could ever escape it considering the way that I was working.
For clarity, I want to take a moment to define burnout and its symptoms here…
Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. Originally identified in the 1970s by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger, burnout was first used to describe the consequences of severe stress and high ideals experienced by people working in "helping" professions, like doctors and nurses. However, it's now understood to affect individuals across various professions and life scenarios.
The key aspects of burnout include:
Emotional Exhaustion: This is the feeling of being emotionally drained and depleted of emotional resources. It often manifests as a lack of energy and a feeling of being worn out.
Depersonalization or Cynicism: This involves developing a negative, callous, or excessively detached response to various aspects of your job or life circumstances.
Reduced Personal Accomplishment or Efficacy: This is characterized by a decline in your feelings of competence and successful achievement in your work or personal life.
Burnout differs from stress. While stress typically involves too much pressure that can motivate and energize you, burnout represents a feeling of emptiness and being mentally exhausted, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring.
Literally, you have no fucks to give and no desire to even borrow or buy any future fucks.
So how did we get here, friends? What exactly causes burnout?
Burnout can result from various factors, including:
- Prolonged or chronic work stress.
- Feeling a lack of control or autonomy in work or life situations.
- Unclear or overly demanding job expectations.
- Working in a high-pressure environment.
- Lack of recognition or reward for good work.
- Work-life imbalance.
- Lack of social support or isolation.
Symptoms can be physical, emotional, and behavioral, including:
- Chronic fatigue.
- Insomnia.
- Forgetfulness/impaired concentration.
- Physical symptoms like heart palpitations, headaches, or gastrointestinal pains.
- Increased illness due to lowered immune response.
- Loss of appetite.
- Anxiety, depression.
- Anger or irritability.
- Detachment or feeling alone in the world.
- Loss of enjoyment in activities you previously enjoyed.
Sounds like hell, doesn’t it?
It absolutely was, friends. Twenty months later, as I reflect on my recovery, I want to share with you the invaluable lessons I learned. Lessons that lead to designing a new way to approach planning and help me repair my shitty relationship with productivity.
I wanna pause for a moment and give you some advice: if you’re firmly in the grips of burnout, don’t read or listen any further.
Pause and pick up Dear Writer, You Need To Quit, and Dear Writer Are You In Burnout by Becca Syme. You won’t be embracing any kind of mindset shifts or new approaches to your work until you understand where you are in this process. It's important to recognize the signs of burnout and take steps to manage it. If left unaddressed, burnout can lead to serious physical and psychological illnesses like depression, anxiety, and heart disease.
Seriously… stop right now and take care of yourself.
So like I said… I was burnt the fuck out.
I actually didn’t realize how burnt out I was and how long it lasted until I was finally able to finish my latest book, The Love That Remains, and get it ready for publishing. First off, so much had changed on the back end of several distribution platforms that it took me longer than usual to set up. While I was in there, I realized that I haven’t published anything since May 2022. I don’t know why that was a surprise to me.
I knew I didn’t publish anything in 2023, but for some reason, realizing that by the time The Love That Remains went live, it would have been 20 months since my last release, rocked me.
This was in late October of 2023. I immediately dove into finding solutions because, normally, I’m solutions-oriented and prized myself on writing my way out or around a block in my writing. Remaining stagnant was so unlike me! However, as an avid journaler, writing my thoughts and feelings into my writing notebook every day was the one thing I didn’t let slide. I knew that if I was going to find out what caused my burnout and how to get myself out of it, I would find it in those journals.
As I read through my cyclical thoughts about writing and running an online business, I remembered something my friend Erica Courdae said to me once: You give too much. I need you to keep more for yourself.
As a recovering people pleaser, this is not the shit I wanted to hear. She says it to me often, and I still hate to hear it. (Love you, friend!) But in those notebooks, I saw the evidence of how much I gave and gave and gave, keeping nothing for myself.
