Episode 31: What if I hate working alone?

Episode Description:

Welcome back to another episode of What If? For Authors. In this episode, Claire dives into the question, "What if I hate working alone?" and explores the struggles, solutions, and Enneagram insights that can help authors navigate their loneliness while pursuing their writing careers. If you’ve ever wrestled with the isolation that comes with the writing life, this episode is for you!

Key Takeaways:

• Your Social Needs Aren’t a Problem: They’re just part of being human. Embrace them and explore ways to fulfill them creatively.

• Writing Sprints: how they work and why they’re a game-changer for many authors.

• Self-Awareness is Key: Understanding your Enneagram type can provide valuable insight into your strengths and challenges when it comes to working with others.

• Enneagram Insights for Collaborative Writing: Claire explores how different Enneagram types approach collaboration and solo work.

Support the Show: If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share the show with your fellow authors. Every review helps more writers discover this resource.

Join the Conversation:
What helps you keep connected to others while working alone? Share your thoughts and questions by reaching out to Claire at contact@ffs.media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain. As anyone who has ever heard of a writer knows, it can be a pretty solitary profession.

That's why a lot of us got into it in the first place, frankly. We like that it's something we can do alone. That might be due to the fact that it's an activity where we feel safe to connect with parts of ourselves, or explore the world, or maybe it's a place where we have total control over a world. Not necessarily in a Megalomaniacal way, but in a therapeutic way. Or maybe it's a place where we can explore emotions or create friends we like to spend time with who aren't gonna like, ask us to pick them up from the airport.

There's an appeal in getting to create a story on your own time and [00:01:00] have a fun place to escape whenever you need that, that I probably don't have to explain to anyone listening to this. That is not really what this episode is about, ? This episode is about those moments when we're sitting down to write And the loneliness hits.

The social deprivation starts to set in. So this can happen even to the quintessential introvert from time to time. So I think it's worth exploring the question, what if I hate working alone?

You might be surprised. by how many authors I hear this from. Maybe they don't use the word hate, but they definitely talk about the restlessness and loneliness of too much solitary work and how they miss the dynamism of working on creative projects with other people. I feel that way too. I've been looking for opportunities to work with other people for years now.

Some work out well for a while, And some seem promising, but don't ever come to fruition. So there's a magic that we each get to hit every so often when we work with people who we just click with. [00:02:00] And that magic can become a little bit addictive. We want more. I always think back to this film crew I was on for seven weeks during the summer after my freshman year of college.

It was an internship where we helped teens create short films in various cities around the country. There was a group of six of us that went to each of these cities and it was just an instant chemistry between us. Everyone around us noticed too.

They called it a love fest and it felt like that. Not in like a Bacchanalian way, but just in the way where the creative collaboration came naturally and we instantly sort of had each other's backs. Literally, because I, I threw my back out during my week in New York City. I mean, it was really bad and the crew stepped up by carrying my share of the equipment and bringing me meals at the end of long days and just checking in with me, that sort of thing.

When I think about the potential of creative collaboration in a healthy community, I think of that crew. I've experienced tastes of it from time to time in the decades since, mostly in collaborations with just one other person. And it kind of [00:03:00] keeps me hungry to experience it again at some point. It also makes the long slogs of solo work just a little less energizing when I remember how effortless it can feel in a solid collaboration.

Ultimately, I ended up sticking with creative writing, taking that path instead of the filmmaking path because I was also aware of how soul sucking working on a crew could be if someone on it was just on an ego trip instead of genuinely pursuing the best possible product. The threat of that and the likelihood of it happening are what made being a writer a lot more desirable for me.

There's nothing shameful about being a writer who struggles to work alone, but you may feel like it. And there's definitely a spectrum to our threshold of how many hours or days at a time we can go without human interaction. So wherever you fall on this spectrum is where you fall. And where you fall this month may not be the same place you fall next month. A lot of people saw their threshold for human interaction [00:04:00] shift during the pandemic.

Mine definitely did. It may be best to think of it as a moving target, not a threshold. Reflective of anything about you except a need you have that fluctuates. So like, you know, some days I need a lot more coffee than others. Some days I need more sleep just because. I can guess at the reasons, and I do, but I also have the option of just allowing that to be what it is and not defining it as a problem.

We can treat the amount of social interaction that we need the same way.

You need what you need. It's not a problem. So let's just figure out how to get it. Now, the how of getting that interaction is obviously going to be varied based on your life situation. But one of the most common ways to stop working alone so frequently is to join a writing sprint group. You can join these online in basically any time zone you live in.

So it's an easy way to feel like you're connecting with others while you also focus on your manuscript. Sometimes our bodies [00:05:00] Social creatures that we are just need to know we're not totally alone. They want to sync with others somehow, and online writing sprints are a great way to do that, regardless of where you live or your ability to leave the house.

So that makes it extra great.

In my experience working with clients, the Enneagram types that Generally benefit from this sort of social syncing the most are 9s, the peacemakers, 7s, the enthusiasts, and 2s, the helpers. That's not to say that other types don't benefit from it, but if you're a 2, consider whether this would help keep you going on your work in progress.

Or even just knocking out administrative tasks you hate. I could also see 6s liking this if it was a group of people that they have some trust and rapport with. Otherwise, nah.

Now, if you're especially awake as you listen to this, you might be thinking, two sevens and nines are the positive outlook types. Does this have anything to do with it? No clue. No clue. It certainly is interesting though, isn't it? The positive outlook types are sometimes called the avoidant types, [00:06:00] so maybe that's what they're trying to avoid, is that black hole feeling of being completely alone in this world.

And, you know, I can't really blame them. Nines really, really benefit from co writing because they're so good at going with the flow of the energy around them. Nines, it'll be easier to do a focused activity if someone is doing it simultaneously with you, I promise. And this goes not just for writing, but in general.

Reading as well. You can sit and read with people. And to be clear, this isn't energy vampire shit we're talking about. This is expert level working with your natural attentional flow.

Nines confirm with me that they get more writing done when they write alongside others, I'll ask, well, why aren't you doing that as much as possible? Right? The answer usually boils down to, I shouldn't have to do that. Well, 9's tough shit. It helps you. Do it. There really aren't shoulds here. 7's especially benefit from pre gaming their writing with a partner or with a group, and connecting to their enthusiasm for the next scene. If you're a [00:07:00] 7. 7. You can tap into that fixation of planning just a little bit here to connect with the anticipation of what's happening next in your story until you're like spring loaded to write it.

7 is the externalized thinking center, so accepting that you like to process externally. It's just very important. It's very useful. Brainstorming with a partner, you know, then the two of you get to writing. That may be a really helpful process for you as a 7. In my anecdotal experience, 2s I do like to orchestrate writing sprints for others.

If I were to speculate about why that is, it would have something to do with the, you know, satisfying that need to be helpful long enough for them to get their own words down. So twos, if you're organizing sprints and it's working for you, keep organizing them because you're being very helpful. Your nines and your sevens and other people are very grateful for it.

So you've done your good deed and now you get to focus on your writing. But again, the why behind all of this doesn't really matter so much as [00:08:00] just how. How do you get what you need? If you're a 1, or maybe a 6, 2, and group writing opportunities don't help you focus, there are other ways to work with other people.

So these ways might be tricky for you if you haven't worked on some of your own patterns of control, because they involve more collaboration, which implies cooperation and sometimes concession. And did I just lose all of the eights here? I don't know. It may be worth our time to look at why each of the types might struggle to work with others in a collaboration, even though they hate working alone or just hitting their limit on it.

So let's run through the types one at a time. I said I wouldn't do this every episode. I haven't done this every episode, but I'm going to do it today. So we'll start with the nines, the peacemakers. So nines may frustrate a collaboration partner by not showing up. And I don't mean nothing. You know, I mean saying [00:09:00] yes or sure to everything, , rather than never saying no.

So when everything is a yes or a sure, it can make people mistrust your yes. Right, your collaboration partners, and they may end up spending a lot of time trying to ensure that you really mean it. Suspecting, sometimes correctly, that if you're not a hell yes, you'll end up being dead weight or acting passive aggressively later on down the line when everyone's already committed to the project.

Doing the work to be able to identify for yourself anything that isn't an enthusiastic yes, must be a no, or a let me think about it first, doing that will build trust between you and your collaborator to keep the relationship equitable. And, lively and energized. eights, the challengers, tend to struggle with making the necessary concessions to keep a collaboration a true collaboration.

eights, sometimes when you speak you may not completely be sold on an idea, but your commanding talk style will make it sound like you are, and others may just [00:10:00] assume you're set and won't budge. Even your questions, let's be real, even your questions come out of statements sometimes. And while you probably don't mind people pushing back and you might even enjoy it, not everyone has it in them to push back that vigorously all the time.

So eights can steamroll collaborators over time as a result until the collaborator just kind of gives up or escapes, which usually feels like being blindsided to the eight. So eights, if you notice a collaborative partner putting up less of a fight over time, maybe notice your pattern of pushing them even harder to try and get a reaction from them.

You might be overwhelming them and causing them to further retreat and check out instead. When your instinct tells you to charge in with someone who has, by and large, proven themselves a trustworthy collaborator, that's when it's actually time to take off the armor and lead with vulnerability. Start asking questions.

Sevens, the enthusiasts, may, you guessed it, jump [00:11:00] ship on a collaboration once it stops being fun, new, exciting, or pain free. Or you commit to collaborations with an easy out where no one is invested enough to create that satisfying alchemy you're looking for. If you don't want to keep working alone you gotta keep showing up when your collaborator is having a tough day, week, or even month. Because humans go through tough days, weeks, and even months. So if you want to collaborate with humans, kind of part of the deal. When you feel like making a break for it, Seven, try instead to go deeper.

Use the collaboration as an opportunity to experience those emotions you've been putting off limits to yourself. Meet your collaborator where they're at and sit through the discomfort to unlock a richer connection than you imagined possible.

Sixes, the Loyalists, tend to thrive on group commitments, so collaboration can be incredibly fun. But, obviously there's caveat, if you're a 6 who hasn't worked through your issues around authority [00:12:00] or begun to unpack those, there's a good chance you're picking crappy, exploitative, or even abusive collaborators over and over again, only complicating your relationship with trust.

A lot of sixes have stopped trusting their ability to identify a trustworthy person and will jump into a partnership or collaboration blindly only to be burned in the same way by the same type of person over and over again. If this describes your life, sixes, start looking for where you're mistaking trustworthiness with something else.

Are you assuming that Someone's power represents their trustworthiness, their self confidence, a lack of a healthy level of doubt. Try observing a person for a while before entering into a collaboration with them to see if those around them are loyal out of fear or love. Once you're in a collaboration, you can also practice extending the person the benefit of the doubt, which will keep you from over interpreting things as [00:13:00] betrayal and allow you to feel more grounded to maintain the relationship over the long term.

Fives, the investigators, tend to keep such strong boundaries up in collaborations that the other person may be left wondering if they're still in a partnership anymore. Fives, check in to see if your belief that other people are energy sucks is keeping you off from the energy boost that an open and vulnerable collaboration can provide.

People who are not fives may take your days of silence and lack of communication to mean something that you don't intend, so it falls to you to keep the communication flowing, even if that means communicating that you need a couple of days to not communicate and it's not their fault, they haven't done anything wrong.

But do question whether you actually need as much time alone as you think, or if you're just used to that and your collaboration muscles are a little atrophied over the years. Oftentimes, the answer to most of a five's problems is to open up more to [00:14:00] other people, not to shut them out. But if that's your pattern, shutting people out, yeah, you may struggle to maintain collaborations for long. Fours, the individualists, can sometimes struggle in collaborations if they center their emotions and inner state above the other person's.

So as the internalized feeling center type, Fours, you spend a lot of time looking inward to understand your emotions and perspective, and that's great for self expression, but sometimes it can lead to believing that expression is more authentic than everyone else's, which tends to rub other authors and creatives the wrong way, and can lead to a rift in collaboration. Can also lead to a cycle where the four ends up in. Break up after break up with artistic collaborators and cultivates the idea that no one understands them or that working with others somehow corrupts or prohibits the truest form of their expression.

If this hits close to home for any FOURS listening, the fix is actually pretty simple. Remember that the other person's ideas and contributions are just as [00:15:00] true and authentic as yours, and when you combine the two to create something, you get something even more universal out of it.

THREES, the achievers. Can find themselves impatient with collaborations with others, especially if the other person wants to take their emotions into consideration or slow down to take precautions or think things through. Threes, your love for efficiency, can lead you to start to wonder why you're taking on the dead weight of a collaboration if it doesn't 10x the speed of the process.

This attitude might put strain on the collaboration as it's expressed as, hey, this thing that matters to you, that quality, depth, richness, whatever, doesn't actually matter to sales or rank, so I don't see why we're wasting time on it. If collaborations frequently, You can use that as a call to slow down and connect with your emotions and what you care about in art to create something that's better than the sum of its parts.

[00:16:00] Twos, the helpers, can struggle in collaborations because, oof, I don't know how to say this other than you tend to pick people who really need you. And then they keep on needing you forever until you start to wonder about whether they would show up for you if you needed them. Or worse, they stop needing you.

And that feels like rejection, which can lead to some interesting interpersonal results.

Twos tend to yo yo from a ton of collaborators to zero collaborators until they can address how to pick collaborators and opt for a criteria other than, they need me. Maybe you have chemistry with the collaborator that helps you express yourself. Maybe that's the criteria. Or they feel like a safe person to be messy and needy around.

Maybe they really have their shit together, and that's actually refreshing energy for you. Not because you don't have your shit together, but because you keep picking people who seem to need so much help. If you see yourself switching from a [00:17:00] lot of collaborations, to desiring to be totally solo and possibly like scorch earthing everything to make it happen, , the criteria for how you pick your collaborators might be something to look at.

Because what the twos tend to do is help, help, help until they're out of gas, nothing left to give, and then cut everybody off. Which, not great for collaborations, but when twos can be met with the same helpfulness in someone else. It's beautiful. And finally, ones the reformers can struggle to keep collaborators because, let's face it, we have an idea about how something ought to be done, and we're not afraid to nitpick people until it's done that way.

So our sensitivity to criticism can also mean that the necessary feedback loop of a collaboration can feel like nonstop criticism. And now that can cause ones to retaliate [00:18:00] at their collaborator for giving them too much you know, just basic feedback on something. Additionally, the ones focused on fairness can get out of hand with a tit for tat mentality that doesn't necessarily respect the large scale ebbs and flows of a collaboration over time.

So ones you can stop keeping score, And you can start trusting that your gut will speak up if the contribution gets too out of balance for too long. Tap into your heart center a little more to extend compassion and grace to your collaborator from time to time. The same compassion and grace that you may struggle to give to yourself.

And if you do that, the relationship is likely to last longer.

Now, these are just some initial lines of inquiry for each type to look at for what work they have to do to make partnerships and collaborations more viable as an option in their career. We can't change the patterns of others, but no matter who we are, we have patterns that keep us disconnected from others that we [00:19:00] can start to own and address and chip away at.

I will say it sucks to stop blaming other people for all the failed friendships, relationships, and partnerships in our past, but learning how we contributed personally to the downfall is some of that essential shadow work that really moves mountains if we're brave enough to take it on. I'm not talking about beating yourself up here because punishment and accountability aren't the same thing.

I hope you hear that. Punishment and accountability are not the same thing. I'm talking about going Oh yeah, that is a thing I always do, and I can see how it's not getting me the results I hoped for. Maybe I'll play around with a new approach and see if that works better.

Blaming others may seem like a great way to avoid pain, but what it tends to do is distract us from the part that we played. Perhaps a small part, But apart all the same, which keeps us locked into the tired old patterns until finally we're ready to turn our attention away from what others did to bring about the outcome and really start to look at ourselves.

And [00:20:00] that's where the liberation comes from. So doing so is painful, but it blasts away the mechanisms of constriction that make connecting deeply to others difficult or exhausting. And oftentimes those mechanisms of constriction are what make connecting. working solo so much more preferable. Until it's not.

But doing this work of spotting how the patterns in our relationships reflect patterns in ourselves is a great way to make connecting with others seem much less terrifying and much more enjoyable and fulfilling. So if you're an author who hates working alone, there are a few things you can look at.

First, stop questioning whether you need for working alongside others or collaboratively with others is normal and just go get what you need. Figure out what that could look like and then start pursuing it and asking for it. And secondly, do some of the work around your type and how your patterns may be straining your ability to feel truly [00:21:00] connected to others in the way you're craving.

Be that creatively, emotionally, intellectually, physically, or spiritually. Own your patterns. Ask if they're actually doing the thing you thought they would do. And then try something new if needed.

You are still a quote unquote real author if you hate working alone. Fuck anyone who tries to gatekeep who is or isn't a real author. Practice radical acceptance of what you need to keep telling your stories and then continue refining your approach to getting that. It's just that simple and that tricky.

But I know you can get there. If you reflect on your life, you can see how you've already made progress in that direction. So keep going. Even if you consider yourself an awkward person, which many of us authors do, this work will help you feel more connected to others.

So that's it for this week's episode. We're [00:22:00] heading toward the new year and I'm making some moves over 2025. Got big things coming down the pipeline to help authors like you meet other authors you might want to collaborate or co work with in the future. So stay tuned and make sure you're signed up for my email list at ffs.media/join. I'm Claire Taylor and I hope you'll join me for the next episode of What If for Authors. Happy writing.

Episode 30: What if I don't know the next step?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire tackles the question: What if I don’t know the next step? Whether you're stuck in your author career because of a lack of information, poor timing, fear-based decisions, or discomfort in the present, Claire offers insights and actionable ideas to help you move forward. She also explains how the virtues of your Enneagram type can guide you when you're feeling stuck. If you're unsure of what comes next in your author journey, this episode will provide clarity and inspiration.

Key Takeaways:

• How to identify if your next-step uncertainty is due to a lack of knowledge—and where to find reliable information.

• Why timing might be the issue and how to recognize when it's time to act.

• How fear and discomfort can mislead you into searching for "emergency exits" instead of staying the course.

• How to avoid jumping ahead to steps you're not ready for.

• Ways to use the virtue of your Enneagram type to find clarity and peace when you’re stuck.

• Why self-compassion and trust in yourself are key to navigating uncertainty.

Resources Mentioned:

• Alliance of Independent Authors

• The Creative Penn

• Kindlepreneur

• Podcasts: The Sell More Books Show, Wish I’d Known Then for Authors

• Book: The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up by Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes

Support the Show: If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share the show with your fellow authors. Every review helps more writers discover this resource.

Join the Conversation:
What’s keeping you from taking the next step in your author journey? Share your thoughts and questions by reaching out to Claire or joining the What If? For Authors community.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book for authors, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

Let's jump right into today's episode where we ask the question, what if I don't know the next step? We may experience this in our author career in a literal sense or in a more existential sense. And we'll talk about how to figure out which one it is and how to determine the first step for figuring out the next step.

I've been sitting in this space for a bit myself lately. For one, it's the time of year when it always happens to me when I get, retrospective on my business for the last year and just kind of assess what worked, what didn't, and what I should try next year instead. But I've also felt like I'm not really sure of the next step [00:01:00] on and off all year.

So this is an issue that has really gotten my attention lately, and I do believe I've come to peace with a lot of it and spent enough time observing my process and approach that I can maybe offer some ideas today. If you feel like it's time to take another step in your business. Maybe you just published a book, and now it's time to decide on what to do next, but you don't see a clear direction to move in, the first thing you might try is asking if you don't know the next step because you're lacking industry knowledge.

Is this simply an education gap that you're running into? In other words, what data or information are you lacking that already exists that you could go out and find? And do you know where to find it?

This may look like not knowing how best to market a book or series, learning about an ad platform or reading up on story structure to support the next book idea that's floating around in your head. Do you need to gather information or learn something to be able to know what to do [00:02:00] next? Does that information already exist somewhere?

This can be tricky because we run into the problem of not knowing what we don't know. If you suspect that might be the case and that might be where you are, you can try browsing collections of knowledge for authors like the Alliance of Independent Authors website, or the Creative Pen, or Kindlepreneur, or you can listen to a book marketing or writing podcast like Somewhere Books Show or Wish I'd Known Then for Authors.

Essentially put yourself in the right place to catch the inspiration and information you need to start seeing the next step and learning how to get started on it.

So not knowing the next step might not be a matter of practical knowledge or information. Sometimes it's a matter of timing, and this one is really tricky for humans to accept. You might know that a next step needs to be taken, and you might have a general idea of what that next step will be, but the timing and [00:03:00] conditions Might not be right just yet to take it.

So that could be where the resistance to taking that next step is coming from for you. So your gut might be saying, Nope, not yet. Just wait. And that's hard because people are by and large, terrible at waiting.

Being able to wait. and sense the right moment for it requires a certain amount of faith and trust. And these are skills that we develop through some of this work. So faith is that we would have faith that the conditions will meet a basic threshold if we can wait. And then we learn to trust that we'll know when to take the next step.

So when we talk about this process, though, I do have to say that some people get stuck waiting for perfect conditions, and those ain't coming. So practice identifying when something is good enough. That's a very important skill. For instance, if you're looking for a new genre to pivot to, and you're trying to find a sub genre that's on the rise, that's [00:04:00] trending up, but hasn't exploded yet.

on the scene completely yet, you might identify a few possibilities and want to wait until there's some sort of clear indicator that it's absolutely the right time to start writing in that subgenre. You might be waiting for that before you get started, right? So you could be waiting forever or you could be waiting until it's too late.

So a lot of the successful people in this industry Knew where good enough was right? They're not waiting for perfect conditions. They're waiting for good enough and they pulled the trigger and The book flopped a couple of times, but they kept trying and one of those times paid off So if you are too afraid of the risk of a flop You will end up waiting for perfect conditions that will never come, and then wonder why you feel like you're stuck in decision limbo.

And it's important when we're trying to gauge where good enough is that we give ourselves a lot of room to get it wrong. If you don't give yourself room to get it wrong, [00:05:00] then you're just sunk, because you're not gonna get it, you know, quote unquote, right. The first time. Um, if you do, it's a hundred percent luck,

So it's okay. Let yourself get it wrong a few times and you'll get better at sensing this over time.

All you really need to do is get close enough to an ideal or however ideal you can get, you can realistically expect, and then. Make it work from there.

A lot of my not knowing the next step this year has been about timing. So for one, I knew that I wouldn't have a good feel on what people wanted to read or what support authors would need until after the election because it is so pivotal in the, , world landscape. So the information I needed to know for the next step was simply not available yet.

What I like to do when I can tell that I'm unable to move on to the next step because it's not time yet is to [00:06:00] allow myself to kind of play around with a few different directions. So this is my strategic strength coming through, so your mileage may vary here. But when the timing is right, and because I have spent years learning the signals of my intuition, , through practices like mindfulness, but also just a lot of painful reflection, I've since learned to trust that my gut will tell me when it's time to make a move.

So one of the options I've been playing around with will become a fairly clear winner. It won't be perfect, but it'll edge out the others, and I can move forward from there and make it work.

Some skills one might need to develop to be able to do something like this are patience, the discomfort of knowing you have no control over the passage of time, the ability to tell when your body is calling you to action, because action is appropriate, not just because your body is feeling it. antsy and impatient, and the ability to allow yourself to get it wrong.

The last part, that [00:07:00] ability to allow yourself to get it wrong, is why I'm always encouraging practices of self compassion. If you have a history of beating yourself up for things because they didn't work out, , for taking a path that didn't pay off, then the stakes are raised for being absolutely sure that the direction you take will work out because you don't trust that you can allow yourself room to make mistakes. But when you build trust with yourself, that you are doing your best you can, with the information you have, and you know that you'll be able to forgive yourself if things don't work out, you suddenly have a lot more room to breathe and proceed with a curious mind rather than an anxious one.

Claire: the other possibility for why you feel like it's time to take the next step, but you don't know what that is, is that it's not time to take the next step, but instead an underlying fear of the present is making your attention shift toward emergency exits. Does this sound familiar? [00:08:00] So, maybe you've just published book three in a series, and you intended to go on for a while with this series, more than three books, but you're thinking, nah, it's time for something else.

Is it really? Or is a core fear telling you that book four isn't the logical next step, and now you're looking for an out? That can be something to ask yourself, and if you're not sure if you trust your answer, try talking with some friends. So you might be surprised what they reflect back to you. So maybe they say, you know, you get like this every time you hit book three in a series, and you're able to notice that pattern and spend a little bit of time poking around at it to see what you learn about yourself from it.

Or you can come talk with me and I can ask you a bunch of questions that your own mind won't think to ask because it's frankly colluding with your fear. in a misguided attempt to protect you, but it may be that the moment you consider that your struggle to find the next step is that you already know the next step but your fear is telling you to do anything but that, it could be that you immediately [00:09:00] solve your own block when you just look at that. And then sometimes we get stuck on the next step because we have a sense of what it is, but it's outside of our current experience and it asks more of us than has previously been asked. When this is the case, sometimes we don't have the support in place that we would need to be able to take that next big step.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't take that next step, but it might indicate that your first step to the next step is to build more support for yourself. So this could look like hiring a business or writing coach, asking your spouse to take on more responsibilities temporarily, or creating a group of authors who are in a similar moment of their career who you can check in with weekly or on an ongoing basis in a group chat or something like that.

I suggest you ask yourself what support would be wonderful to have. No, I didn't say, what support do I need? Some of y'all are not great at judging that because you [00:10:00] may think you shouldn't need support at all. So what support would be just really fantastic to have? What support would make this feel really, really easy for you?

And then just work toward building some of that for yourself.

And now here's a twist I'll throw at you. It's possible that it's not even close to time for the next step, but living in the current step. is too uncomfortable. So you're trying to skip ahead. This can look like, , finding the emergency exits, but it can also look like trying to jump to the next step in a career for someone who's making six figures when you're still struggling to break four figures.

So it could look like trying to build infrastructure for your business. before your business needs anything close to that much infrastructure.

As sort of a silly example, maybe an author doesn't need to think about hiring a security guard for a conference they're attending before anyone knows who they are and what they write. So yeah, that's an absurdist example, but hopefully it illustrates the point. So [00:11:00] sometimes authors skip ahead to solve problems of success that they aren't even close to having because That's a more pleasurable experience than being in the reality that they don't have the success yet, and that they need to keep writing books and learning new skills before they do.

So notice if you're trying to jump ahead to next steps that are actually like 20 steps ahead of where you are. Now if you've gone through this list of possibilities and you're still stumped, and you know that there's a next step ready to be taken but you don't know what it is, one exercise you can do to unstick what's stuck is to is to look to the virtue of your Enneagram type.

So what wisdom does it offer you to handle the discomfort of not knowing the next step yet? If you're not familiar with the virtues of the types, no problem. I'm about to go through them, , for you. And just as a note, depending on what text you're pulling from, these virtues might be described a little bit differently, or even use a different word sometimes, but I'll be [00:12:00] pulling from the Enneagram Guide to Waking Up by Beatrice Chestnut and Yerani O. Pais.

The virtue of the one is serenity. So this can look like accepting the natural rhythms of life, rather than always trying to fight against them or make them more perfect, according to whatever our ego decides perfect is. Could you stop trying to orchestrate the next step quite so hard, and see what

naturally flows when you accept the rhythms of life around you. The virtue of the two is humility, and this can look like acknowledging that you are not a superhero, and you have needs that matter as much as those who you serve. So it can also be to look at how your fear that you're not important has been causing you to take on too much, so that you can feel important.

Could you stop thinking? about the next project and instead think about what you're currently tackling that you need to ask for help on or [00:13:00] give up completely.

The virtue of the three is veracity. This can look like pausing to sort out the false selves you present to the world from the real you. It can look like examining where your career has been boxing you into these false versions of you, and where more transparency might allow you, I don't know, space to breathe and discover that you don't have to keep performing behind masks for people to want to connect with you.

Could you ask yourself how your need for a next step is keeping you from the pause that you need to take to discover your worth outside of your projects?

The virtue of the four is equanimity. This can look like stepping outside of the ride of your emotions to observe them rather than be them. It can look like taking in life more as it is rather than accepting the mirage of it that filters through your emotions as truth. Could some of the back and forth you feel about the next step be alleviated by [00:14:00] Zooming out so that your conclusions don't shift every time your emotions or your mood do.

The virtue of the five is non attachment. This can look like opening up to the inspiration, emotions, knowledge, and energy of the world around you. It looks like accepting what meets you, allowing yourself to be influenced as a pathway to connection, rather than rejecting connection and influence, fearing that it may drain you or lead you to irrational patterns.

Could you let go of some of your need to know the whole process moving forward, or to understand the whole situation and instead listen to where your heart and intuition are telling you to go for the next step in your business?

The virtue of the six is courage, and this can look like letting go of the need for assured safety and letting a deeper sense of purpose carry you forward. Trusting that you can handle whatever comes your way.

Sixes often get stuck on the [00:15:00] next step because they're trying to catastrophe proof it by thinking of every way it could go wrong and pre solving that issue. before taking the action. So this process can last forever, if you let it. So could you let go of your need to know how things might not work out and instead experiment with any possible next step?

Really, anyone will do. when you're stuck in doubt. Could you experiment with any possible next step to notice how well you're able to adjust to the unexpected?

The virtue of the seven is sobriety. This can look like staying focused on one project or task at a time, and remaining steady in the present rather than looking ahead to anything that's to come. Endless stimulating possibilities and distractions. It looks like feeling grounded in yourself long enough to see a project, task, or even a relationship through to the point of real satisfaction rather than jumping ship [00:16:00] when the initial shininess sort of wears off.

Could you let go of the anticipatory dopamine of every imaginary next step for a while and focus instead on what the present project is calling out for? Could you hold off on thinking about the next step until you complete the current one?

The virtue of eight is innocence. This can look like letting down some of your defenses and resting from always anticipating an attack. Rather than expecting to be met with hostility, you can practice assuming you'll be met with kindness. And in doing so, you may stop inviting hostility with the armor that you're wearing around.

Notice where you're conceptualizing your career with a conqueror's mindset. Might your need to remain in a power up position against enemies? Frankly, invisible enemies be driving you to take next steps before you truly have the resources to take them. And isn't that [00:17:00] kind of allowing your fear to take power away from you by always driving your business from a position of fear?

Could you make decisions out of something other than a mentality of hit them before they hit you? And how might your next step be different if you did? The virtue of the nine is right action. This can look like an awakening to your own priorities and an understanding of the impact you can have on the world.

If you shake off the lethargy of the comfortable routine, rather than opting for doing the same things you've always done that sort of blend into the background, you recognize what the moment is calling for and how you can deliver it effectively. And then you take action based on that. Could you wake up to what the moment is calling for from you?

Could the next step have been waiting for you to let go of your comfortable routines this whole time? What obvious opportunities have you been asleep to because they require you to be more visible?

[00:18:00] I know that looking at my own virtue of serenity has really helped me with the question of next steps this year. Speaking from experience, the idea of embracing that virtue might sound distasteful or icky to you, but once you give it a try, what you'll discover is the huge amount of relief it brings you. Our brains will for sure protest and say this is so far from what's familiar for me that it must be bad. But once we take that leap of faith and give it a try, we tend to feel like, oh no, this is way better.

Why was I resisting it for so long?

So if you're wondering, What if I don't know the next step? Start by figuring out if the issue is a knowledge gap, a matter of timing, a fear based issue, or some other attempt to avoid necessary pain. And then look to your types of virtue as guidance for what to experiment with that you may not have experimented with before.

So [00:19:00] those are some next steps for your next steps. That's it for this episode of What If for Authors. I'm Claire Taylor, and thank you for joining me. I think you know the next steps from here, and if you don't know yet, you know the next step to finding the next step. I hope you'll join me next time. Happy writing.

Episode 29: What if I'm shouting into the void?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire dives into a fear familiar to many writers and humans: the unsettling question, What if I'm shouting into the void?

Publishing, marketing, and building an audience can feel isolating, like waving at a motion-sensor sink that refuses to acknowledge you. Claire explores the deeper human fears behind this feeling—questions of meaning, agency, and connection—and provides practical insights to reframe your mindset and regain motivation.

Key Takeaways:

• Recognize the existential unease that comes with publishing and marketing.

• Shift your focus from unattainable goals to meaningful milestones.

• Apply mindfulness to redirect unproductive thoughts and feelings.

• Use the “Three Ps of Optimism” (personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence) to combat self-doubt.

• Transform interactions, even with a small audience, into rewarding connections.

Why You Should Listen: Claire addresses the challenges of comparison, the dangers of fear-based motivation, and the importance of celebrating progress, no matter how small. Whether you’re shouting into the void or engaging with a handful of readers, this episode will guide you to shift your perspective, connect authentically, and move forward in your author journey.

Support the Show: If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share the show with your fellow authors. Every review helps more writers discover this resource.

Join the Conversation: Have you ever felt like you were shouting into the void? What strategies have helped you? Share your thoughts with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or connect on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book for authors, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

How we doing today, y'all? We ready for a slow pitch here? I feel like we all deserve an episode every now and then that doesn't feel like a direct attack, which the Enneagram stuff sometimes does. So let's discuss something a little less scary, shall we? And I'll try and keep it as unscary as possible, but y'all know me.

I always find a way. Anyway, let's ask the question. I hear a lot from authors. What if I'm shouting into the void?

Publishing books by nature will trigger this fear. We may feel it looming as we're writing the book, wondering, what if I [00:01:00] publish this and no one reads it? And we may feel it when we post something on social media or send out an email to our list. I liken the feeling of shouting into the void to that moment where you're at a motion sensor sink and you're waving your hands more and more to get the damn thing to turn on and nothing's working and you're wondering, do I even exist?

Am I a ghost? There's an essential human concern that we contend with when we talk about shouting into the void and that's the fear that maybe we don't matter. That can be a terrifying feeling when you reach out and touch it. What if I don't matter? What if I could disappear and no one would notice?

Now I won't linger on this fear too long because every time I wonder about it, I don't like the thoughts that follow. But it's important to acknowledge just how deep and fundamental of a concept we're dealing with here when we feel like we're shouting, into the void.

As far as Enneagram types go, I think [00:02:00] all are susceptible to this uneasy feeling of wondering if we matter. I've been rereading Man's Search for Meaning this week, and it's reminded me of just how essential it is to human perseverance and well being that we feel like we have a unique contribution to the world.

In other words, that we matter. in some essential way. This may look a little different for each type, but I can't think of a type who wouldn't worry about this, at least subconsciously.

So if some of your marketing or publishing journey is making you feel like you're shouting into the void and you're confused why that gives you such existential heebie jeebies, it's probably because of the essential human need to believe that our lives matter and that we have agency and influence in the world.

I highly recommend you treat yourself to a little bit of that belief. It makes getting out of bed and doing stuff easier. Even if you don't really buy it right [00:03:00] now, what's the harm in entertaining it for a while? While no author is exempt from the occasional feeling of shouting into the void, it does tend to happen more frequently when we're new to building an audience.

So this could mean you're a new author, or it could mean you're starting over with a new pen name and don't expect your existing audience to carry over. Or maybe you're starting on a new sales platform, like moving your books to a new retailer, or starting on a new social media platform. Let's be real, sometimes you've spent a lot of time trying to build on a particular platform, and it still feels like you're shouting into the void. You're posting things or publishing books, and it feels like you're getting no response back.

This is often the case when you're first starting out because you don't necessarily have anyone viewing your content or reading your books. If you're trying to skip to mass appeal and target everyone to come read your book that nobody has heard about, you're probably going to find yourself rather [00:04:00] disappointed and disheartened.

This may even look like you have a lot of Facebook friends and you just published your first book, so you post on Facebook about that book and ask people to go and read and leave a review. New authors are often surprised by just how loud the crickets are when they do this. You may get a lot of people congratulating you on your first book, and then go and check the sales dashboard, and there are zero sales.

You may even have people say that they bought the book, and you go and see that there are zero sales, so you're like, oh, well, they're just lying. We can have a lot of feelings, but those feelings do tend to be essentially a chemical reaction between reality and the expectation. So when we adjust the level of our expectation, that can make a whole lot of those feelings fizzle out because there's nothing to react so caustically with reality at that point.

If you're starting with an audience of zero somewhere, whether this is a new platform [00:05:00] or new social media, If you're trying to jump from zero to 1, 000 too quickly, you're going to activate that feeling of shouting into a void. If your attention is focused on that goal number of 1, 000 followers or 1, 000 sales, or it could be any other goal, right?

Just pick a number. We tend to look at 1, 000 though. That's what I hear a lot from people. What tends to happen is that we overlook numbers like 1 or 2. So those lower numbers start to feel meaningless when compared to the total goal we're shooting for, which tends to be much higher than what realistically happens in that first phase.

But one new follower, or two new subscribers, or five copies of your book sold are how you get to 1, 000. That's how it's done, and you're doing it. So if the feeling of shouting into the void is the predominant [00:06:00] experience you're having, the solution is to shift your attention away from what you have not yet achieved to what you have achieved.

And this may seem overly simplistic, but our ability to shift our attention from what we don't have to what we do have is is essential for feelings of well being, like gratitude and self worth. So, it's really no small thing, and to be quite honest, most people are absolute shit at doing it. Most people don't realize what they're doing in the first place, because they haven't been practicing mindfulness, which is the ability to observe.

Our interstate, and they haven't been observing their thoughts in this important way. And then they also don't believe that it's going to make a difference, there tends to be a belief that we will lose motivation completely if we allow ourselves to focus on the successes that we have already achieved, rather than looking at [00:07:00] all that have not yet achieved. There's certainly something powerful In the belief that there is yet more in this world for you to do and achieve.

So I'm not saying to give up on that. But if your fear is keeping you from allowing yourself to focus on the wins, You will flame out before you can hit whatever your goal is.

A lot of the times when authors will come to me and say that being on social media feels like shouting into a void, I will say, yeah, it's basically that. You can stop doing it if you want. I stand by that with social media because it does require so much internal regulation to keep redirecting our attention to the one or two people who like our content that we spend an hour on rather than wondering why. More people didn't like our content. And in the end, our author business would probably be better off for the time being.

Just not including that. Right? Not including that social media. But if you can really develop this disciplined approach of [00:08:00] redirecting your mind away from an expectation, Of more interaction on social media than you're getting and toward recognizing how amazing it is that you got some interaction. And really developing those people by replying in the comments and reaffirming that some people do like your stuff.

Then social media can continue to be a place where you get as much as you give. And of course, if you hate social media for some reason, You're always free to not use it. You can still have an author business, which I've talked about before in these episodes.

But there is one potential void that we really can't escape as authors, and that is the void that we shout into when we hit publish.

If you're publishing a book for the first time and you haven't been really working hard to build an audience who is waiting for that book, then if you sell a copy of it in your first month after publication, you are making progress. Before you [00:09:00] published, you had sold zero of that book, and now you have sold one.

And I'm not meaning to be patronizing here. It's very easy to lose that essential understanding the moment we jump into a Facebook group of authors and they're, you know, showing their dashboard of how many thousands of copies a month they sell of their books. It's really easy to lose sight of the fact that selling five books in the first month of, say, indie publishing is a pretty big deal.

Not everyone does that. More importantly, five people now have your book, which is pretty cool. Now, comparison, seeing those people selling all of that, all of those books that we wish we could sell, and then looking at our own sales numbers. Comparison is a trap that we fall into over and over again, which means that we have to practice getting ourselves out of that trap over and over again.

And we do that by returning our attention to what is, not [00:10:00] what isn't, the number of sales we have made. Not the number of sales we think we should have made and the difference between that and the reality.

And you may be saying, but Claire, I've seen so many people in my genre post how quickly their books take off as soon as they publish them. Mine should be doing the same.