I gave a lot of my creative energy to my editing clients and my fellow Wordmakers, which I don’t regret, but it also meant I didn’t have anything left. I began to hand off things and scaled back to only running one write in a week until September of 2022 hit, and I had to take a break. Thankfully, my moderators stepped up to handle some of the heavy lifting because 30 days stretched to 90, then 120, and suddenly, I looked up, and it was September again. I didn’t think the group would survive into 2024, and to be honest, doing some deep shadow work and reading through those old notebooks was the only thing that saved me from burning it all down.
In those notebooks, I realized that the group I’d created to support my writing process no longer supported me. It worked well for others because I was working for them. How could I ever begin to hold space for authors if I’d convinced myself that this journey was solitary? This wasn’t something I could plan or write my way out of, friends.
I needed a mindset shift.
Unlike my usual tough talk about writing and the business of writing, this wouldn’t be solved by putting words on a page. I needed something that nurtured a holistic approach to my craft and myself as an author and community host, ensuring sustained success and fulfillment in my writing endeavors throughout the year. I began with what I needed and wanted for my career going into 2024.
Here’s what I came up with:
- I wanted to lean into my strengths versus focusing on the things I struggle to do or what I should do.
- I wanted to acknowledge my challenges and allow myself the grace I would allow any of my fellow wordmakers as I work toward improvement.
- I wanted to pay attention to the opportunities available to me and take advantage of them instead of overthinking the reasons why I shouldn’t.
- I wanted to find a way to interact with the larger writing community without feeling stressed or discouraged by what’s happening in the publishing world.
With those wants and needs in mind, I brainstormed with my good friend Erica as she wrote her book about shadow work, Who Are You (now available wherever you buy books!), and what came out was the Wordmaker Mindset. During our first Plan-a-thon of the year, I shared it with the Wordmakers Writing Community.
Each element of The Wordmaker Mindset is meant to guide us through the trials and tribulations of writing, publishing, and marketing while balancing creativity and strategic planning.
So how do we start? We begin by focusing on our strengths, challenges, opportunities, and awareness.
Our Strengths are the bedrock of our writing personas. Whether it’s an ability to craft relatable characters or a flair for vivid world-building, these innate abilities are our secret sauce. By recognizing our strengths, we can cultivate them in a way that allows our skills to grow and instill a sense of pride in the words we create.
Challenges are inevitable. Whether we struggle with plotting or the complexities of building a social media presence, these hurdles are part and parcel of what it means to be a writer. I made sure that my process advocated for a compassionate approach to these challenges. It’s about embracing them with a spirit of improvement and resilience, not self-critique. It's often in the heart of these challenges that we find our greatest growth.
Looking back over my career, I realized that there were lots of opportunities that I either ignored or self-eliminated myself from due to fraudy feelings or fear of change. Whether it was a new literary trend, an offer for collaboration, or pushing projects off my schedule because I thought they would be too difficult to tackle, I’ve missed out on things that might have changed my career trajectory. This was mostly because I wasn’t focused on growth. My productivity was founded on a scarcity mindset — fear that I would be forgotten if I didn’t write and publish the next thing. I saw those opportunities as challenges. Challenges I didn’t have the time or energy to overcome. I let fraudy feelings stagnate my growth.
Awareness is merely keeping the pulse on what’s happening in the larger writing community. It’s about staying attuned to the subtle shifts in reader preferences, market trends, and industry dynamics.
Honestly, starting from there made all the difference. It made it so much easier to see exactly how to approach my planning. But I needed something else… remember that bit about implementation?
If authors are good at one thing it’s dreaming the impossible dream. We craft people and worlds from scratch, so dreaming big isn’t a huge stretch. But as I was writing this, I realized that goal setting is distinctly different from the intentionality required to set weekly objectives and daily tasks. If goal setting is where we dream big and shoot for the stars, weekly and daily tasks are where all that planning and goal-setting fall apart. This gap between aspiration and reality is the most significant mindset shift many of us need to make.
We often overthink the process of getting a book from magical minds into the hands of our readers. We overwhelm ourselves by creating a long to-do list of all of the steps before we even begin to write the story! This often makes the planning process either too ambitious or stagnates the process altogether. The Wordmaker Mindset breaks the task of planning, completing, and marketing your work into three phases: Foundation, Creative, and Publishing. This compartmentalizes everything you need to do to bring a book to life so that you can focus on your book project in a way that makes sense.