Let's not forget that people who are not meeting their own expectations and feel like they're falling short. , are probably not posting their results on public forums. I mean, eventually you will see someone who's in a complete spiral post how few sales they're getting after writing like 40 books or whatever.

And you might even compare your situation to theirs and think favorably. of your situation by comparison, but this is still comparison, and we would have just fallen into the comparison trap again. So don't be fooled by thinking that comparison is fine as long as you come out on top. It is still a trap, and it [00:11:00] pulls you in and seduces you by making you feel momentarily superior, but you will eventually crash and burn and feel bad.

Inferior.

Now there are a few rare people who can use the success of someone else as intense fuel to motivate themselves to do what they were already planning on doing, right? And just do it better. And sometimes they even end up doing better than that person they're competing with in the end. And that's all fine and good for a while, but you can see how this could eventually end in a crash and burn scenario. And also, sometimes this competitive drive, while it may motivate us to work harder and more passionately, it may be impossible to win the battle that you have set up in your mind. You may not have the resources or the luck that you need.

And it doesn't matter how much motivation or drive you have, because that's not the only factor in the equation.

And what can happen when someone assumes that having motivation is enough to compete with anybody [00:12:00] is that they may push themselves way past their limit and not. In like a healthy growth kind of way, but in a burnout kind of way. And then things can get pretty ugly from there. We start to see people compromise their deepest values, burn bridges, and even put themselves into the hospital just to win.

So even if you are a competitive person, and this nature of yours has led you to push yourself to amazing places that boost your self worth and make you feel powerful and competent, it would still behoove you to keep a mindful eye on that impulse because It can go too far, like any impulse. And if you're adding a sense of impatience to that need for accomplishment, then you are really in a danger zone.

And there's nothing like staring into a void to cause that particular impulse to overdo itself. So, some situations are more void y than others, and some void y situations are avoidable, [00:13:00] while some aren't. We have options here then, that's good news. Let's backtrack for a second though, because the solution to the problem of feeling like you're shouting into one of the unavoidable voids is, as I've laid out, to shift your attention away from the distance between where you are and where you want to be, and focus instead on where you are in comparison to where you were, to acknowledge progress, in other words, and to summon up gratitude for what you have, not focusing on what you don't have.

It may seem like a simple shift, but if it were an easy one, more people would be doing it. So why don't people do it, and how do you do it if you want to practice? I alluded to this before, but more people don't do it. More people don't shift their attention away from the part they haven't accomplished yet to give themselves a little recognition, because they don't actually believe it will help.

They probably even believe it will hurt. Maybe you believe this too. [00:14:00] In that taking a pause to catch your breath, feel gratitude for the readers who have shown up, who responded to that holler in the void by buying the book, leaving reviews, emailing, and interacting on social media will somehow prevent you from ever possibly reaching that higher goal.

That's the fear. The degree to which we believe this, that feeling satisfied and accomplished. My sap us of the energy we need to continue onward toward our goals is the degree to which we rely on fear to motivate us. But remember, fear isn't the only motivator. We have desire, passion, purpose, and meaning to fall back on.

But we have to try tossing aside the crutch of fear motivation to prove to ourselves that there is something else that will hold us up. We may feel off balance for a while, but we'll get there if we can hold out on relapsing to fear based motivation.

So that's why [00:15:00] more people aren't practicing this simple shift of attention. And now here's how we start doing it. So the first step is to notice that our attention is going to that void. That gap between where we are and where we want to be with our audience building or sales. This is a skill we develop through repetition, and there is no shortcut around that.

We practice by being the observer of our thoughts, emotions, and actions through the process of it. You guessed it. Mindfulness. We do that by reflecting back on the patterns of our life, often with some sort of external help like a therapist, a teacher, a coach. But even like a solid book about this can go a long way too.

And then we start to see what we haven't been seeing. We start to notice that we frequently have the thought of say nobody will ever read these stupid books or I should be selling more or what am I doing wrong that nobody is responding to my posts. These are all thoughts that tend to appear when we're focusing on what we [00:16:00] don't yet have rather than practicing gratitude and appreciation for what we do have.

They're very common and they're also incredibly counterproductive to motivation because they don't imply agency in our situation.

In other words, they imply that we can't do anything to change this. So if you haven't heard of the three Ps of optimism created by psychology researcher Martin Seigelman, or if you've heard of them and you need a refresher, let's talk about those for a second because it's really a useful tool for evaluating your thoughts for validity.

These three Ps, when they show up, take away our feelings of agency, our ability to feel like we can influence the situation in a positive direction, and ultimately our motivation to try.

The first P is personalization. So notice when something isn't going the [00:17:00] way you wanted, and you immediately attribute it to some deep character flaw of yours, rather than considering the many, many other options. For instance, a friend agrees to read and review your book, and then that review doesn't show up when you expected it to.

If your self talk sounds like they must have hated the book and they just didn't want to tell me, then you're probably falling into the personalization trap. Just as likely, they were busy and forgot, or perfectionism trap trying to write the perfect review for you. It may not be about you, and it may not be about your book.

So notice when your thoughts jump right to personalization and don't consider all the other options. The second P is pervasiveness. This looks like a single unfortunate turn of events growing really large in your mind and overshadowing everything else. So this happens when we turn all our attention to the negative thing.

We water [00:18:00] that seed with our attention, and it grows until it's all we can see if we're not careful. By noticing when we feel like, ugh, everything is doomed, from a single decision or disappointment that we suffer in our career, we can pause and remember to intentionally look for everything that is going right and well, and water those seeds.

With our attention instead.

The third P is permanence. This looks like assuming that what's happening right now, what you're thinking, feeling, and experiencing will last forever. This is super unhelpful because if you don't think things can change, what are the odds that you're even going to try? Very demotivational. If you hear yourself use language like always or never in relation to your career, you can be pretty sure that you're falling into a permanence trap.

Just because your first book launch was a dud by your standards doesn't mean you'll, quote, never make money doing this. Notice where one event is being duplicated and [00:19:00] then projected into the future.

So, noticing the three Ps in our thoughts is a great place to start with this mindfulness stuff. The second step is to shift our attention towards something else that is working better. A little self talk goes a long way here. Now, with self talk, you can do this in your head, you can do it aloud or in a journal.

Instead of personalization, talk through as many reasons as you can think of why the results you're getting might be attributable to something other than you're a shit author and even more a shit human being, right? Instead of letting that one disappointment overshadow everything else, Talk yourself through all of the victories you've had recently.

So, look at those reviews you, you did get, right? Even if it's only a few. Those are steps forward. Uh, think about the email you got from a fan, even the enjoyment you gave yourself writing the book, bring your attention to that, [00:20:00] let those grow large in your awareness. And you might find that your list of victories can actually go on for quite a bit.

And finally, instead of permanence, try to imagine yourself in the future looking back on this time when you were just getting started and how insubstantial of a moment this current moment was in comparison to all of the wonderful things you had coming your way.

As your future self, imagine if you'd given up and then assumed that there was nothing better. Now, if you're having trouble imagining this future self, great news, you can simply be you in the present, right? And look back on some negative experience that you thought would last forever, middle school, say.

And notice how many interesting and unexpectedly great things have happened since then. Maybe you got your first book deal. Maybe you got a dog, maybe you got married, maybe you've had kids.

The ability to observe our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and question [00:21:00] whether they are capital T truth, is the best tool we have for steering our attention away from the demotivational options, and toward the truly motivational ones. Knowing that circumstances can improve if we keep trying to improve them, is the best tool we have for steering our attention away from the demotivational options, is hugely motivational, and it's also true, but sometimes we lose sight of it, don't we?

I know that I do. Uh, it helps to have friends around to remind us of these things. So the more we practice this skill of observing our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, questioning if they're getting us the results we want or not, just objectively speaking, and steering our attention toward beliefs and practices that will motivate us with something other than fear.

And, you know, remind us of our agency. The easier the skill of mindfulness will become. And the quicker we'll remember to do it. And that's important. Because that means spending less time feeling like we're shouting into the void, and more time connecting with the progress that we've made. [00:22:00] Remembering that we've made progress Is hugely empowering because it reminds us that we can continue to make progress, that we have agency and influence in this world, and that Ultimately, we do matter.

Of course you matter, whether you believe that or not. But that's beside the point. So if you're asking the question, what if I'm screaming into the void? You have a few options. You can walk away from the void, if that's something like social media, or a particular publishing platform that you just, you know, You can stop all that screaming into the void and instead have a civilized conversation with the people who are responding to your books and content, regardless of if that's only 10 different people, the choice is yours.

And so is how you feel about the situation. Notice what thoughts you're having around those triggering places. Notice P's are [00:23:00] showing up for you. And remember that you can redirect your thoughts by saying. That thought isn't doing what I'd hoped it'd do. I'm going to experiment with this other thought for a while instead.

And then repeat that thought to yourself and notice how it makes you feel. Now, fair warning, it might make you feel a little jittery simply because it's unfamiliar or it goes against a rule that you internalized when you were young and in a system of control. So, if you feel a little jittery, it might just be because it's unfamiliar, not because it's not unfamiliar.

A better or more useful thought for you. So you may wonder, am I allowed to think that? Yes. You're allowed to think whatever the hell you want. No one has to know. Go wild. So that's it for this episode of What If for Authors. Thanks for joining me. And if you feel so compelled to leave a rating and review for this podcast, I greatly appreciate each [00:24:00] and every person who takes the time out of their busy day to do so.

I'm Claire Taylor, and I hope you'll join me again next time. Happy writing!

Episode 28: What if my country collapses?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire takes a deeply personal and urgent approach to addressing a fear many are grappling with in the wake of political turmoil: "What if my country collapses?"

Drawing from her experience as an Enneagram-certified coach, Claire provides a framework for navigating the overwhelming emotions that often accompany these moments of uncertainty. She explores the power of grounded nervous system work, community connection, and the unique role that authors play in shaping culture and fostering resilience through storytelling.

Key Takeaways:

• Why it's crucial to recognize that you cannot save your country alone.

• Strategies to co-regulate with others and create calm amidst chaos.

• How authors can reclaim their agency and wield their words as tools for healing and transformation.

• A story of endurance, support, and unexpected hope shared by one of Claire's Enneagram mentors.

• Reflections on how each Enneagram type can contribute to collective healing and action.

Why You Should Listen: Claire doesn’t shy away from the hard truths about the moment we’re living in, but she also provides hopeful reminders. If recent events have left you feeling paralyzed or powerless, this episode offers both validation and actionable insights for moving forward as an individual and as part of a larger community.

Support the Show: If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share the show with your fellow authors. Every review helps more writers discover this resource.

Join the Conversation: Share your thoughts with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or connect on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name is Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book for authors, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

I was not planning on doing this topic for an episode, but it's so clear that we need to talk about it. It's been a point of discussion, if not concern in every coaching call I've had since the U S election earlier this month, even with clients who live outside the U S so there's, there's really no point in pretending otherwise.

Let's talk about it. Let's ask the question on many people's hearts and minds. What if my country collapses?

First of all, if you're thrilled with the results of the U. S. election this year, I'm not [00:01:00] sure that this is the episode for you. If you're genuinely curious about the emotions of people who voted for the other side and are open to hearing the legitimate concerns laid out and discussed, if you're open to wondering if your vote might have unintended consequences for people whose lives are just as valuable as yours, Then of course, you're welcome to stay and listen with the intention of understanding.

But if you voted for a bunch of Republicans that are not open to the possibility that your vote will have very real and negative consequences for others, and frankly, for you too, before long, then this episode is not for you. You can go listen to something else. You're free to do something else. Before you head out though, I would be remiss to not leave you with a quote from the German Lutheran pastor Martin Neumuller. I might be mispronouncing that. , and you might've heard this quote before. [00:02:00] So he was a supporter of the Nazis during the rise to power and eventually became outspoken against the Nazi Party.

In other words, he was a man who changed his mind, or rather had his mind changed. He said, First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

The idea that we can scapegoat one or two groups and that the fire will never come back to burn us is one that has been debunked throughout history. So I hope you can come to terms with what you've unleashed and do what you can to set it right moving forward. Like Neumuller did. Again, probably mispronouncing that.

Okay, yeah, that's what the Enneagram shadow work allows us [00:03:00] to do. That's why it's crucial for growth. It allows us to see what we've done, take accountability and determine the best path toward making things right, if need be. So if you are someone who is very excited about, the Trump victory, I hope you'll take that quote with you on your way out.

Okay. If you're one of the people who is disheartened, disillusioned, or even despairing as a result of the U. S. election, this is the episode for you. It's also for anyone abroad who might experience a similar situation as it is likely to happen in various countries in the coming years. As authoritarianism, fascism, and oligarchy starts to seem like a better idea to certain folks.

I don't know. I don't If you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm not going to be unbiased here in that I don't feel neutral on what to me seems like a matter of compassion, accountability, and connection to ourselves and our fellow humans. I'm [00:04:00] not going to mince words in this episode. I don't think it's the time for that.

And I honestly don't know how to explain to people why it's important to care about others. So I'm not going to waste our time on that. Maybe I'll try it a couple of months or so. Maybe I'll have the energy to throw my energy right into the garbage disposal at that point. But for now, I simply do not feel compelled to pretend that I think voting for Trump is morally excusable.

Even if someone does actually believe that the economy is bad and Joe Biden is to blame, I don't think it's morally excusable to vote for Trump. This is my one coming out. I understand that. I haven't worked all the way through some of the anger and moral righteousness I feel right now. So this is what you're getting though.

, you know, at the end of the day, I've been a victim of sexual assault on more than one occasion by men in positions of power over me. And so I do find it personally distasteful that anyone would be so cynical [00:05:00] as to accept that a sexual predator is ever the best pick for public office. That's a degree of cynicism that I hope to never fall victim to.

Anyone who doesn't believe that he's a sexual predator does so despite overwhelming evidence not because of any lack of it. When someone is so set on believing something despite the evidence far be it for me to waste my time and my precious life trying to convince them otherwise.

Anyway, I think it's important for you to know that I'm not sugarcoating anything today because I'm actually going to give you what I consider to be a hopeful message and I need you to understand that I wholeheartedly believe it myself, despite how much anger I felt over the last couple of weeks. So again, I recognize that anger is the vice of my Enneagram type, so I had to wait until I could work through that.

To at least get a whiff of serenity before I could sit down and record this episode. I don't want to [00:06:00] impart any additional misery onto anyone here. At the same time, I'm not here to assure you that everything will be okay because it will not be. When we zoom out though, we may notice that everything has never been okay.

And it has also been extra not okay for particular groups of people. So I won't lie and tell you everything will be okay because that not only dismisses your feelings, but I think it dismisses reality. What I will remind you of today, though, is that you still have power. Lots and lots of power. And you can find ways to experience moments of being okay.

Maybe even joyous in the midst of everything, not being okay.

First of all, I'm not really convinced that America will collapse. Contrary to the title of this episode, it might, you know, I've been wrong before, but that's hardly anything you or I [00:07:00] can prevent individually. Right. If you feel like it's up to you to stop all these crazy things from happening, that's probably why you're feeling exhausted today.

Okay? It's not up to any single person. To be clear, you cannot save this country on your own. I really need you to internalize that it's not your responsibility or within your power. And if you believe it to be on any level, all you'll end up connecting with is a sense of complete powerlessness.

If you were raised to be hyper independent, then somewhere inside of you, you might actually believe that you're responsible for cleaning up this mess. So the first shift we want to work on within ourselves in this new environment is the idea that we must do everything on our own. That is not true.

Never in history has any one person cleaned up a mess this big on their own. It's always been a group effort. That gets us out of messes like this one. So let's take a deep breath. [00:08:00] Let's inhale deeply through the nose into the belly and then exhale all the way out. Do that a few times whenever you notice the feeling that you're in this alone.

You are not in this alone. None of us are. And that's great news. We are here for each other. And the best way to be here for each other is to do the things I talk about in these episodes to stay grounded and connected to your agency.

A lot of what needs to be done individually for ourselves is nervous system work. So this looks like increasing your quiet time for meditation, prayer, stretching. Deep breathing, terror, whatever helps you feel spiritually grounded in the present and calm.

But even our nervous system isn't an individual sport. We co-regulate with the people [00:09:00] around us. It's a lovely little design feature of the human body. It's easier to reach a calm state when you are around someone who is in a calm state.

Similarly, it's really difficult to reach a calm state when you're around someone who is dysregulated. Trolls, for instance, are dysregulated people by nature. They want to dysregulate others because misery loves company. So it's crucial to our journey toward being better regulated and better regulating our nervous system that we limit our exposure to trolls as frequently as possible.

That can be a little bit difficult as an author, but it's not impossible. Choosing who we spend time around and when during the coming months is going to be an important decision for us and our well being, as well as our ability to just get the words done, because we're writers, remember?

But this choice is within your power, so don't give it up.

And that brings [00:10:00] us to really exploring all of the power you and I still have. I want you to think about how many quotes you saw in the days following the election that were passed around the internet from movies, TV shows, and books. People wrote those quotes, writers like you. And those quotes are what society looks to in dark times. Authors shape our culture. Always have. And our culture has been imbibing poison lately, clearly.

But you have the power to write words that change people. You have the power to write words that heal people. Words that keep people going when times are exceptionally shitty. That pull people back from the precipice of cynicism and keep them hoping enough to keep going, to keep fighting for themselves and for others.

If you don't see the power that you hold in your hands as an author, [00:11:00] it's because you're running scared from it, not because it's not there.

If writing feels frivolous to you in light of recent events, here's what I have to say. You either need to stop fighting how important your stories are to people out there, or You need to write more important stories. So my purpose on this earth as an Enneagram Type 1, as a reformer, and this is just as I see it, but my purpose is to light a fire under your ass.

Okay, to wake up myself and others to what is right and good, and what collective action is needed to move us toward that. We each have a gift to bring, and to get to that gift, we have to cut through the fear that keeps us from it. What did you think we were doing all this work for together, right? Just to fuck around?

No, we have important work here. Not more work that can be expected of a single person, but important work all the [00:12:00] same.

When I think about the writers and thinkers I respect the most They by and large existed in dark times, in dark places. They faced oppression way more than any white woman like me is facing today.

The dark times are when we find out what we're made of. And I hope you accept that challenge with hope in your heart. I really do. The day after the election, I silenced my phone. John was in Houston for a case, so I had lots of time to practice solitude in the morning. One question that started really tugging at my attention was this.

What if I'm built for this moment? Now there's a what if for you, right? What if I'm built for this moment? The strange thing is, I felt a certainty almost as soon as I asked the question that I am built for this moment. How could I not be? I was shaped by the events leading up to this moment. [00:13:00] Now, I may not fully see yet how I'm built for this moment, but I know that I am in a way of knowing that really just lives deep down in my bones.

And, I believe that you are too.

Maybe you still have to learn how you're made for this moment, but we each have a pretty big hint that our writing may be a part of that.

I've since started uncovering how I made for this moment bit by bit. And while I don't expect you to be particularly interested in me and all of my personal stuff, I'll explain my logic so that you can apply the example to your own life if you want to.

I do believe that I was built from my core all the way up to be a menace, to be a problem for people who are taking advantage of others. Now, if someone who knew me as a goody goody in middle school heard me say that, they might disagree, but I think even that perfectionist part of me is a crucial piece.

I [00:14:00] always want to know the rules, which is how I can find the loopholes and exploit them for chaotic good reasons.

I also care more about following my conscience than staying safe, which my nervous system doesn't always love, but which works well as a reformer. So I've been writing satire and sharpening that sword since I was in high school. I love poking fun at bigots. Nothing makes me feel more alive than undermining egomaniacal authoritarians by making people laugh at how utterly silly they are.

I've been reading psychology, sociology, philosophy, feminist theory, critical race theory, and history just for fun for years now. And continuing the work of deconstructing all the structures of control that interfere with the liberation process. I have a pen name entirely dedicated to satire. I have readers ready for the next book without even meaning to.[00:15:00]

I've built myself to be a problem for others, for the right people in a moment such as this. Now this is probably not how you were built for this moment. Almost assuredly not. We can't all be built in the same way. You're probably just looking at the odds, not built to be a menace, but that's okay.

Maybe you are, maybe you aren't either way is fine. But I think if you look closely at the work you've done through the years, the skills you have and your unique outlook and position in society, it will become obvious how you are built for this moment, how you've built yourself for this moment without even meaning to.

There are important dishes that each Enneagram type brings to this potluck. There are elements that this moment is calling out for that each type can offer.

You don't have to offer the one associated with your type either. You can bring that, or you can bring another one, or you can bring a few. I mean, [00:16:00] truthfully, we can each bring all of them in small portions since we have all nine types inside of us. So let me just give you a jumping off point. If you're struggling to understand how you might be made for this moment, here's what I see being called for from the nine energies of the Enneagram.

One's moral courage and integrity. Two's steady compassion. Three's the path to change. Four's artistic disruption. Fives, context and clarity. Sixes, courage and cooperation. Sevens, joy. Eights, advocacy. Nines, reconciliation.

Personally, I'm trying to bring all nine of these to my life, but I'll admit that my lowest type, the nine, is definitely showing here because the idea of reconciliation is a tough one for me. I struggle a lot with the idea [00:17:00] of reconciling with certain people, but I can reconcile with parts of myself and that's important work too.

Maybe the most important. That being said, speaking with nines does give me a better understanding of the importance of reconciliation. So thanks nines. I'm going to leave a lot of that work up to you though. Best of luck. Okay. So take a second and ask yourself this question. How am I built for this moment?

I suspect that the fear that many of us feel is a result of worrying that we aren't built for this moment, that we don't have what we need to personally withstand it, and that it will crush us under the weight of it. What a powerless feeling that is. But remember, you have power. And I believe that accessing it might start with discovering how you are absolutely built for this moment.

I'm going to tell you a quick story that was [00:18:00] shared with me by one of the Enneagram teachers I've been lucky enough to have. Her client, Chris, which is not his real name, was a competitive endurance cyclist and had a big multi day race coming up. He was also a type six, the loyalist whose core fear is being without support or security.

So as the race day drew closer, Chris became fixated on this fear that his bike chain might snap when he was in a remote section of the race. So this wasn't like the Tour de France, so it's not like there were camera crews and volunteers all around. Now this particular fear became a sort of vortex, sucking in his attention until he was just totally fixated on it.

The problem was that he couldn't think of a solution that would work, and he wouldn't let the possible outcome remain unsolved. His bike chain snapping while he was in a remote area was a worst case scenario that he couldn't think his way through. He didn't see how he could keep going if that happened.[00:19:00]

He was without a good answer, no matter how much he fixated on the potential threat. And now we've probably all felt this at some point in our lives. With some coaxing, Chris participated in the race. And on his next meeting with my teacher, he told her that the worst had happened. On the final day, with the finish line not far away, as he attempted to pedal up a long steep hill in the pouring rain, his bike chain broke.

The worst happened, and he still didn't have a solution.

When she asked him what he did in that scenario, he showed her the front page of the local paper. It wasn't a picture of the race winner victoriously crossing the finish line with their arms raised in the air. Instead, it was an image of Chris, but not just Chris. Two other cyclists had seen him struggling with his broken bike chain.[00:20:00]

Rather than forging on, they had him get up on his bike and locked hands behind him, and together they pedaled him up the hill and helped him finish the race in the pouring rain. Chris's fear of his bike chain breaking had given him such tunnel vision, left him so panicked that he overlooked the obvious and perhaps the only possible solution.

that other people would show up for him. And lo and behold, that's what happened.

I shared this story with my email list recently, and it made many folks feel a sense of hope that they hadn't connected with in a while., I should note that I shared this story before the election because I needed everyone to understand that even if the outcome you dread comes to pass, you might be surprised by who shows up for you.

I spent the day after the election reaching out to all of my friends, checking in, seeing how their coping mechanisms holding up, because, I don't know, asking, how are you kind of seems stupid in this [00:21:00] situation. We don't always get the outcome we want, clearly. But we can always choose each other. We have that power within us until our dying breath.

Now, I suspect I don't know, but I suspect that there were a few cyclists who rode right past Chris and his broken bike chain, who didn't even consider that stopping to help him was an option. We can choose to be those people just as easily as we can choose to be the ones who stop.

God, I have so much to say in this episode. I really do. I have so many thoughts. Mostly, I'll say this. All right. You do not get to opt out. There are too many people who can't opt out even if they wanted to. I get it. I get the hopelessness, the devastation, the grief even. I feel all of that too. But when I zoom out, I am not in immediate danger as I'm [00:22:00] recording this.

Not yet. And that's important. Maybe you're in the same position. So Let me tell it like it is because that's the theme here. I'm white. First of all, I'm not subject to racist scapegoating. Does it hurt me to see others subjected to it? God, yes, but I don't get to vicariously feel their pain and immediate danger to the point of being too hurt to carry on.

Do I get the sense that people of color may not trust me because of the way so many white women voted this year? Yes, sure. But my discomfort is not to be confused with danger. It's crucial that if you, like me, are a white woman, we do not equate the two things. I'm also currently not pregnant. So my physical danger is not at risk.

In that way, in the foreseeable future, I'm a citizen, so I have certain protections. And because I'm a white citizen, I literally never have to worry that someone will [00:23:00] challenge the legitimacy of my citizenship. I'm cisgendered and in a heterosexual marriage as well. Nobody is going to be legally challenging the legitimacy of my marriage.

Though Texas is trying to make sure I can't leave it, but that's another story. And no one is demonizing me and unjustly implying that I'm a predator just to score political points. So I could go on, but I think you get the point, right? Yes. I'm concerned about how things may evolve in the future. And I'm not so ignorant as to think that people will never come for me, but for the time being, it's crucial to both my wellbeing and those of the people who I feel responsible to support that I recognize the truth.

My bike chain has not snapped yet. I should not be waiting for people to come help me because yes, my legs are tired from the ride, but my bike chain has not snapped. Maybe that will change, but I do believe it's important for us not to let ourselves [00:24:00] take on the threat that others are facing so much that we center ourselves in it.

We cannot stop pedaling because we're worried about other people's bike chains. To do so is the dark side of privilege. Now, if you are one of the people whose bike chains are snapping almost immediately following the inauguration, or who might be listening to this episode farther down the line, and your bike chain has long since snapped, and there are many of you, unfortunately, I hope that you can turn your attention away from the haters and toward the people who are ready to help you in any way they can.

There are a lot of us. So now is not the time for rugged individualism. And if you hear a voice telling you to withdraw from others, to pull away as the only guarantee of safety that you must save yourself no matter the cost, I cannot stress enough how important it is to not listen to that voice. We need each other now.

We're in this mess because [00:25:00] too many people became isolated, and isolation breeds fear, cynicism, and despair. All necessary ingredients for conspiratorial thinking and adhering to authoritarianism. The antidote to that is not further isolation, no matter what your fear tells you. So please, please, please ask for the help that you deserve.

Reach out, even if it's just to one person. And for the rest of us, those of us whose bike chain has not yet snapped, I need us to be absolutely fucking for real on if we're centering ourselves in this more than we need to be in the present moment. If you're white, you don't get to be so depressed about how racism played a major role in the election results that you give up. If you're a man, you don't get to be so sad for the women in your life that you resign yourself to this being the way it is. If you're a citizen, you definitely don't get to be so worried about the safety of immigrants or the livelihood of dreamers that you fall [00:26:00] apart and do nothing.

As my fellow Type 1, Michelle Obama, said in her recent speech, Do something. You're an author. Start there. Do something, especially if you write in genres where you have readers on the other side of the political spectrum. Show them a better way through your stories.

Show them a world where people care for the stranger. Unite to fight greedy autocrats and learn to treat people from different backgrounds with respect. Create characters that show courage and the fear of insurmountable odds and who stick their necks out for each other. Show true critical thinking.

Show how community is stronger through diversity. You have so much power at your fingertips. Yeah, that can be frightening, but so is sitting by and saying nothing while simple cruelty becomes policy. Live so that you can live with yourself, is what I'm saying. Your books don't ever have to [00:27:00] be bestsellers to change someone's life.

And isn't that wonderful? But you do have to write them. If you are still grieving a future that will never come, if you're still afraid, I get it. If you absolutely need time to process this, take that. But sometimes writing is the best way to process things like this. That's how most of us became writers.

So just consider it. Also do yourself a favor, especially if you're a head centered type and stop trying to make sense of the nonsensical. Stop trying to understand the logic of the illogical. Those are dead ends and quicksand. Allow yourself to turn your attention toward showing logic in motion. And this is why we do the work, y'all.

This is why we learn to live next to our fear instead of in it. America has not done the work. It has not done its shadow work. [00:28:00] And you can see the results of that in so many citizens believing that things like genocide and concentration camps happen in other countries. Not this one. Except it's .

Happened here already. What happened to the Native Americans fits every definition of a genocide. And that way our country was built on genocide and we didn't call them concentration camps, but we call them internment camps, immigration detention centers, and for profit prisons. Oh yeah. And there was all that slavery for 400 years.

So we have changed the names of things so that those who haven't done their shadow work could look away and keep the ugliness at arm's length. But these ugly things will keep happening in America until we are able to look at the shadow together, to call it by its name and say that, yes, this is the America we know.

And then we need to do the long overdue work to right the wrongs. So if you can see the [00:29:00] horrifying effects on a large scale of not doing the shadow work, then you may better understand the importance of doing it on an individual scale. We aren't ready to say we're fighting on the side of justice, compassion, and liberation if we haven't confronted the ways we've benefited from injustice, where we lack compassion for ourselves and others, and where we still attempt to exercise control over the external world.

Confronting ugliness starts at home. So if you've been doing this work, thank you. If you haven't started it yet, now's the time. We do this so that we can figure out how we're built for the moment and healing ourselves and integrating all the good, the bad, and the ugly of being human. We get to discover how we are exactly who's needed in this moment of this timeline to care for our friends, to raise brave and compassionate children and to inspire others to do the same.

[00:30:00] I understand that some of us may feel like giving up. I've observed that feeling in myself. But at the end of the day, we must not choose that. Roll those shoulders back and take a deep breath. You aren't built to take on the whole problem, but you are absolutely built for your part in this collective effort.

So, if you're wondering, what if my country collapses? I say that the answer is pretty simple. We build it back up together, and we make better allies to each other by doing the deep and difficult work that everything in your ego is begging you to avoid.

You may wish this wasn't the moment in time you were living in. The situation in which you were raising your children. You may wish none of this had happened, but as Gandalf said, so do all who [00:31:00] live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

And of course, Gandalf did not say that. A writer wrote that.

I don't know about you, but I'm renewing my commitment to fiction. Because it matters, because it changes societies from the inside out, because the choice is still mine, because there is power in that, that can't be taken away or banned, no matter how hard some might try, and make no mistake, people are going to try, they already are.

That just shows me how terrified the truth makes some people, and that makes me want to speak it and write it even more. The next time you feel powerless, turn your attention to all the power you have. You have the power to envision a better world. The power to show that world to others. The power to [00:32:00] brighten someone's day. The power to advocate for yourself and others. The power to change someone's heart. The power to bring joy to the world.

The power to not give up. What are you going to do with all that power? That's it for this episode of What If For Authors. I wish I didn't have to do it, but I did, and I'm so glad you're here to listen. you want help figuring out how you were built for this moment, You can book some time with me.

I'm here. Go to ffs.media/schedule. I'm Claire Taylor and I hope you'll join me next week for another, hopefully less spicy, episode. Happy writing.

Episode 27: What if I'm not getting read-through?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If for Authors, Claire Taylor takes a practical and analytical deep dive into the concept of read-through—how to measure it, understand it, and improve it. Whether you’re a seasoned author or just starting out, Claire helps you cut through the emotional and technical hurdles of identifying whether readers are progressing through your books and how to troubleshoot if they’re not.

This episode offers actionable insights while encouraging a healthy, compassionate mindset for tackling challenges in your writing career.

Key Takeaways:

1. What is Read-Through, and How Do You Measure It?

• Read-through measures how many readers move from one book in a series to the next.

• Claire explains why read-through is difficult to measure if you only have one book and provides strategies like offering a compelling freebie at the end of your book to assess engagement.

• For series, the most common measurement is the percentage of readers who purchase or borrow subsequent books.

2. Setting Expectations for Read-Through:

• Industry averages for read-through can vary significantly based on pricing strategies and whether your books are in Kindle Unlimited.

• Claire emphasizes that expectations are personal, and setting them too low or too high can create unnecessary emotional turbulence.

3. Troubleshooting Read-Through Issues:

• Start with Back Matter: The first link readers see at the end of your book should ideally point to the next book in the series.

• Analyze Openings and Endings: Your opening pages should hook readers immediately, and your ending should provide satisfaction while enticing them to continue the series.

• Identify Drop-Off Points: Beta readers or hired feedback can help pinpoint where readers lose interest, offering insight into areas that might need tightening.

4. Factors Beyond the Numbers:

• Some books are designed to be savored rather than inhaled, and that can affect the pace of read-through.

• If you notice slow read-through but receive positive feedback, it might simply reflect the unique nature of your stories.

5. Addressing a Skills Gap:

• If storytelling fundamentals are causing read-through issues, Claire encourages you to view it as an opportunity to learn and grow, rather than a reflection of your worth as a writer.

• There are countless resources, workshops, and editors available to help you hone your craft.

Why You Should Listen: This episode is for authors who want to understand their read-through rates and take actionable steps to improve them without letting the process become emotionally overwhelming. Whether you're an indie author managing your own files or a traditionally published writer curious about what you can influence, Claire offers thoughtful strategies to tackle this common concern.

Support the Show: If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share the show with your fellow authors. Every review helps more writers discover this resource.

Join the Conversation: Share your thoughts with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or connect on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

Today's topic is one of the more practical ones that I'll be covering. And the reason I'm covering it is because it can so easily touch on our fears and make us not even want to approach it. Bye. But if we're going to keep readers coming back for more, we need to study ourselves and look it dead in the eyes.

So this episode asks the question, what if I'm not getting read through?

We run into a few problems when we first define this problem. So we trip over measurements first. So how do we know if we're getting read through on a book? That is, how do we know that someone is starting the book, finishing it, and then moving on to the next one if we have another book to [00:01:00] offer? So right off the bat, I'll say that it's incredibly hard to measure read through if you only have one book.

one book out. So maybe don't worry about this yet and move on to writing your next book. If you're really set on measuring it though, you can add something enticing to the back of your book, a call to action that feels like a no brainer for the reader, like a free epilogue or a novella. This isn't an exact measurement of who reads your book, but it's not nothing.

So if no one clicks on the no brainer freebie, then either no one is reading it to the end, very few people are, and none are converting, or maybe you have some sort of a technical glitch with your e book, like the link isn't working, or the also bought page is popping up on the e readers before they get to your freebie offer.

Other than that, the most common measurement of read through is from looking at what percentage of people who bought book one bought book two, essentially, and what percentage of people who bought book one bought books three [00:02:00] and four and so on. So you can look at the series read through or book to book read through to assess where people are dropping off, and then you can isolate what might be the issue.

So are your analytical brains tired yet? Uh, it's going to be a lot more of this, but we will get into some of the deeper issues soon. I promise.

Measurement method is just the first step. And as you can tell, it's already not an exact science. And what if you don't write in a series? How do you calculate read through then? Honestly, at that point we're getting closer to measuring vibes than data. So anyone who tells you there's an exact science to this or there's only one way to measure it is probably overcompensating.

Once you figure out your chosen method for measurement, whatever that is, you have to figure out what that means. So that's where expectations comes into play. And where expectations come into play, our emotions and our ego also come into play. So let's tread lightly Now, I've heard [00:03:00] From various sources.

This is me Gathering this from all different sources trying to find an average But you know what those sources might be quoting the same sources and it might turn into a circular thing here I don't know, but I've heard that 50 percent read through from book 1 to book 2 in a series is pretty solid But I've also heard that with Kindle Unlimited if your books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited 70 percent read through from book 1 to book 2 is considered solid for ebooks You might have heard this, you might have heard different percentages, but guess what, there is no standard line for good here.

People like certainty, so they will make up a number to scratch that itch, but it doesn't, in itself, mean anything concrete. So here's another wrench. If your first book is free, then expecting much more than 5 percent read through to book two, assuming book two costs money, is probably setting yourself up for heartbreak.

The industry average [00:04:00] that I've seen, and I think most of this data is from Kobo books, , last I checked, but the industry average is more like one to two percent read through from a free book to a paid book, to the next book in the series that's paid. So does the industry average tell you anything about your book?

. Not really, so even that measurement is like, meh. But imagine that you're expecting something like a 10 percent read through from your first in series that's free to your second in series that's not free, but you do the math and realize it's closer to 3%. Activate downward spiral for some of us, right?

Meanwhile, someone whose expectation was set at 1 percent would see the 3 percent and be like, hell yeah, they love it. And, this is important, Who's to say who's right and who's wrong? Because there is no right and wrong here. We really don't have a clear line. There's so many variables.

So when we're looking at the emotional component, what triggers us emotionally, what triggers our fear, what really gets our ego, , [00:05:00] pacing in circles, it's about whether or not we're meeting expectations or falling short.

There's a trick that a lot of us pick up early in life that involves setting expectations in a particular way to either protect us from disappointment, say we always set them low, or motivate us through the fear of falling short. So this would be setting unrealistically high expectations.

Do you find yourself falling into one camp or the other? That's a really important thing to notice. And has doing this actually gotten you the results you hoped for when you take a step back and look at it? Is it doing the thing you thought it would do? Or has setting your expectations way way low meant you've settled for okay rather than leveling up and maybe feel low grade disappointment at how your life has turned out, or has setting your expectations way, way higher than anyone would reasonably expect left you feeling like you're [00:06:00] always falling short, rather than feeling like maybe you're pretty awesome.

I bet you didn't expect us to go this deep on read through, but you probably should have, right? You know what podcast this is. So our expectations around read through are where things start to get emotionally fraught, and our ego can get a little injured. and want to armor up.

But let's just say that we have already measured read through in a way that makes sense and has adequate data to begin drawing some sort of conclusions. And then we can set what we believe is a reasonable expectation for what we would like read through percentages to look like for us. And let's say that our read through isn't quite where we'd like it to be.

What diagnostics can we run from there? The first thing I would recommend you do is to go and look at the back matter of your book. So that's the easiest place to make changes and tighten things up, especially if you are an indie [00:07:00] and you own all those files and can just upload something new. So open your ebook and flip all the way to the last page.

Do you have a call to action that shows up for the next book before That device starts shooting up all those flares for other books to read in the store, right? Sometimes it'll just pop it up that's in the, in the coding of the ebook, right? So is your call to action actually showing up?

Now, if you want your read through to happen, the very first link anyone sees, as soon as the story ends, should be the one to your next book. It doesn't even have to be on a fresh page. It can be. End story, line, break, call to action, with maybe a link if it's an e book, or an easy, you know, bit. ly link or something if it's a print book.

So if this doesn't show up at the back of your book, your read through will suffer. Period. It will not be optimized, as they say. If you have a bunch of other links and [00:08:00] stuff between the final word of the story and your link to buy the next book, your read through will also suffer as a result. And hear me out, maybe that's okay, right?

Maybe you would rather hit them with a link to sign up to your email list first, because that's a bigger priority than getting them to the next book for you. If you want to make that decision for you, that is totally fine.

But you are choosing to go for subscriptions over read through. over read through if you put the subscription link first. And I hope that you'll remember that when you look at those read through percentages, so that you have the proper context. So let's say that the back matter looks good and you're still not happy with a read through.

The next most likely culprit is that people aren't finishing your book. They may not even be starting it. Frankly, it's really hard to tell. So this is where our artistic egos can Take a big hit.

So if you feel the gut punch that goes along [00:09:00] with considering that someone doesn't like your book, then take a step back from it with me and let's activate our scientist's brain.