Let’s talk about these phases…
The Foundation Phase: Plotting with Purpose
In the Foundation Phase, laying down the structural groundwork of your novel is akin to building the skeleton upon which everything else will be fleshed out. Okay, that metaphor sounded better in my head, but recognizing the importance of aligning your plot with the overarching vision your have for the completed story ensures that every element of your story—from the setting and theme to character arcs and conflicts—resonates with the unique voice and style that only you can bring to the table. This phase is critical because it sets the direction and tone of your entire project. A well-thought-out foundation ensures that your narrative does not veer off course and that every subplot, character development, and narrative twist moves the story forward in a way that is authentic to your vision.
Understanding how to navigate this phase means appreciating the balance between a structured plot and the flexibility to adapt as your characters and story evolve. It's about ensuring that your narrative is not just a collection of events, but a coherent and engaging journey that reflects your unique perspective as a Wordmaker.
Okay, I can hear discovery writers, my favorite little chaos monsters, saying that this phase isn’t useful for you because planning and plotting isn’t part of your process. I beg to differ!
For discovery writers, those who craft their stories through exploration and intuition rather than strict outlines, the Foundation Phase looks a little bit different but it still exists. Use this time to immerse yourself in the world you’re about to create, setting up signposts and themes that will guide their journey. Instead of detailed outlines, consider identifying a few core elements that will anchor your story—key characters, a central conflict, and perhaps a thematic question you want to explore. This approach allows for the spontaneity and organic growth that discovery writers thrive on, while also providing a loose framework to ensure the story remains focused and cohesive.
This method respects your natural storytelling instincts while ensuring that the essence of your vision—your unique voice and style—is woven into the fabric of your narrative from the outset.
Incorporating visual inspiration into the Foundation Phase can significantly enrich the storytelling process for you. Creating Pinterest boards, mood boards, and aesthetics, that evoke the mood of the story are fantastic ways to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of your novel. These tools serve as a creative reservoir that you can dip into whenever you need a burst of inspiration or a reminder of the emotional landscape you're aiming to create. For instance, a Pinterest board filled with images reflecting your story's setting, character inspirations, or thematic elements can help solidify the world you're building, making it more vivid both in your mind and on the page.
Similarly, playlists that capture the tone of your story or the personalities of your characters can be an invaluable tool during the writing process. Music has the power to quickly transport us to specific emotions or moments, making it easier to tap into the desired mood for a particular scene or character development.
You might want to consider immersing yourself in the genre or theme of your story through other forms of media besides music. Reading books within your genre not only helps you understand genre conventions and reader expectations but can also inspire new ideas or approaches to your own narrative. Listening to podcasts about writing within your target genre, interviews with authors in your genre, or analyses of stories similar to yours can provide insights into the craft and process of storytelling that you might not have considered. Watching movies or TV shows in the same genre or theme can also stimulate your imagination and help you visualize scenes, character dynamics, and plot development.
These activities can act as a creative springboard during the Foundation Phase, helping discovery writers to soak in the essence of their story without the constraints of a detailed plot outline.
The Creative Phase: Balancing Discipline and Inspiration
The Creative Phase is where the magic happens, where the plot outlined in the Foundation Phase begins to breathe, grow, and take on a life of its own. It's a delicate dance between adhering to your plot structure and allowing for the spontaneity of creative inspiration. This phase underscores the importance of maintaining your unique voice while navigating the challenges of bringing your story to life.
Understanding this phase involves recognizing the need for discipline—setting and achieving daily or weekly writing goals, for example—while also embracing the fluidity of the creative process. It's about giving yourself permission to explore new directions or delve deeper into your characters' psyches as inspiration strikes, even if it means straying from your original plot. This flexibility can lead to a richer, more compelling story that fully captures the essence of your vision.
The Publishing Phase: From Creation to Sharing
Finally, The Publishing Phase marks the transition from a private act of creation to a public act of sharing your story with the world. This phase requires a shift in focus from writing to revising, editing, marketing, and selling your book. Understanding this phase means recognizing the importance of quality in editing, cover design, and formatting, as well as the nuances of the market and the best strategies for reaching your target audience.