Let's depersonalize this. It doesn't mean they don't like you, and it doesn't mean that they don't like your writing. It certainly doesn't mean that you have to stop everything and rewrite the whole book or give up writing altogether.

If those big emotions and generalizations start to pop up for you, What you can do is you can just observe them, because they're kind of interesting, aren't they? It's interesting how quickly our fear can take a piece of data, add a few drops of that fear to it, and really brew up a frothing catastrophe for us.

The human mind is just kind of fascinating in this way, and we, we have the privilege of being able to observe our own. So the most effective use of your time at this stage is to focus on your opening pages and your closing pages. So you can work with an editor or an author whose work you [00:10:00] love, and, and this is important, and who treats you kindly, and you can get feedback from them.

There are so many resources and workshops available online for writing a gripping first ten pages. And a lot of them are free too. Usually you get what you pay for, but if you're just starting out with this work, Might as well start with free. So focus your energy on those opening lines of your book.

Find something hooky that broadcasts to the reader what delights they can expect in the following pages. Show them the protagonist's main dilemma. Cut the info dumps and show something happening. Razzle dazzle them with your tone. I think a lot about the opening pages of Interview with the Vampire and how the tone just, it just grabbed me by the shirt collar and dragged me into the coffin with it. Willingly, I should add, I was all in just from those opening pages. I didn't care where the story [00:11:00] went. It was that tone.

So work over those opening pages. Keep chipping away until you get an opening sentence that makes you go, Oh, hell yeah.

The next thing I would do is look at your ending. Is it satisfying? This is where a developmental editor will come in absolutely clutch. Do the main characters. Particularly, your protagonist, get a satisfying ending for who they are. So what emotion is the reader left with? Are there any unanswered questions that the reader still has?

Any open loops? Maybe something that you've promised to answer in the following books that would make them immediately go buy the next book? Now I'm not talking about cliffhangers here. I know that cliffhangers is a very divisive um, I'm just talking about open series loops. So, like, if it's a romance, the romantic interests probably need to get together, right?

There's a little variation here, , for this with reverse harem, but let's not get into the weeds. [00:12:00] But if it's a murder mystery, is the mystery solved? So those are some of the basic requirements so that you know your genre's requirements to satisfy the reader. And then see if you can also hint towards some other open loops, especially if you're writing in a series.

Maybe there are two secondary characters in your romance who obviously have chemistry and whom readers will want to see in the next book. Or maybe in solving the murder, an even bigger mystery unlocks. Maybe there's like a mastermind in the shadows that you can hint at. Revisiting your book's ending to make sure it's satisfying while also inviting your reader to read more from you in that series is going to be a lot of bang for your buck. And again, a skilled editor or beta readers will be really useful here. If you still have any fucks to give about upping read through at this point, you can have some readers go through your book and simply note everywhere the book [00:13:00] lost their attention and they set it down.

Notice if there are any trends among the readers and where they set the book down or lost interest. Maybe those are scenes you can tighten up, amp up, or cut out altogether. If you notice that people are walking away between chapters as you go through this process, then that's fine. Your chapter hooks might need some attention, right?

You can tighten those up. But at least this way you'll have some data from readers. Again, you might not need to go this deep, and you might not even give enough of a shit about moving the needle to spend time revisiting all this. So that is okay. But these would be the diagnostic steps I would recommend as a reader myself.

As a former developmental editor and as a story coach. Now here's another theory about why read through might be lower than you expect. Just to, you know, mix things up a bit here. You might not be writing books that are easy to inhale, and that's totally legit. [00:14:00] So not all books are designed to be easy to inhale.

Some savored. So while I was writing the Jessica Christ series, which is Packed with jokes and unexpected surprises, I liked to layer it, or I liked to layer it while I was writing it. Um, I, I frequently heard from readers that they loved the series so much that they paced out their reading of it, so that they didn't run out of books to read.

What a compliment, right? I mean, as a writer, that was just such a great thing to hear. Um, at least I took it that way because I know that feeling from a reader's perspective, when I love a series so much that I want to devour it. But then I'm also afraid of what life will be like when I run out of book, right?

And I have to wait for the next one.

But you can imagine that a reading behavior like that might affect those raw read through numbers. So if I'm measuring a 30 day window and people are pacing out each book over a month, it won't look like they're reading to the [00:15:00] next book. So numbers don't tell the full story here. Some savored. Maybe yours falls into this category.

Maybe people take breaks between reading your book so that they don't run out of everything before you publish a new book. If you write dense, layered, or really unique stories that people can't find in a lot of places, this could be affecting your read through. Does that matter to you? Is that actually a problem?

Would you even want to fix it, knowing what the cause of that low readthrough is?

And finally, and this may be difficult to hear, but some folks need to hear it. If you haven't learned about storytelling and the art of writing, if you haven't put in the time to learn what makes a strong story, how to use a variety of sentence structures, , to your advantage to keep readers engaged and how to build tension and emotional depth throughout a book, then you might be running up against that and it might be showing in your read [00:16:00] through.

That doesn't mean you can't learn those things though. It doesn't mean you're a quote unquote bad writer, full stop. That would be the fixed mindset stuff that we don't do in these parts. But why would you be a compelling writer who grips people from the first page if you didn't ever learn from the best how to do that?

You know, why should you just have that skill? So I went to college for four years to study writing and literature, so of course I did learn some things there. , and it's okay if you didn't do that, right? It's okay if you didn't go to college to study this stuff. , maybe that was even a really smart decision.

But it could also mean that there are some basics that you don't even know that you don't know. Like, for instance, just, Pulling something out of the air. , if you're not familiar with what head hopping is, you might want to check that out. There's a bunch of little things like this that we may not know we don't know.

So if you haven't done learning on that, it [00:17:00] might be time.

Sometimes it's as simple as just hitting pause and learning your craft better for the next book, or going back and cleaning up earlier books with your new skills. We can become so scared to look at this possibility of a skills deficit if we carry around the belief that writing is all talent and not learned skills, but thankfully, that's not the case.

It just isn't. So you can learn to be a more engaging writer. You can learn new tricks to keep writers delighted. We all can. There are a lot of tricks that I still have yet to learn. So if you're up against a true skills deficit that's causing the lack of read through, then you're in. Time to do something about it if you want things to change.

In the end, maybe you don't need to sweat read through rates too much, right? I tend not to think about them unless I notice some sort of anomalous drop off between books, and then I'll go and do some sleuthing, some troubleshooting. And I only [00:18:00] check read through on a series. About once or twice a year at that, usually, whichever series is in progress, since I pretty much know what the deal is with my finished series by the time I finish them.

So if your read through isn't what you want it to be, If you're wondering, what if I'm not getting read through, remember that there's still a lot within your control here. So take a deep breath to depersonalize the problem, put on your observational scientist hat, and evaluate if your measurements are useful or robust enough to even work from.

Then check if your expectations are wonky in hopes of saving yourself from disappointment or motivating yourself through fear to work harder, and follow a process for troubleshooting that double checks your back matter, then takes a critical look at your opening, your ending, and where readers might be falling off.

So you can stop anywhere in the troubleshooting process too, remember that. So maybe just [00:19:00] adjust your back matter and then gather data to see if that was the variable affecting the read through rate. If so, if you give it 90 days and you check again and the read through rate's way up, great!

There's always something that can be done. And you never have to do it if you don't want to. So those are two important things to remember. Especially if you publish your books independently, and this is why I encourage people to, you have so much within your control. And you can always make the choice to use that control or not.

But you do have a choice. And when it comes to human suffering, almost every last ounce of it. That we experience can be alleviated simply by understanding that we do have options and we are making a choice, albeit frequently an unconscious one, to think, feel, and [00:20:00] behave the way we do in a given situation.

So that's it for this episode of What If for Authors. I'm Claire Taylor. Thanks for joining me and I hope you'll come back for the next episode. Happy writing.

Episode 26: What if I'm not a great writer?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If For Authors, Claire dives into the deeply personal question: What if I’m not a great writer? With candor and compassion, Claire explores what the idea of “greatness” even means in the world of writing, reminding us how subjective and vague that term can be. She examines how societal expectations and personal insecurities can distort our self-perception as writers and offers practical, grounded strategies for dealing with the anxiety this question can bring up.

Key Takeaways:

• Defining “Greatness” in Writing: Claire unpacks the concept of “great” in writing, showing how it’s almost impossible to define universally. Is greatness based on sales, ratings, critical acclaim, longevity? Claire reminds us that each reader has their own standard, making greatness in writing a subjective term that may not be worth obsessing over.

• Perfection Isn’t a Requirement for Success: We’ve all read bestsellers that didn’t resonate or books with high ratings that seemed flawed. Claire highlights how this disconnect reminds us that being a successful writer doesn’t mean appealing to everyone’s standard of “great.” Your writing doesn’t have to meet every possible benchmark to matter.

• Learning Through the Pain of Growth: Improving as a writer is beneficial not only for our craft but also for our well-being. Learning can be intimidating because it often means confronting past mistakes or gaps in knowledge. Claire suggests viewing that discomfort as a sign of growth, reframing cringe-worthy moments as proof of progress.

• Using Anxiety as a Call to Action: Anxiety around not being a “great” writer can be reframed as a call to action. Instead of letting anxiety paralyze us, Claire recommends channeling it into meaningful activities like learning a new writing skill, taking a craft course, or practicing a specific storytelling technique.

• Completing the Stress Cycle: To manage lingering anxiety, Claire encourages listeners to complete their stress cycle with physical activity or relaxation techniques. Recognizing and acting on anxiety in a healthy way helps us stay present and productive, avoiding the endless loops of worry that don’t serve us.

A Practical Approach When Doubting Your Writing:

1. Recognize that “great” is a subjective, often meaningless label.

2. Embrace anxiety as a signal that there may be an opportunity for growth.

3. Channel that energy into learning something new about your craft, but don’t let fear drive you into information overload.

4. Complete the stress cycle with movement or a calming activity to bring yourself back to a grounded state.

Why You Should Listen: This episode is for any writer who has ever doubted their skill or wondered if they’re truly capable of being “great.” Claire offers both mindset shifts and practical strategies to help you reframe these questions in a way that encourages growth without letting fear take the lead. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by self-doubt or the pressure to excel, this episode will leave you feeling reassured, empowered, and ready to keep moving forward.

Join the Conversation: Have you questioned your abilities as a writer? What does “greatness” mean to you? Share your thoughts with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or join the conversation on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

I want to start today by recognizing everybody who has been listening to this podcast abroad, as in abroad from the US, right? I'm very US centric in my thinking. , it's just been really fascinating to see the list of countries where people are listening from and see it grow over the last few months.

So shout out to listeners from the Netherlands, Austria, Israel, Costa Rica, Sweden, Germany, India, India, Hong Kong, South Africa, Nicaragua, Turkey, Italy, so many more. The list goes on.

Of course, all of the predominantly English speaking countries are up there at the top of the listening leaderboard, like Canada, the [00:01:00] UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand. Anyway, Just wanted to say hello to everyone. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen to the show.

Today's episode is a big one. For many of us, this question cuts straight to our identity as writers. It's entirely possible that you've pondered today's question only briefly before seeking a distraction due to its unpleasantness, but today we're not going to let our attention bounce off this question.

We're going to dive in together and ask What if I'm not a great writer?

I'll be honest, this is a big one for me. I bump up against this question often, and I never like it, but I wouldn't be much help to you if I didn't do my best to sit with the discomfort before asking you to do the same. I don't know if I've ever sat with it for, like, a full 30 minutes, like I will today, so this might be a new experience for me [00:02:00] as I walk us through this interview.

This question in detail, but as always, the things that trigger us and make it hard to stay focused tend to be where we can mine the most useful information and find the most growth if we can just sit in the discomfort long enough.

So what if I'm not a great writer? Now, the first obvious question to this is who gets to decide that? Who passes judgment on what makes a great writer anyway? What's the measure here? As soon as we start to really pick that apart, we see the word great disintegrate before our eyes. What does it even mean?

Kind of a meaningless word, isn't it? Different people measure greatness differently. So one person might base it on book sales and say, yeah, that's a great book. Look at the sales. Another person might. Based on average ratings and someone else might say it's only great if you know, quote unquote real critics say it's great.

Some people would even [00:03:00] argue that we can't measure greatness until a book has endured for a generation or two. So what makes a great book? If we can't agree on a basic definition or measurement, then Maybe we're asking the wrong question to start with. There's also a static nature to being a great writer that doesn't really pass the smell test.

Can a great writer produce a not so great book? Can they only produce one great book and still be a great writer? How much of a writer's catalog needs to be considered great for them to be a great writer?

I would reckon we can all think of an author that we consider a great writer, um, even if some of their books just didn't hit for us.

And that variation in our perceived quality of their catalog, it can give us permission to have some variability in our own catalog.

After all, the books that didn't resonate with you might be the perfect fit for someone else. So it's [00:04:00] just all subjective is what I'm getting at here.

You might notice that just in this deconstruction that we've done already, you're feeling a little less panicky about the question, what if I'm not a great writer? The third thing I'll say is that it's okay Not to be whatever arbitrary standard of greatness you've set. Honestly, it's fine.

Don't let the fact that you were in the Gifted and Talented program growing up convince you that you're only worthy if you're great at something.

While that belief may seem like the American way, there are plenty of cultures and practices that value spending time on things you're not great at. and may never excel in. Now, some of you might reject that idea right away because it goes against your ego's need to stand out.

If that's you, I challenge you to just entertain the idea for a few more minutes. Entertain the idea that there [00:05:00] is value in spending your time on things like this. That you may never be the best at. You may never feel fully competent or capable at. You may never be called great at. How would your life be different if you felt no pressure to be great, let alone to be the best at what you do?

What energy might that free up? What emotions? might you be able to unlock? How would it change how you spend your time and attention?

One common refrain I hear from authors, usually whisper during one on one coaching calls, is that a lot of these books that are selling aren't that good. So the people I'm talking to often sound very scandalized about this, as if greatness in their eyes should be a prerequisite for sales. But clearly it's not, right?

We've all read a book that was raved about by everyone we know, only to open it up. it, [00:06:00] try to read it, and find it absolutely lacking. Maybe the author's particular writing quirks graded on you, like maybe they use the same phrase repeatedly, or they write flat characters with inconsistent motivations. We all know that feeling of how is this a bestseller?

But if we sit with that question, we realize we've set an expectation for there to be some correlation between sales and greatness that just doesn't exist. There's something in the book that a lot of people found great, sure, but it doesn't have to be your idea of greatness. So this brings us to a logical conclusion, and that's you don't need to be a great writer by every measure to be a valid writer.

and successful writer.

If you're really worried that your writing just isn't up to snuff, what you can do is start to learn more of the craft. Learn it better. That's a very productive use [00:07:00] of our time. So the part of us that always wants to improve and learn new things is a healthy and inspiring part of ourselves. I would never discourage anyone from working to improve their craft.

It's really satisfying and can eventually make your books easier to sell in some ways. It's also just healthy to keep learning, especially as we age. So yeah, definitely go learn from authors you admire, learn their tricks, challenge yourself to do an extra revision pass focused on that new skill. Maybe you want to learn to write stronger chapter hooks.

Okay. Add a revision pass to strengthen all of your chapter hooks, keep learning and improving your craft. The only caveat I'll give here. is. If you're signing up for classes out of a fear that you don't know enough, but you're not actually applying the lessons. So different motivations drive us to improve.

If fear that you're not a good writer is [00:08:00] behind that, You likely have some mental and emotional patterns that make learning unpleasant, bringing up feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment about things you quote unquote should already know.

That brings me to this really important point that I don't think is discussed enough. There is an inherent pain in learning that keeps us from pursuing it with genuine curiosity and openness. And that inherent pain is the possibility of realizing that we have been wrong or foolish in the past.

If we don't cultivate self compassion and humor, learning can be a terrifying prospect. Because what if you realize that you've been doing something embarrassing and idiotic this whole time? Right? Maybe it's something small, like not knowing the difference between two homophones, and maybe you've sent repeated emails using the [00:09:00] wrong one.

Been there. Doesn't feel great. And that's just a homophone error.

Learning means confronting what past versions of ourselves didn't know. That's why it's so painful and takes bravery. It's hard to look back and realize we might have seemed foolish or wrong. And sometimes when we learn something new, like a method for improving our writing, we'll kind of glance back at old work, and just cringe.

But that cringing, and this is important, that cringing is a sign of growth. Every time you cringe, try pausing and saying, Oh, look, I've learned something. That shift in attention, it may seem silly, but it moves us towards growth, which boosts self confidence and reinforces the bravery that it takes to keep learning.

It pulls us away from shame, which we do want to talk about. you know, will just make us shrink and reinforces the idea that learning is somehow dangerous. So we don't want to do that. We want to move away from shame. You [00:10:00] may even be able to cultivate some gratitude for learning the new thing, knowing, huh, well, I, at least I won't make that same mistake again.

So there are really two points I'm trying to make here that I think will help ease some of your anxiety on this topic.

First of all, the word great in the question What if I'm not a great writer is meaningless. It has so many possible definitions that it's not a useful word for us to even give our time and attention to. The second point is that it doesn't matter how you measure up to some random metric of greatness.

Your life will be vastly improved through the process of improving your craft over time, period. Whether you're starting from very little skill, or you've developed a lot of skills already,

continuing the process of improving your writing, your, the technical part of your writing, your storytelling skills, it's not even about, can it sell more books for [00:11:00] you. There's a huge benefit in remembering that we can learn and improve and that it's safe to do so. The process of learning and acknowledging that we can learn, it isn't isolated to a single arena.

If we practice learning our craft, we'll also gain confidence that we can learn other things too, like how to show up for our friends in the way they need, how to be more financially literate, and maybe even how to learn a new physical activity. It's very easy as we move through the years to become stagnant.

And that stagnation leads to an erosion of our self confidence and self esteem, and it makes our world much smaller. If you're listening to my podcast, you probably don't want to be one of those people who becomes more closed minded and stuck in their ways as they age.

So I probably don't need to make a case for why it's important to not fall into that trap, but I do want to be clear that remembering we can learn new skills and improve on our current ones. is a [00:12:00] necessary process to avoid the fate of becoming closed minded, stagnant, and, frankly, friendless. If we allow our fear of being wrong, of not yet knowing, to take root, it will. It likes to protect itself by doubling down. I think we all know someone whose fear of being wrong makes their go to approach to new information doubling down on their existing beliefs, right? You can see how allowing that subtle fear of learning new things to, you know, have oxygen and continue to grow and take root, how that can lead us down a negative path over time. Now

I want to stitch these two points together into something useful, a process you can follow when you find yourself wondering, what if I'm not a great writer? That question is going to bring with it a wave of anxiety, and anxiety itself is not a bad thing. We need anxiety. If we don't have any anxiety, we end up like that guy on [00:13:00] Office Space, and, you know, it worked out okay in the end, but that's not the ideal state of living.

Anxiety is an important part of the human experience. I think of anxiety as a call to action. When we're scared, our body pumps us full of adrenaline. That's literally our brain's way of saying, here you go, either run or fight, but do something.

Anxiety is a call to take action. Now, the amount of anxiety we get from an existential question, like what if I'm not a good writer, is admittedly disproportionate to what we actually need in a situation where nothing is actively chasing us. This is, you know, just one of those quirks of society evolving faster than our biology.

A lot of things that don't directly threaten our survival feel like a matter of survival, and our body responds accordingly by dumping a bucket of cold adrenaline on us. What we can do is take this adrenaline as a call to action and use it in a productive way, like [00:14:00] recognizing it could be encouraging us to learn something new about our craft.

Of course it's important to be mindful about this and not let fear send us down a rabbit hole of like researching whether adverbs really are as lazy as Stephen King would have us believe. We don't want to let this adrenaline send us into an information gathering spiral as if the devil's got its whips at our back.

Partly I don't want that for you because it's a miserable way to live, but also because our brains aren't good at absorbing information when we're in a hyper aroused state.

So all of that information gathering is not actually as productive as it might feel. Telling our anxiety, thank you for the energy, I'll put time on my calendar to learn something new about my craft this week. Can be. Enough to take the edge off and let us move on with our day.

For any anxiety you have left over after you've taken meaningful action or put it on your calendar to take meaningful [00:15:00] action, you can either talk yourself through it or do breathing exercises to calm down or you can put on those running shoes and just walk it off or run it off. I'm not going to tell anyone to take up running.

I hate running personally. So yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but if you like it, go do it. So anyway, completing the stress cycle that our daily anxieties begin is crucial to our emotional, mental, and physical health anyway. So it's not a bad practice when you're anxious to see what action needs to be taken, take that action and whatever's left over, go complete that stress cycle.

All right, to wrap this up, if you find yourself asking, what if I'm not a great writer, remember that the idea of great is essentially bullshit. It's useless. It's overly vague and subjective. And you know, it's not really good for doing anything more than terrorizing school aged kids in the gifted and talented [00:16:00] program.

So then remind yourself that anxiety is a call to action, and meaningful action in this case might be learning something new about writing and storytelling. Just be sure not to let your fear of not having already known something keep you from being curious and open to learning.

That's it for this episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you joined me. What we get to do as writers is fun, and it's interesting, and there's more to it than we could ever learn in a lifetime. Now rather than that being a reason to not bother learning, I find that to be one of the best reasons to keep learning when you have the time and space for it.

And to keep experimenting with how you can apply that learning to your writing. to your next book. I'm Claire Taylor, thanks for joining me from all over the world, and I hope you'll come back for the next episode of What If for Authors. Happy writing!

Episode 25: What if I'm in burnout?

Episode Description:

In this insightful episode of What If For Authors, Claire tackles one of the most pervasive issues facing authors (and anyone) today—burnout. With her characteristic blend of empathy, humor, and hard truths, Claire dives into the complex topic of burnout, explaining how it’s often a signal to release old ego-driven patterns and a chance to truly liberate ourselves from self-imposed limitations. Drawing from Enneagram insights and her own experiences, Claire offers practical guidance on identifying, understanding, and addressing the root causes of burnout.

Key Takeaways:

• Burnout and Ego Death: Claire discusses the idea that burnout often feels like a kind of “ego death,” a signal that some of our deeply ingrained patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing are no longer serving us. Instead of pushing through burnout, she invites listeners to consider the possibility of letting those outdated parts of themselves go.

• Understanding Ego Armor: Claire introduces the concept of “ego armor,” the protective patterns we build over time to shield ourselves from pain. Using the metaphor of a knight’s armor, she explains how we develop this armor for survival, but as life changes, that same armor can begin to weigh us down and limit our movement and growth.

• The Importance of Support: Recovering from burnout often requires support. Claire emphasizes that this is not a journey you should expect to navigate alone, whether that means talking with friends, consulting a coach, or seeking help from a therapist.

• Healing Beyond Superficial Fixes: True burnout recovery isn’t just about saying “no” to one extra project; it requires addressing the deeper patterns and fears that created burnout in the first place. Claire encourages listeners to be honest with themselves about these patterns and to pursue meaningful, sustainable change.

Why You Should Listen: This episode is a must-listen for anyone feeling the weight of burnout or nearing it. With a compassionate but no-nonsense approach, Claire offers insights that go beyond quick fixes and aim to address the core reasons behind burnout. If you’ve ever struggled with balancing your passion for writing with the realities of self-care, this episode will provide a roadmap for creating a healthier, more fulfilling relationship with your work.

Join the Conversation: Have you experienced burnout in your author career? What patterns and fears might be contributing to it? Share your story with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or connecting on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career by going to ffs.media/sustain. Okay.

I wish I could offer you a solid explanation for why it took me 25 episodes before I was like, Hmm, I should probably. Do an episode on burnout. Uh, you know, burnout is a hot topic. It's one of those things ravaging our industry. Although to be fair, I do feel like for the most part we're moving toward the other side of it.

Now we're not completely on the other side of it. So don't worry if you're in burnout right now, you're not being left behind. But what I mean is the worst part of burnout is not realizing you're in burnout, not recognizing what it is. It's when you're feeling like, There must be something wrong with me because I [00:01:00] can't do the things I used to do, but I have no idea what's going on.

That not knowing is often the most unpleasant part of burnout. But thanks to the work of people like Becca Seim, shout out, my girl Becca, burnout is getting much more awareness in our industry. It's being talked about Uh, it's being de stigmatized and people are learning about it. So you may not feel just completely comforted by the knowledge that, oh yeah, this is just burnout.

You might not be like, yay, burnout. Now that I know what it is, I feel completely better. But, you know, we'll just be for real here. Sometimes burnout feels like dying. And actually between you and me, just friend to friend. It's just us. No one else is listening. Uh, it's just me and the six drunk people at an AuthorCon.

Between us, I actually think that burnout is a call for ego death. It feels like dying because it's a call for a [00:02:00] part of your ego to die and to not come back. Now, you don't have to run out and do copious amounts of LSD or MDMA or anything like that to speed along the process of ego death, but I, I think it's important to know that you're not alone.

that a lot of the time when we get into burnout, it's because a part of our personality is no longer working for us. That part of our personality needs to die and be reborn into something more useful and more relevant for the time we're living in and the age we're living in. Okay. I am getting, wow, I'm getting way ahead of myself here.

Okay. Let's talk about what this episode is about. How about that? Mm hmm. Okay. So today's episode, we'll ask and answer the question, what if I'm in burnout? Now back to ego death. I do want to clarify what I mean when I talk about ego because there are a lot of colloquial uses, uses of it. And you know, you see it used in various ways.

So what I'm talking about and what we talk about in the [00:03:00] Enneagram circles , is a more specific use of the word ego. In Enneagram, we talk about there being for each person, the essence or the true self, and then the ego. And that's a different thing from the essence or true self. The ego is the culmination of our patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing that are used to protect our true self from pain.

I find it really useful to visualize the ego as a suit of armor. So it makes a lot of sense to put on armor in a world that keeps trying to jab you with pointy sticks, right? There really doesn't need to be any shame around how thick or total our armor has become.

As we're starting to do this work, right? As we're starting to look at our armor, we really don't need to feel like, Oh man, I have thicker armor than the person next to me. If we're comparing, we're already off track, but still the goal is to dismantle our armor piece by piece so that we have a little bit more movement in our [00:04:00] life.

That's what success looks like in this work. It's called. Liberation. So taking that armor off piece by piece is what brings us toward this idea of liberation, the ability for a true self to move around more freely.

You may have heard me use this example before, but I like to think of us as these jousting knights. So if you've ever been to a Ren Faire or watched any sort of medieval type movie, I guess, you know that when knights are jousting, , a suit of armor that has a lot of weak spots Exposing your vital organs is not the kind of armor you want to be wearing.

Now, a knight tends to have a whole ground crew of people in charge of putting the armor on them, either once they're on the horse or before, and then helping them up onto the horse because that armor is fucking heavy. And once that armor is on, There's very little, , movement allowed by it. And this is [00:05:00] important because if there is movement, then there are joints and there are parts of the armor that are not there, that are not metal, that are soft and vulnerable.

So the design of the armor for a knight who's about to joust is intentionally limiting. It has to be this way. There's a trade off between movement and protection. And this is a really important consideration for someone who's about to ride their horse as fast as they can towards someone else who's riding their horse as fast as they can and carrying a pointy stick.

But once the joust is over, the knight can't do much else until they get that armor off of them. They can't even turn their head in it. So that armor is appropriate for a situation where they don't need to turn their head, but it's not exactly protecting them in something else. Some other situation where the ability to turn one's head is useful for survival or just useful for having a good time.

So this is a little bit like [00:06:00] what happens with our ego armor. Somewhat ham fistedly, we put it on to protect ourselves from a particular situation. It's usually designed for us after the fact, as in, we went into our first joust without any armor on.

And got slightly maimed as a result. So this would be like those deep wounds we feel as children, right? We didn't have the armor then, and we also didn't know how the fuck to joust. So we got really hurt. Then we designed some armor to protect against that particular kind of hurt. Over time, we've designed an entire suit to avoid that particular kind of wound.

So maybe that wound is feeling rejected, feeling betrayed, or feeling worthless. Could be all kinds of things, but we've designed a suit of armor for ourselves that we hope has no weak spots to that kind of pointy stick. And then what we do is we forget that there's a whole hell of a lot more to life [00:07:00] than jousting.

And then we wonder why we're struggling with anything that doesn't feel like a fight, and why we're trying to turn everything into a joust when it doesn't need to be. Like, why can't, why can't we just enjoy the victory parade? Oh, because we're still in our jousting armor and it's a hundred degrees outside and we can't turn our head to see the people waving at us.

So you get the picture here, right? I won't belabor the metaphor too much. We all build these suits of armor and the things that happen to us when we're young will determine how thick and impenetrable we've decided our armor needs to be. So some people's armor won't be as thick going into adulthood as other people's.

It won't be as complex or as limiting to its range of motion. Is that fair? Nope. But it's also out of our control. It's in the past, it happened, it doesn't have to be fair, it just is what is. So what is in our control is gaining awareness of the armor we're wearing and how much it's limiting our movement and everything outside of the [00:08:00] jousting arena.

These pieces of armor may have even been designed so long ago that it's not even helping us in the jousting arena like we thought it was. So what does this have to do with author burnout? Great question. It has everything to do with it because we burn ourselves out by carrying that armor around all the time and thinking that the only tool we need is our lance.

We stop being adaptable to the situation. We're unable to see the reality as it is and we always think we're in that jousting arena. And then we try to treat everything like it's a jousting arena and then we wonder why the fuck we're so tired all the time. Now this is not to blame anyone for their burnout because I don't think it's you.

Useful to blame anyone for something like this. Sometimes we get into burnout because life deals us a straight flush of shit. We don't have time to adjust to the onslaught of shittiness. We don't have time to [00:09:00] decide what armor needs to come off. And so life just kind of knocks us onto our side where we're stuck on the ground until, you know, our ground crew comes along and lifts us up, or we figure out how to take the damn armor off ourselves.

It's really important, really important when talking about burnout to find a balance between taking accountability for what we can control in this and not beating ourselves up for not knowing better previously. So yes, in this episode, I'm going to explain how you got yourself into this mess, but there's no point in being mad at yourself because there was no way you could have known.

Nobody teaches us things like this when we're younger, and even if they did tell us about it, even if they did share important wisdom, there's a certain amount of having to learn things the hard way that goes along with this sort of work. So even though I may tell you how to avoid getting into burnout, and it may be exactly what you needed to [00:10:00] hear, you may not listen if you haven't experienced enough pain from the patterns that I'm warning you about.

And that's okay. I do the same thing. A lot of the times authors will come to me and ask, Hey, what do I need to know so that I don't make any missteps so that I can avoid ever experiencing the pain? And I could, I could tell them, sure. I'm like, Oh, you're a seven. Here's some things that you may run into, but they're gonna run straight into those things anyway.

So a lot of the time, I won't tell you the thing before you're struggling with that particular issue. Outside of this podcast, obviously, but that's because the pain isn't enough for you to listen to me yet. We have to go through the pain before we're willing to change.

So if you're in burnout, Or you're heading into burnout. That's a signal that you're almost ready to try something new. You're almost to the point where the weight and the [00:11:00] burden of your existing armor is less tolerable than the pain you're worried you'll experience if you take it off. The armor we're wearing lies to us.

It tells us that this is the only way for us to survive by wearing it. And maybe it had a point about that when we were younger and first formed that armor. Maybe that armor was exactly what we needed as children to survive on whatever breadcrumbs of our basic needs we were getting to survive off scraps in a scary world that didn't make sense and that maybe we weren't properly prepared for by the grown ups in our life. But that armor is not designed for you to thrive.

If you've read as much Arthurian erotica as I have, you know that those suits of armor weren't designed to have sex in. I mean, you could probably leave the helmet on if you're into that, but otherwise you gotta take off the rest of the stuff to enjoy the richness of the armor. of life.

Another reason I like to think of our ego as a knight's jousting armor [00:12:00] is because when you look at the idea of the nine different lenses of the Enneagram, you have to ask the question, how broad is the field of vision of this lens? We run into the problems of our type the most when we start to really narrow our field of vision.

We can only see a single path forward. So this may look like a mentality of success is the only option, right? Narrowing that lens. Or not acknowledging that there are other ways to publish a book that are just as equally good and respectable as doing eight rounds of revisions and hiring multiple proofreaders to make sure that not a single typo slips through.

So those ways that we narrow our lens and our field of vision could also look like immediately believing a project has no potential or is not worth our time. And then skipping to another project and a brand new shiny project over and over again, without ever finishing a single project. So it's these patterns of our type that are somewhat predictable.

That narrowed [00:13:00] lens, that narrowed field of vision is made up of patterns of our type that are somewhat predictable. But we start to really begin that they're the only way one can properly proceed through life. Looks like believing that you can only make money in this business and really, really wanting to make money if you publish a book every two months.

So a belief like that will narrow your field of vision very quickly. And this draws my mind back to that suit of armor. And I know you're still thinking about the Arthurian legend, Erotica. Huh. That's alright. Enjoy. Uh, but this draws my mind back to that suit of armor, because it's not designed to let us turn our heads.

You only have a very narrow slit in the visor. Because the larger that slit, the more you risk a lance tip taking out your eye. So more vision is dangerous in the jousting arena. Even a small slit for your vision [00:14:00] could mean a splinter makes its way through and takes your eye out. Okay, so if you let that fear take over, you're going to keep narrowing that little bit of Slit that you can see out of, you're gonna make it narrower and narrower if you're afraid of losing an eye.

And eventually you won't be able to see shit. This is what happens. If we believe what we learned when we were younger, is the only way to survive life.

What happens if every time a little splinter makes its way through, rather than getting used to the pain of the splinter, we decide to armor up even more?

The first thing that we really need to remember is that we are not jousting knights. Write that down on a piece of paper and postmark it to your nervous system. We are not jousting knights. You are not in a fight for your life. As I like to say, there's no such thing as a life or death publishing [00:15:00] emergency.

What we think are lances, with tips that could drive straight into our hearts, tend to be things like rejections from agents, one star reviews, an author we admire not wanting to be our friend. Yeah, those things won't kill you, but they do hurt like a bitch. So it's important to recognize pain is not harm in this case.

And we may need to tell our bodies that. So yes, these things do hurt. But if we convince ourselves that we won't survive them, which is what we do every single time we reinforce that fear by avoiding it, and armoring up more against it, we'll end up never experiencing the pain that we need to be free of those fears.

Or at least free enough to live beside them rather than as their servant. If you're in burnout, it's very likely that the cause is carrying around too much armor all the time and wearing a helmet with too small a visor to see through [00:16:00] anymore. Usually what happens is that the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that we followed our whole life, maybe they worked okay for the most part.

Maybe that got you some sweet rewards when you published a book every two months back in 2015. Maybe in that environment, it launched your career into something you didn't know was possible.

Congratulations! You've just enforced an incredibly unsustainable pattern. Nice. But of course, the environment changes, and you are now nine years older than you were in 2015. Sorry to be the one to break the news. And you've also lived through the stress of a pandemic. Maybe you have long COVID.

Maybe you've lost some people and you're carrying around some grief, or you just don't have the capacity to continue carrying around the weight of that particular pattern of workaholism. It can be really confusing when something that worked for us before stops working. Our first impulse as human beings.

It tends to be to simply [00:17:00] do a lot more of it to see if it starts working again. So if publishing a book every two months in 2015 worked and it's not working anymore, then probably what I need to do is publish a book every month or two books a month. And then the question simply becomes, well, how the fuck do I do that?

Because that is wild. All the people I went to college with would dislocate their jaws with how quickly those jaws would fall to the floor if you told them that there were people out there publishing even just a book every two months. I've seen it. I've told them. Their, their jaws become dislocated.

It's, it's horrifying to watch. But you can see how publishing a book a month doesn't actually solve the problem that you're faced with.

Because, yeah, maybe that's getting your career going again. Maybe you went from a book every two months to a book every month. Okay, we've accelerated this pattern. But what about when things change again in [00:18:00] nine more years? You haven't addressed the problem. The problem is that you believe you could ever truly feel worthy and valuable by working so hard that you fall over.

Will it actually make you feel valuable by devaluing so many parts of yourself as a human being? Does it make you feel valuable to devalue your heart center and your emotions and shove all of those to the side? To wring every ounce of productivity from your body until you find one day that you can't get out of bed and you're in a deep depression wondering if you've just broken yourself forever?

Or is the problem that you developed armor at a young age to protect you from feeling worthless and without value, and that armor took the form of shutting out your emotions to get more done and produce more things that other people thought were valuable.

So that's probably what this particular armor looks like if you're thinking, okay, I need to write books [00:19:00] fast, things have changed, I'll just write them faster. And I'll be honest, sometimes it's only when this hypothetical person is unable to get out of bed, that they'll even consider holding up this particular piece of armor for inspection.

So if you're ever wondering why I don't actually seem too concerned when people come to me and say, Hey, I think I'm in burnout. This is kind of why, yeah, I'm concerned about you. I care about you, but I'm not actually worried when people experience existential pain. It's an essential part of life. It's an essential part of being awake to life and growing.

And it's only when we're in pain that we can no longer avoid that we're willing to have a real honest discussion. And we feel ready to try something drastically new and make no mistake. If you're in burnout, you will not be getting out of it. through superficial changes. You're [00:20:00] not in burnout because there was one project you said yes to that you shouldn't have.

You're in burnout because there are dozens of things you've said yes to that you should have said no to.

If you go and say no to a few of those things, you might start to feel your energy come back. But until you address the patterns, beliefs, and fears that are telling that you but until you address the patterns, beliefs, and fears that are telling you that you must say yes to these things again and again, you'll just end up back in burnout all over again. So I tend to be a little bit of a hard ass when we're talking about burnout, because if I try to protect your feelings and your ego here, If I try and protect you from the pain that's required, I'm not actually helping you.

Feeling the pain of these patterns that have existed over the long term for you and that have not actually helped you thrive, [00:21:00] that's essential to trying something new. I would be doing you a disservice if I provided your ego any relief from this pain.

What I will offer you is something for your true self, and that's hope.

All of this can be changed. All of this can be overcome. But anyone who promises you that this is a fixable situation without pain is absolutely full of shit. They either don't know what they're talking about, Or they don't actually care about you. They may also know that our ego will absolutely dump some money on the promise of things getting better without going through the pain that's necessary for transformation.

Ooh, our ego loves that promise and it will convince us that this is the way, but it's not.

All right. So here are Some of the pieces of armor that tend to be stuck to [00:22:00] people of particular types, and that cause us to really start to carry around more than we can. So if we start to see how much we're armoring up against these particular pain points, these fears, and if we start to see the patterns we're using.

We can then start to bring our decision making skills to the party and begin to decide, each time we feel that pain or fear, do I want to armor up more, knowing it'll save me from this pain but limit my mobility? Or do I want to take the curious approach and see if this is something I can get through without the armor?

So I can maybe build more confidence in my ability to handle it in the future.

Alright, here we go. Buckle up. Ones, your fear of criticism is burning you out. Think about all of the things you do in your author career to avoid feeling criticized by others or by yourself. Where do you overburden yourself and your writing and marketing process [00:23:00] simply to try to be completely above reproach?

So this can look like the pattern of perfectionism. for listening. That's what the armor tends to look like. It can also look like self righteousness.

Twos. Where is your fear of rejection and your anxiety about being unworthy of love causing you to do too much for too many people in the author world? Have you taken on a maternal role for your readers? Are you treating them like children who can't care for themselves? How much of your daily energy is going towards serving others, just to avoid feeling like you're unwanted?

So this often takes the form of porous boundaries and not having a clear idea of what is yours and what is others to take care of. Threes, where is your fear of failure causing you to spend extra energy? Building and maintaining a public image of [00:24:00] success. Where in your author business have you spent your energy covering up and glossing over things that feel like failures, rather than sitting with the negative emotions that come up from not achieving a goal, moving through those, and maybe cleaning up the mess?