Navigating the Publishing Phase effectively involves not only understanding the business aspects of publishing but also managing your expectations regarding how your book will be received. It's about learning from the experience, gathering feedback, and using that knowledge to grow as a writer and as a marketer of your work.
Why Navigating These Phases Matter
Now why is it important to know how to navigate these phases? Knowing how to navigate these three phases is crucial for several reasons. It ensures that your novel is not only well-written but also resonates with readers and stands out in a crowded market. It helps you maintain a clear vision and purpose throughout the writing process, ensuring that the final product is something you can be proud of. Additionally, understanding these phases prepares you for the realities of the publishing world, equipping you with the knowledge and skills needed to successfully share your work with readers.
Understanding and navigating these phases allows you to craft stories that are not only true to your vision but also structured and presented in a way that maximizes their impact and reach. It's a comprehensive approach to storytelling that encompasses creation, refinement, and sharing, ensuring that each step of the journey is approached with intention, understanding, and a deep connection to your work as a Wordmaker.
All of this is tied to consistent and mindful self-reflection. I mentioned that I was keep a journal and write in it regularly. I find a lot of value in getting my thoughts and feelings down on paper before, during, and after a project. I’m dialing that up a notch because I know you can’t change what you don’t track. Regularly evaluating my strengths, challenges, opportunities, and awareness, coupled with mindfulness, keeps me aligned with my goals and adaptable to change. It also helps me spot the places where I need to readjust because I tried to girlboss too close to the sun. It empowers me to create a plan that is flexible and allows space and opportunity for experimentation while also accommodating rest and recovery.
Overall, the Wordmaker Mindset is about embracing the full spectrum of the writing experience – from the initial spark of an idea to the final act of sharing our work with the world. It's about recognizing that each step of the journey, with its triumphs and challenges, is integral to shaping not just the stories we tell but also the storytellers we become.
All of this integrates self-care, ensuring that you remain flexible, resilient, and capable of responding adeptly.
A lot of you are probably thinking, “This isn’t groundbreaking, Tasha. Why should we adopt this over all other ways of planning and navigating our writing career?”
Facts, it’s not groundbreaking. Like every planning strategy out there, it doesn’t work until you implement it! The real shift begins when you apply it to your publishing plan for the year, your writing process, your self-editing, your marketing — all of it. It’s the filter that you sift all of your planning through to make sure it’s aimed toward growth and incorporates rest.
For example, one of the things I know about myself is that I have a shitty relationship with productivity. My self-worth is tied to seeing the physical evidence of the work I’ve done. So when I’m in a creative season — which is spring into early summer — I’m always pushing myself to create more so I can have more physical evidence in the form of money and books. Going into 2024, I knew I needed to create a different strategy and restructure my planning to reflect that new approach — that new mindset. Within this new mindset, I had to relearn how to be comfortable in my creative process and allow that to drive my career rather than forcing it to be something it wasn’t.
So now that I’ve established these building blocks, I combine all of them — my strengths, challenges, opportunities and awareness with the three stages of novel creation — and began to set my SMART goals.
We all know what SMART goals are, but here’s a quick refresher:
SMART goals are a framework for setting clear, achievable objectives. The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound:
- Specific: The goal is clear and well-defined, detailing what needs to be accomplished.
- Measurable: The goal has criteria for measuring progress and success, making it possible to track achievements.
- Achievable: The goal is realistic and attainable, considering available resources and constraints.
- Relevant: The goal is important and aligns with broader objectives or purposes.
- Time-bound: The goal has a specific deadline or timeframe for completion, creating a sense of urgency.
This approach ensures goals are structured in a way that increases the likelihood of success by making them actionable and trackable.
For example, SMART goals within Wordmaker Mindset planning during the Foundation phase would looks something like this:
Quarter One: Foundation Phase
Focus: Planning the first novel and laying the groundwork for others.
January:
⁃ Outline and plan Southern Gothic Novel
⁃ Research genre
⁃ Character development.