Where has your need for success kept you from even trying things? That you're worried you could easily fail. Where have you suppressed the energy that comes from expressing your authentic self to avoid your fear that the audience won't approve? So this often takes the form of the armor of spinning everything into a win to create a false image of being comfortable with failure.

What do I mean? Well, first of all, if you do that, the audience can tell. But it looks like, you know, those kind of cringy LinkedIn posts, right? Like, here's what having my wife leave me and losing custody of my [00:25:00] kids taught me about being a better author. So that's obviously an extreme example, but even the, the more subtle examples, people can see through it.

Right? So you might as well just accept the failure and, and just spend a little less time spitting that image of success, uh, because beyond just people being able to see it, most importantly, doing that is disconnecting you from your true self and you deserve to get in touch with your true self. So you can finally recognize your inherent worth and value.

Fours, your fear of abandonment is leading you to spend a lot of energy trying to prove that you're special and irreplaceable and that people ought to keep you around. So think of all the ways you've structured your author business around trying to prove that you're different from every other author.

Have you started marketing yourself so incomprehensibly that people maybe can't even [00:26:00] connect to the message in the first place? Sure, that's almost a guarantee that you won't be abandoned by readers, but it's also not getting you the deep connections you're looking for. It takes a lot of work. And you may just not have readers in the first place.

So this fear of abandonment often takes the shape of the armor of complication. Making things more complex and complicated than necessary to prove to yourself that there's nothing like it. That is completely unique and therefore irreplaceable. So imagine, if you will, the benefits of being abandoned by the right people.

You don't want everyone to stick around. You want as many fresh eyes as possible on your work so that you can find the right audience. So that fear of abandonment is keeping you from telling people about your work.

But if you weren't so beholden to that, think of the numbers game you could play. If it didn't bother [00:27:00] you that the wrong people for your work were abandoning it,

you might feel freed up to show your work to a million people. let's say, in the hopes that 10, 000 would like it.

Fives. Your fear of ridicule and looking incompetent or foolish is probably limiting your scope of what you'll admit to yourself that you don't know. So you probably think of yourself as a learner, most fives do, but ignorance is a prerequisite for learning. So if you won't admit your ignorance on matters related to writing and publishing, you may have unwittingly closed off your path to learning with your desire to already know.

So maybe ask yourself, where, where has that fear of looking foolish cut off your curiosity? in your author career?

Where has it disallowed you from connecting to your emotions and intuition knowing that doing so may open you up to ridicule from [00:28:00] others?

Where have you narrowly defined what it means to know something, keeping you from exploring mysteries that could inspire your work and delight you with new ideas for sharing your work with others?

Most importantly, where has that fear of ridicule stopped you from asking what you would consider to be dumb questions? Dumb questions are often the ones that Give us the most insight. And where has the fear of ridicule caused you to cut yourself off from others and isolate as a way of armoring up?

And where has this fear of ridicule caused you to cut yourself off from others and isolate as a way of armoring up?

Sixes, where has your fear of betrayal caused you to waste energy staying on high alert for any signs of disloyalty? Where has your need for safety in numbers caused you to hastily make alliances that weren't right for you? Creating a sort of self fulfilling prophecy of someone betraying you. Where has that fear turned [00:29:00] into doubt in your mind?

How much time and energy do you spend doubting your next move in your author career? Because you don't really trust yourself, but you also don't trust others. Where has your fear of betrayal caused you to mislabel allies as enemies, turning your view of the industry into a hostile place where people don't have your back?

This often takes the form of armoring up with cynicism and suspicion.

Sevens, where has your fear of limitations caused you to run in too many directions at once? Where have you opened too many doors in your author career without shutting any? How has your fear of missing out caused you to never reach true satisfaction? This usually looks like distraction and novelty.

Eights. Where has your fear of being controlled tricked you into believing that the world itself is a jousting arena, and if you don't carry a big stick, you'll get knocked off your horse. [00:30:00] Where has your fear of vulnerability caused you to take on an excessive number of challenges just to prove to yourself that you're strong and nothing can take you down.

Where has that fear led you to all or nothing thinking in your author career? And where has that need to avoid being controlled begun to take control of your life? So this often takes the form of seeing moderation as weakness or being half assed and trying to force your way through any challenge, regardless of whether there's Really a possibility of overcoming it on your own.

Nines, where has your fear of conflict kept you small, quiet, and numb? Where has that fear of conflict convinced you that parts of your author career are not worth the trouble? Where has that fear convinced you that authentic and important parts of yourself are too controversial to show the world?

How has putting those parts of yourself to sleep [00:31:00] made you feel listless? throughout your life, leading you to drift through a series of tasks that you believe may prevent conflict, but that you don't feel actually add value or meaning to your life. So this usually looks like armoring up with, hmm, it's no big deal.

And then downplaying the very bold and alive parts of you that give you the vitality you need to move forward. Remember your own wants and needs and let those energize your career.

So there's a little tough love for everyone. And honestly, that's just the tip of the iceberg because burnout is usually a complex thing. I've worked with a lot of authors dealing with burnout, and it's never a surface level change that needs to be made. Okay, so you might be wondering, alright, what, what's the solution?

I pointed out why you're in burnout, what's gonna lead you there, but wouldn't it just be helpful if I told you how to get out? Well, sure, I'll tell you, but you won't like [00:32:00] it. It's simple, but not easy. The first step is to notice all the places where these draining patterns are taking place. Start to notice your armor.

So some people will spend a week on this and think they have it, and I can guarantee you that is not correct. You don't have You've only begun to see where these patterns are showing up because they're so essential to your foundational operating system. You're going to be noticing these patterns like perfectionism or lack of boundaries or downplaying your own wants and needs.

You're going to be noticing them possibly for the rest of your life, but definitely for at least the next few years. So that's step one. Notice where these things are happening. Step two is to give these patterns a real hard time. When you notice them kicking up as soon as you notice them, you need to interrupt them.

Every time you repeat these patterns, you reinforce the fear behind them, making it seem [00:33:00] true and worthy of avoiding. So set some rules for yourself on this. If you're a four, for example, it may look like this. When I notice that I'm making things complicated to avoid being ordinary and therefore being abandoned, I'm going to stop what I'm doing and work toward making the process as simple as possible.

Shift your attention toward simplicity. If you don't go searching for examples of where simplicity is the most profound, though, can you really? Convince yourself that it's the best move. So step one is notice the pattern. Step two, interrupt the patterns and say, no, we're not doing that. And step three, become obsessed with finding evidence in the world that disproves the logic of those ingrained patterns until you start to value not doing them.

And then step four, do literally anything other than what you were about to do as part of that [00:34:00] deeply ingrained pattern. Anything, just not that, you know? So sometimes it's actually best to swing hard in the other direction, just so you can see for yourself that the result isn't necessarily better or worse than the one you were getting.

For instance, one of the common pieces of advice for type 1s is to use the word, uh, Who want to be perfect and follow the rules is to intentionally break a rule and not just a rule that you think is stupid to begin with. Intentionally break a rule and do something bad. Not a murder. Don't do that. But there's a lot in between.

So do it with full consciousness that that's what you're doing. What you may find, and what I've found is that it doesn't really change all that much about the world, and that can sort of break the spell that we create for ourselves as one that says that, oh, it's up to me to make everything work perfectly.

I have to control all of the things. I have to control [00:35:00] my urges completely. If the world is not gonna spin off its access.

But you have to disprove that. So I can do a bad thing here and there just because it's a little fun, and it doesn't drive me as crazy when I see other people aren't doing exactly what I believe to be the right thing. So that's a nice result. And listen, this can be something small. Like, ooh, I didn't wipe down the gym equipment after I worked out.

Ooh. Right? But try something that's contradictory to your initial pattern. Okay? Whatever your type, whatever your initial impulse, try doing the opposite just to see that things can still work out. And then step five. Okay? Bye. Ready? Do all of those steps over and over and over again until you die. Forever?

Claire, you want me to practice these five steps forever? Yeah, it's called changing practices. You've been doing particular practices your [00:36:00] whole life, but calling them the way things gotta be. So now all we're doing is replacing those faulty practices that got you into burnout with new ones. that are healthier and support your freedom and well being.

Over time, and if you maintain these new practices, they will start to feel nearly as natural as the old ones, but with way better results. Now you may be asking, is this really the solution? Are these five steps really how I get out of burnout? And the answer is yes, absolutely. I know that seems like a big promise, and I don't usually make promises that big, but for this I will.

It'll take time, no doubt. It may not take years to get out of burnout, and it's going to be little by little that you get there. But you will get there if you start to question these practices and follow these five steps that are just sort of the process. So you will get out of burnout. It'll take time and it will [00:37:00] also take support.

That's important. It's almost impossible to get yourself out of burnout without support from other people. But we burn out on life at that time. Deep core spiritual level when we cling too hard to beliefs that are just plain lies. These beliefs worked for us at some point to help us survive, but they're smothering the life out of us and keeping us from thriving.

Over time, that will burn you the heck out. The problem is the armor. I would rather see you go too far, see you running around naked, metaphorically speaking, than to wear all this armor and continue to keep it on.

We do have to adjust to some of the painful realities of life when we start to take that armor off piece by piece. But good God, does it feel amazing to be free of it. If you've experienced one of these moments, and most of you have, where you've deconstructed a belief and realized that life was just much better once you did that, [00:38:00] you know why this is worth the pain of doing it.

You know why I spend hours every week putting this podcast together for zero dollars? To help people avoid things like burnout. And if you're in burnout, I want to help you find your way back in such a robust way that you're less likely to end up there again.

Because I genuinely believe that this world is better for everyone when we take our armor off and stop pretending that life is a joust. It's a hell of a lot more than that. Thank God. So if you're wondering. What if I'm in burnout? My answer is that you're positioned for one of two things. You can either try a superficial adjustment and wonder why it's not working or you can finally be honest with yourself that your ego armor has dragged you down.

The scariest thing is pulling off some of those pieces of armor, but do it. Do it. It's scary, but you [00:39:00] can do it. I've gone through it myself. Now, you may not be able to do it alone, so if that's your expectation, get that out of your head. You need support, but more importantly, you deserve support. So this may look like friends supporting you.

It may look like a tough conversation with your spouse, where you tell them about your needs or ask if you can temporarily quit your job that you hate and try something new. And yes, burnout comes from mental and emotional patterns, but it also has a very real effect on your body. Similarly, if you have an unaddressed issue in your body, like maybe you're going through paramenopause or menopause or you have an undiagnosed illness or anything chronic, anything like that is going to intensify your existing mental and emotional patterns.

So maybe you need to go see a doctor. Maybe that's part of this recovery process. But figure out what support you need. Maybe it's asking someone, Hey, I'm actually too burned out to figure out what I need. Can you help me figure out that first [00:40:00] step? That's fine too. There is a path forward. A path forward that will last for a meaningful amount of time.

So it's up to you. Are you ready for the challenge? I promise it's worth the pain. Thanks for listening to this episode of What If for Authors. I'm really glad you stuck with it. And if you have any questions about this complex topic, you can reach out to me at contact@ffs.media. We can set up something to get more into the individualized nitty gritty of your particular situation.

Thanks for joining me. I hope you'll join me for the next episode. Happy writing.

Episode 24: What if I have too much to do?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If For Authors, Claire dives into a dilemma nearly every author—and person—faces: having too much to do. Drawing from her own experience of hitting a breaking point with an overpacked schedule, Claire reflects on the deeper reasons behind our tendencies to take on too much. She explains how our Enneagram type, cultural overlays, and fears contribute to the overwhelming cycle of busyness, and offers insights into how we can reclaim control by embracing limitations and being intentional about what we choose to let go.

Key Takeaways:

• The Overwhelming Cycle of Too Much To Do: Claire shares a personal story of burnout and explains how she realized that it was time to start intentionally letting people down. Instead of just saying no to new projects, she had to go back and say no to things she had already committed to.

• Cultural Overlays and Enneagram Types: Claire discusses the concept of cultural overlays in the Enneagram and how societal expectations, like those found in capitalism or specific community dynamics, can influence our behaviors. When our Enneagram type aligns with these cultural overlays, it can make it harder to break the cycle of busyness.

• The Lies We Tell Ourselves About Busyness: Many of us equate busyness with productivity or worth, when in reality, being busy is often a way to avoid confronting our fears, limitations, or mortality. Claire explains how these lies manifest differently for each Enneagram type, but ultimately keep us from living a meaningful life.

• The Power of Doing Less: Claire argues that doing fewer things can actually make each task more meaningful and impactful. By acknowledging our limitations and making intentional choices, we can create a more fulfilling life and career.

• Practical Steps to Reclaim Control: Claire challenges listeners to look at their calendars and identify at least one thing that they will choose not to do—not something they’ll reschedule, but something they’ll intentionally remove to make space for more important things. She encourages a mindset shift from trying to do everything to intentionally choosing what matters.

Why You Should Listen: If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by your to-do list, this episode will resonate with you. Claire not only addresses why we end up doing too much, but also provides insights into how to break the cycle of endless busyness. Whether you're an author struggling to balance writing with life or anyone caught in the trap of "hustle culture," this episode will provide you with actionable steps to start reclaiming your time.

Join the Conversation: What tasks do you find yourself taking on that don’t actually need to be done? Share your experiences with Claire by emailing contact@ffs.media or connecting on social media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If For Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain. I experienced this very poignant moment last year when I was sitting at my desk in my office, uh, looking back and forth between my double booked Google calendar and my Kanban board with way too many post it notes in the doing section.

It occurred to me that what I was trying to accomplish was, in fact, literally impossible. Emotionally, it felt like I was letting everyone down. I wasn't seeing my friends enough, I wasn't spending enough time with my dog, who I knew was in the final few months of her life, I'd been neglecting basically every home responsibility, and I was still, somehow, two weeks behind on my writing.

[00:01:00] I was tapped, y'all. Finally, I heard myself admitting what felt like defeat, but also was like a huge relief. It was time to start letting people down. That's what I realized. Honestly, I'd probably already been letting people down, or maybe that was just a story I was telling myself since my standards tend to be way higher than what anyone would ever expect of me, but it was time for me to take back control and be intentional with who I was going to let down.

This didn't just mean putting up boundaries where I say no to any new projects, right? This wasn't just, I'm not going to take any more new projects on. This meant going back and saying no to projects that I'd already agreed to and begun working on. I knew it was going to be painful, but to be honest, life was already pretty painful in that moment with trying to juggle all the shit that [00:02:00] for whatever reason I'd assumed that I had the superhuman abilities to pull off without a problem. It was, it was painful to have to reach out to people and say, Hey, this thing I agreed to, I won't be doing it any longer.

But it wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be. As it turned out, most of the fear of how painful it would be was all in my head. Because Everyone understands what it's like to be completely overwhelmed. This is unfortunately a very shared experience. So the people I had to reach out to, they could by and large relate.

A lot of people were impressed that I was even saying no to things that I'd already agreed to. Some people voiced that they felt inspired to do the same. And of course, not everyone was super thrilled that I was dumping some of my responsibilities, but it still felt so good for me to do that. I was able to see with some clarity that their [00:03:00] feelings about it were not an additional responsibility I needed to take on.

Despite my resistance and fear prior to letting people down in an intentional way, I found that life was so much more improved on the other side of it that I've made this a practice. Now listen, I haven't mastered the art of reasonable workload by any means. , My pattern of workaholism, or my many patterns of workaholism, are still very present and something that I have to keep a really close eye on.

But going through that process last year taught me a valuable lesson about how much work I take on, how much work other people take on, and how there simply is, by every definition, too much fucking work to do. That's why in this week's episode, we're going to ask the question that I think everyone will relate to, and there's not much that everyone relates to in this world.

But if there [00:04:00] is, this would be it. And that's the question of, what if I have too much to do?

I understand that this is more of an I have too much to do rather than a what if, since we're all trying to do too much all the time. You may not think that you are, but I can almost guarantee that you are.

And I'll tell you why throughout this episode, and how your patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving are getting you back into the same mess over and over again. Whether or not you listen to me and decide to push through the pain by being intentional about letting others down, that's totally up to you.

But I'm gonna spell it out for you.

There's this thing in the Enneagram called overlays, it's a concept, these are sort of cultural values associated with a particular type that we tend to take on by osmosis just as a matter of being part of that culture. So when I say cultures, I can mean, , culture of our family of origin, the school we went to, our religious groups, or even the country we live [00:05:00] in.

So it's interesting to ask ourselves how we're relating to these overlays, or the context in which we live. If one of the overlays is the same type as your Enneagram type, there are certain challenges that go along with that, that other types won't face. So, for example, the U. S. has a Type 3 Achiever overlay in many ways. Predominantly, capitalism is a Type 3 system that rewards people for what they produce, which is what the Type 3 Achievers love to do, to create things.

Achievers love to create. tend to love playing the game of capitalism because they are designed in such a way that they tend to be the best at it. But if you've read Sustain Your Author Career, you probably know that this is one of those stupid games with stupid prices that we all engage in. There is no end or finish line to the game of capitalism.

Just to continue this example, um, as we can see quite plainly in the people who seem to be winning it, the billionaires who no longer actually need to [00:06:00] think about the amount of money they have in terms of what it will do for their security and meeting their needs. But the idea of giving up the game of making more would require those people to sit and consider what else there is to life, which is one of the scariest things available to us as a pastime.

So instead they just try to win the game even more and get more money. They want to be the richest, right? Because what else is there? Right. And I'm not trying to rag on threes here by any means. Not every billionaire is a three, not everyone engaging in capitalism is a three, obviously. , it just so happens that if you are living in a capitalist system and you're a three, the hollow rewards that you think will make you happy are readily available.

and you're the best at getting them, which means you're the most likely to get stuck in this particular design of hamster wheel. Now, in say, a religious community that may have a type one overlay, the ones are going to be best at that game, [00:07:00] but the game tends to be performing righteousness, also known as self righteousness, which does not actually make the one feel like they're already good and perfect.

Instead, it feeds the insecurity that they may not be good or that they're only good if they're the best. good person in the community. So those are just a few examples of how our overlays play into things of our dominant type. , our Enneagram type also happens to match the overlay of the culture. Now, if our dominant type doesn't match the overlay, it's not uncommon to see people try to play the game anyway.

But they don't tend to win and they burn out. So this may seem like a bad thing, but it's often the first step toward liberating yourself from this game, right? You're sort of unplugging from the matrix. Because if you can't win the game, you're more likely to stop trying to play.

You're more likely to go, okay, what else could there be besides this? [00:08:00] And we know, hopefully by now, how important of a question that is. So if you're living under a capitalist system, and also living under an overlay of righteousness, like some sort of moral or ethical based group, and it doesn't have to be religious, it could be an activist group of any kind.

And if you're living in a society with a lot of polarization that encourages people to be, you know, in one group or the other, and sort of fanatics, then if you're not careful, you'll take on some of that three energy, some of that one energy, and some of that six energy, the Achiever, the Reformer, and the Loyalist.

Each of those is very encouraging for, uh, doing a lot and not letting the group down. The three overlay will encourage you to believe that your worth is wrapped up in the tasks you can cross off your list and the amount of deliverables you produce. The one overlay will likely make you feel like you have to die on every hill.

You have to take, have [00:09:00] an opinion, a hard, fast opinion on everything. And you have to have high standards in what you do and aim to make it as close to perfect as possible and never ever be an irresponsible person. And the sixth overlay will intensify some of those feelings of responsibility that the one has while also shifting your ideas of duty and service.

So you can see how all of that is a recipe for taking on too much. But even without those three particular overlays, each type has a reason why it doesn't want to admit that there are limitations to what we can do on a daily, yearly, and lifetime basis. If you've ever read 4000 Weeks Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Berkman, you're probably already familiar with this concept of how humans hate to face their own mortal limitations.