February:
⁃ Write the first third (20,000 words).
⁃ Aim for a consistent M-F word count between 750 and 2k words a day.
⁃ Sundays off for rest and reflection.
March:
⁃ Continue writing the first novel.
⁃ Aim for a consistent daily word count, but be flexible according to creative flow.
⁃ Weekend trip to see the besties.
⁃ Make sure to do end of quarter review.
This strategic planning process is how I’m going to approach my work this year, and it serves as a guide for the content I will create for the members of the Wordmakers Writing community.
So, as we wrap up post, I want to leave you with some actionable steps and resources to help you navigate your writing journey with the Wordmaker Mindset.
Here’s how you can apply what we’ve discussed and keep the momentum going:
1. Reflect on Your Writing Goals: Take a moment to clearly define what you aim to achieve with your writing. Remember to make these goals SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This clarity will guide you through challenges and decisions.
2. Identify Your Strengths and Challenges: Write down a list of your writing strengths and the areas where you face challenges. Acknowledging your strengths will boost your confidence, while understanding your challenges will help you focus on areas for growth.
3. Set Up a Regular Writing Schedule: Consistency is key in any craft. Determine a writing schedule that works for you and stick to it. Whether it’s daily or a few times a week, the regular commitment will foster discipline and enhance your creativity.
4. Engage with a Writing Community: Find a community of fellow writers for support, feedback, and inspiration. This could be online forums, social media groups, or local writing clubs. Sharing your journey with others can provide motivation and new insights.
5. Invest in Learning: Dedicate time to improve your craft through workshops, courses, or reading materials on writing. Continuous learning is a core part of the Wordmaker Mindset, helping you stay adaptable and innovative.
6. Practice Mindfulness and Self-Care: Writing is as much a mental endeavor as it is a creative one. Incorporate mindfulness practices and self-care routines into your life to maintain a healthy balance. This will help you manage stress and keep your creativity flowing.
7. Utilize Writing Prompts and Exercises: To combat writer’s block or simply to refine your skills, make use of writing prompts and exercises. They can spark new ideas, offer new perspectives, and sharpen your writing techniques.
8. Keep a Journal of Ideas and Inspirations: Carry a notebook or use a digital app to jot down ideas, snippets of conversations, observations, and anything that inspires you. These notes can be invaluable seeds for future projects.
9. Reflect and Adjust Regularly: Periodically review your goals, process, and progress. Be open to adjusting your approach as you grow and as your writing evolves. This flexibility is a strength of the Wordmaker Mindset.
By incorporating these steps and resources into your writing process, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate the complexities of writing and publishing with confidence and creativity. It’s not just about producing words; it’s about cultivating a fulfilling, resilient approach to your writing life.
Also, inside of the Wordmakers Writing Community, we’re shifting into the creative phase to gear up for #20kin5Days, our quarterly writing challenge.
During this challenge, participants will receive:
• Our #20kin5Days Prep Week Workbook: A comprehensive workbook to help participants prepare and plan their writing goals. This includes setting daily targets, brainstorming ideas, and outlining story frameworks.
• Twice a day Zoom Write-ins with the 20k Crew: These are virtual live writing sessions where you can gather with like-minded writers in the engaging write-ins.
• FREE Membership to the Wordmakers at the COMMUNITY level: Gain access to an incredible community of writers for ongoing support, motivation, and networking opportunities.
It’s 5 days of planning, 5 days of writing 4,000 words a day! Let’s do it together! Our community is waiting to welcome you!
Thank you for tuning into Making Words with Tasha L. Harrison. and I’m reminding you to keep nurturing your creativity, keep challenging yourself, and above all, keep making those words. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and share it with your fellow authors! Your support helps us reach more wordmakers like you. If you have any topics, you'd like us to explore or questions you want to be answered, hit me up on Instagram or the app formerly known as Twitter using the handle @makingthewords on the app formerly known as Twitter and Instagram. I would love to hear from you!
Until next time, keep nurturing your creativity, keep challenging yourself, and above all, keep making those words, you writing ass writer!
xo, Tasha