I've been rereading that book lately, just, you know, a few minutes here and there, with a pen, underlining the absolute shit out of it. , and while I don't disagree with any of the points he makes, [00:10:00] frankly, it's rare to find a book that I don't disagree with the points, I think they could actually be even further refined and clarified for people to see how your particular core fear It's keeping you from admitting that you have limitations, and that it's okay, and that life actually feels fuller when you agree to do less.

So, this is something I've certainly found in my own life. You've probably found it moment to moment here and there in your own life, But still this truth is one of those things that's so good and so delicious that you've gotta share it with other people once you try it. Also, like half of the coaching I do for authors lately is just begging them to admit that they're trying to do too much, and that they don't actually have to do that much.

To have a full life and a successful author career,

most of the tasks we do in a day. are designed to trick us into feeling positively about ourselves. So, [00:11:00] 1s will stay busy to feel responsible and to believe that they're doing all they can. 2s will stay busy to feel like they're needed. 3s will stay busy to feel like they're productive and successful.

Fours will stay busy to keep life feeling complicated and mistaking that for it being meaningful. Fives stay busy to convince themselves that they're competent and capable enough to handle all the things. Sixes stay busy to convince themselves they're prepared and reliable. Sevens stay busy to prove to themselves they're fun and interesting.

Eights stay busy to prove to themselves that they're strong. And nines stay busy to prove to themselves that they're connected with a lot of different things in this world. Now, the flip side of what we're trying to prove is, what are we trying to avoid by staying busy? What thoughts and feelings are we trying to hold off with our overwhelming and unrealistic [00:12:00] amount of action that we're expecting of ourselves?

So let's drill down into this a little bit, and this is gonna maybe cut deep for some of us, but we need to cut deep to carve out some of the bullshit that we are asking of ourselves that are making us tired all the time. So we're gonna do, hopefully, a minimally invasive surgery on ourselves with this.

Okay, so let's start with the nines, the peacemakers. Sometimes Nines can fall into lethargy and inaction, sure, but I do see plenty of nines who take a lot of action. It's just not necessarily meaningful, and it doesn't move the needle forward. This is often driven by the nine's fear of conflict, and it looks like a pattern of recognizing urgency.

If I don't do this, there will be conflict very soon, right? It's urgent. Urgent action is needed to avoid conflict. So the Nine falls into their defense mechanism of narcotization through a [00:13:00] trance of busyness, putting out fire after fire. If this Nine has not learned to say no when someone asks them to do something, Then they're so preoccupied with urgency that they haven't left themselves any time or space to think about what's important.

Looking at importance is scary for nines because it requires them to actually assess what they want and desire out of life. Something that a lot of nines don't like to think about because it might put them in conflict with what other people want and desire out of life. So instead, You nines may be opting to make yourself feel very busy by doing a lot of urgent things, making sure there's always something urgent to keep you occupied.

You can see how this cycle would continue indefinitely if not interrupted with a little bit of awareness. Sometimes people don't think that they're nines. People who are nines don't think that they're nines because they're so busy. They think they're threes or ones because so much of their busyness is [00:14:00] focused on maybe caring for other people.

When you pop the hood, you may realize that the reason these nines are so busy is a fear of conflict that might arise from saying no and a fear of pausing to look at importance rather than just urgency. So some nines check out by playing video games for hours and some check out by going through the motions of putting out fires.

I'll be really honest with you eights, you challengers. A lot of why you have too much to do is because you're pushing back against the reality of your own mortality. Nothing threatens to control your life more than the fact that it will end someday. And there's nothing you can do about that. But there's no amount of forcing it that will change the fact.

That death will someday harm and control you. There's no amount of being strong and independent that will bend that reality to your will. So ask [00:15:00] yourself how much you're taking on to try and convince yourself that maybe if you get enough practice on the battleground, you'll be able to avoid that final loss.

Okay, sevens, you're doing too much because your fear of missing out has taken the reins. The vulnerability of the seven is limitation. It's the thing that you enthusiasts build your whole life around avoiding if you aren't mindful. So even if you are mindful, you've probably built your whole life around it because it's really hard to negate those patterns if you're not yet aware that they are the blueprints for how you're building your life.

The problem with FOMO is that it brings our attention away from what is and shifts it in a bunch of different directions toward what could be or what isn't in that moment. On some level you believe that this will protect you from missing out on things, but what it actually does is keep you from [00:16:00] experiencing anything truly and deeply enough to achieve real satisfaction.

The only thing that can ever bring you satisfaction is the present moment. You may get a hit of dopamine from planning future things or thinking of new possibilities, but satisfaction isn't just adding up a bunch of dopamine hits. It requires being present, having gratitude, and recognizing the fullness of what is.

So all those projects you have going on, all those big plans, those are probably a reaction to this fear of limitations. And they're not working for you. If you ever want satisfaction, you have to do less, not more. Sevens.

Type six, the loyalist, tends to have their focus flow toward what could go wrong. If you're a six and you don't know this yet, the other types don't spend as much time thinking about what could go wrong and trying to create a contingency for it to avoid having it happen. This belief that if you [00:17:00] prepare enough, bad things won't happen.

It can leave you very busy in your author career and beyond. You'll end up doing too much because for every contingency plan that you believe worked to stop something bad from happening, how many plans did you put into place that were useless and that you didn't end up needing? How many courses did you take?

How many opinions from experts did you go seek out before you allowed yourself to take a single action? Your plate is going to fill up very quickly if that pattern is showing up in your life, if you're over preparing for every contingency, if you notice that you're seeking guidance constantly hoping that some crumb of knowledge will be the thing that saves you from having to take a risk, you have my complete and total permission to stop playing that game.

That has no end.

Type fives, the investigators, you may not think that your life is going to fill up because you really like your alone time and you set good boundaries with other people, [00:18:00] but there's still a strong chance that you are doing too much, that you've created too much work for yourself to do. This work may look like the research you feel you must do before you can begin your writing.

But that's still doing too many things and doing. Too many of those particular kind of individual tasks, it's very likely that you're not leaving much energy for doing things outside of those pursuits. The kind of things that fives require for growth, like connecting with others rather than isolating.

Your fear of being incompetent. Or incapable is very likely driving you to add too many things to your life to prove to yourself that you can handle it all.

Type four is the individualists. Y'all may feel like you're overwhelmed much of the time, and then look at the reality of what you're doing each day and feel like it doesn't quite. match up. So if you're a four, ask yourself where your fear that your life is [00:19:00] insignificant or lacking meaning may be causing you to conflate complexity with meaning.

So just because you're making every task more complex doesn't necessarily mean that the tasks are more meaningful. It just means that you're going to get overwhelmed much quicker. I see this happening with fours and their writing. This need to be the most original, the most creative, the most unique can sometimes make the task of writing a book seem out of reach simply because things that could be both meaningful and simple are now being made complicated.

Fours, ask yourself where making what you're currently doing simpler could, in fact, make it more meaningful as you're able to be present with it and not so worried about whether or not it reflects your significance in this world.

Type three, the achievers y'all are absolutely doing too much out of a fear [00:20:00] that a lack of accomplishment equates to a lack of worth as a human being. I don't think I've met type three author who wasn't doing way more than they needed to create a successful career.

The problem may not be that the three's books aren't selling. It may be that their attention flows toward the fact that someone else's books are selling more. I'm also hard pressed to find a three who doesn't believe the lie that if they're just effective enough, if they just find the right time management system or hack, they can do all these things and more.

It's this Misguided belief that the problem of having too many things to do in a day is not that the three is running on adrenaline from feeling like they're falling short and failing, but that they just need to be more efficient. This doesn't address the underlying question of what the hell it's actually for.

And if it's truly achieving that aim. It's also [00:21:00] common for threes to begin to equate the feeling of exhaustion with the lifestyle of a successful person while at the same time trying to appear as if the whole thing is not that strenuous. So I see that with threes a lot wanting to be seen as a hard worker and recognized for it, wanting to be acknowledged for how much work they're doing and how much they're accomplishing and how much they're sacrificing outside of their projects to get the projects done.

While also hoping to make it look effortless. If you're a three and you're trying to walk this line between the two ideas, guess what? You can stop trying. The problem has never been that you aren't effective enough with your time and processes. That's not why you're feeling overwhelmed. It's not your lack of effectiveness.

Your type is often called the effective person because you have a gift for finding the most effective way to do things. So that's not the problem. The problem is that you're on a treadmill and when the pace starts to feel comfortable, [00:22:00] you increase the speed. Pretending like you could eventually run a hundred miles an hour if you just believed in yourself and found the right training regimen.

So consider where you've started to equate action and doing things with being worthy. That's obviously a false equivalency and you may notice a lot of really interesting insights there if you start poking around at it. Now type two, the helper, ends up with too many things to do simply because of a lack of boundaries.

Whereas the nine tends to struggle to say no because they don't want conflict, the two struggles to say no because if they aren't actively helping someone, they worry that they're not. Earning the love they could be. This of course comes from the false belief that you could ever earn enough love through service to match your need for unconditional love.

And of course, the first thing that goes undone on a Tuesday daily schedule is anything for themselves rather than for other people. Every two I [00:23:00] know is trying to do too much. Like an impossible amount. So, your pride is gonna tell you that you can somehow pull it off if you just care enough and are willing to self sacrifice enough.

But what if that's a bunch of bullshit? What if? What if that's just a lie? What if you can't do all of it? And is neglecting your own deep desire to get your work done actually showing yourself? Unconditional love, or are you depriving yourself of love by doing that?

So if you're a two, doing less is going to scare the shit out of you because you'll go through appreciation withdrawal. People who are used to you doing things for them, they may act scandalized. They may even imply that you are being selfish. But if you ever want to create something meaningful in your career, You gotta figure out who those entitled people are as quickly as possible and [00:24:00] stop doing things for them so that they can learn to do those things themselves.

That is often what true help looks like. And that's the only way you're gonna start feeling less overwhelmed. Okay, type one, the reformer. I talked a little bit about why you may be doing too much, uh, through my own story, but it's really important to break the cycle. By looking at where you've equated being good with being tired, miserable, and depriving yourself of joy.

So if you're a one, you don't have to put the ethic in work ethic. Who says there's anything moral about chasing perfection? It's a fool's game. The fear of the one is being bad or corrupt and the vulnerability is criticism. So how much of what you do each day is simply in hopes of avoiding criticism from others or trying to just silence your inner critic?

Anything you're doing To avoid [00:25:00] criticism should be scrutinized very closely to see if it's actually contributing to the impact of your work or if it's wasting your damn time.

So all of us become overwhelmed with too many things to do because our fears, which function on this illogical logic and promise us things that we could never truly achieve, are really spurring us on. Our fears tell us lies that we could. Avoid the normal pain of being mortal and living a life knowing that death is around the corner for all of us But we can't avoid that Inevitably, we will have to face it So these lies promise us refuge from the reality that any day could be our last It's kind of sweet and kind the way these lies We tell ourselves about our capacity to do it all the way they're trying to protect us You It certainly comes from a place of good intentions or so I like to believe, but [00:26:00] lies are lies. The number of maneuvers we will pull to avoid looking reality in the face, looking our limitations in the face, and then experiencing the pain that is necessary to leave space in our lives instead of trying to fill all of it, those maneuvers are quite astounding.

If you are deciding to reclaim control over your life, if you want to do fewer things and have fewer things on your plate day to day, unfortunately, you got to stop running from that fear. Turn around and face it. You have to accept that there are painful parts of life that are not worth escaping or avoiding.

Because on the other side of that pain, you get something so much richer and deeper. On the other side of that pain is where you start building a meaningful life in the present, not lamenting one in the past through nostalgia or regret or planning [00:27:00] one in the future, but building one every day. In the present

easily half of the things you do in your life don't actually need to be done at least half of the emails you're responding to may not require a response and the world will not fall apart if you just delete them and when you're responding to those emails. What more meaningful thing are you neglecting?

We're so scared of the trade off that we will lie to ourselves and say there is no trade off. That we are somehow above the reality that every time we're here in this moment, there's an infinite number of other places where we are not.

We're all trying to do too many things because we're all lying to ourselves. So if you're wondering, what if I have too much to do? The answer is that you've created this by letting your fear lie to you, telling you that there's a way to [00:28:00] avoid the essential pain of mortality. You've let your fear take the wheel and drive you to this place, but you can take back the wheel by facing the pain of knowing that you won't do all the things you want to do, or that will help trick you into believing you have infinite time on this earth. It's within your power to begin facing this pain and to begin disappointing not only others, but yourself in important ways that make the things you do each day actually carry meaning because you've chosen to do those things at the cost of others.

Doing less makes each thing you do matter more. And that can scare the shit out of a lot of us because then we have to consider what meaning we want to create in our life. Our short and finite life.

We don't have an infinite number of books we get to write. Writing a book we don't [00:29:00] care much about means not writing a book that we do care about. Spending time on social media means not spending time in person with our friends and family. Taking that marketing course means not sitting by a lake and thinking deep thoughts about life.

We can only use busyness and overwhelm as a tool to avoid these choices for so long before it catches up with us. Before the lies really start to wear thin, and we start to get glimmers of the reality of our limited time on earth. But we do have a choice in this, and that's The great news, the terrifying and great news.

And I know that you are up to the task of making those choices.

So that's it for this week's episode of What If for Authors. Thanks for joining me, and I hope the time you spent listening to this episode and not doing every other thing was worth it for you. If you're ready for a challenge, look at your calendar [00:30:00] for the rest of the day and pick one thing that just will not be done.

Not something that you'll bump to a later date to make future you more overwhelmed, but something you will not do now or ever. See if you can find something. I bet you can.

Maybe don't make it be something like I'm never going to pick up my kids from school this afternoon, but I'm sure there's something that doesn't need to be done that's on your calendar. Because that's what we do. We put things on our calendars that don't need to be done. So human, so classically human.

Alright, I'm Claire Taylor, and I hope you'll join me next time for a brand new episode. Happy writing!

Episode 23: What if I've been scammed?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If for Authors, Claire Taylor tackles a difficult and often painful reality for many authors: the feeling of being scammed or taken advantage of. Whether it's an outright scam or a subtler instance where you’ve overpaid for a service, many authors will experience some version of this during their careers. Claire explores how these situations arise, what it feels like when you realize you’ve been scammed, and how authors can manage their responses to these events.

This episode is not just about identifying scams, but also about the emotional and psychological impact of feeling scammed, especially the patterns of cynicism and distrust that can emerge as a result. Claire offers Enneagram-specific insights into how each type is likely to respond to being scammed or taken advantage of and provides practical advice on how to process these feelings and move forward in a healthier way.

Key Takeaways:

• The Reality of Scams in the Publishing Industry: Claire discusses the various forms of scams and exploitation that authors, especially those early in their careers, might encounter. From paying exorbitant fees for services that should cost far less, to outright scams guaranteeing bestseller status, Claire explains why these situations happen and how authors can protect themselves.

• Feeling Scammed vs. Being Scammed: Whether or not there was malicious intent, the feeling of being scammed can still have a significant emotional impact. Claire explains that the focus of this episode is on how you feel when you believe someone has taken advantage of you, and why it’s important to address those feelings, regardless of the scammer’s intent.

• Common Patterns by Enneagram Type: Claire breaks down how each Enneagram type is likely to react when scammed, offering valuable insight into the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that may emerge. Whether it’s the anger of Type 1, the shame of Type 2, or the withdrawal of Type 5, understanding these patterns can help authors recognize and manage their emotional responses.

• How to Regain Trust Without Cynicism: After experiencing a scam, many authors find it hard to trust again. Claire offers tips for how to rebuild trust in others and set boundaries without becoming overly defensive or cynical. She explains how taking the time to reflect on past experiences and the lessons learned can help authors make more informed decisions moving forward without shutting themselves off from opportunities.

• Practical Advice for Avoiding Scams: Claire offers practical steps authors can take to protect themselves from scams in the future. From doing research and asking for recommendations to learning the basics of the publishing industry, these tips can help authors avoid the most common traps.

Why You Should Listen: This episode is essential for any author who has ever felt scammed or taken advantage of in their career. Claire provides not only empathy and validation but also practical tools to help you move through the emotional fallout of these situations. By exploring the Enneagram-specific patterns that can arise when we feel betrayed or scammed, she offers tailored advice for how to navigate these experiences without becoming overly cynical or defensive in the future.

Join the Conversation: Have you ever felt like you’ve been scammed or taken advantage of in your author career? How did you handle it? What lessons did you learn? Share your thoughts by emailing Claire at contact@ffs.media. If you need personalized support or a space to process your feelings, consider reaching out for one-on-one coaching.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs media/sustain.

Today's topic is one that, unfortunately, most if not all authors will experience at some point in their careers.

And if you experience it once, the anxiety about it happening again is naturally going to increase. I'm actually tempted to say that everyone who decides to publish books will experience what I'm talking about today because I don't know of anyone in my own anecdotal experience who hasn't at one time or another felt like they'd been scammed.

So that's why today we're going to jump straight into this very important topic and ask the question, What if I've been scammed?

It's important to note for the [00:01:00] discussion today that it actually doesn't matter. If you've objectively been scammed, what matters is that you feel like you've been scammed, that you believe someone has taken advantage of you. Did they do it intentionally? It's incredibly difficult to pass a verdict on that, so I don't really see the point of trying to litigate their intention.

The part of the scenario that's ours to deal with is how we feel about feeling scammed. To look at this from another angle, what if someone scams you and you never find out that it was a scam? Is it a problem if you don't know about it? I would argue that if you don't realize you've been scammed, then it's unlikely that being scammed has affected your approach to your author career at all.

There was no lesson to learn. When people realize they've been scammed or believe they have been, that's when the cynicism starts to creep in and we find various ways [00:02:00] to armor up against having it happen again. That's really what I want to talk about today, that armoring up.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of straight up scams out there that prey on authors. The reason these work so damn well and can stick around for so long is because there are always new people who want to publish a book. Not only that, but publishing a book is the kind of pursuit that you do with your hopes and dreams galore behind it.

So that makes us Much more likely to buy bullshit from people who are selling it. People tend to get scammed earlier in their careers because they simply don't know how the industry works. Which makes sense. If you don't have experience, you don't know. So if someone says, hey, pay me 10, 000 and I'll make your book a bestseller, this newbie author maybe doesn't necessarily see all the red flags.

In that interaction, [00:03:00] like guaranteeing a bestseller result, not specifying which bestseller list, and the fact that money should always flow from the publisher to the author, not the other way around. These are just things that you learn over time. Being an author. And until you learn it, scammers are going to scam.

I do know quite a few authors who have been taken advantage of this way. It takes everything, everything inside of me, not to ask them to please just give me a name, just give me a name. Who did it? Just give me an eight. And then, you know, spend the next few months of my life seeking revenge. I swear, sometimes I feel so eight ish when I see my friends taken advantage of.

The, the eight really comes out of me, um, in situations like that. But I just can't stand when someone is taking advantage of the goodwill of someone else. It just, oof, it just gets to me. [00:04:00] Anyway. This happening though, someone preying on someone else in this industry, it's unfortunately just part of the ecosystem of our industry.

Do I think that makes it okay? No. Would I like for there to be less of it? Of course. But if you zoom out, it probably will always be a part of the ecosystem of this industry. So that's the obvious kind of scam that takes place. But there are subtler ways of being taken advantage of as an author that are much more commonplace.

So if you find yourself involved in one of these situations, you're also likely to feel scammed or taken advantage of, right? So these are things like paying companies thousands of dollars for services, like formatting your book and uploading it to retailers. And then realizing that's something you could have learned to do for yourself for about under 500 bucks, right?

It could look like hiring a cover designer who returns a big hunk of crap to you That was most likely done in word art [00:05:00] Or it could look like, you know paying someone for a service and they keep pushing back the delivery date Until you wonder if they're ever going to deliver, you may even feel scammed.

If you pay a lot for a course on something like writing or marketing, and you don't feel like the content you got was worth the money. So the definition of scammed is going to vary a lot from person to person. And some people are quicker to call something a scam than others.

I think it's interesting for each of us to note about ourselves how quickly we jump to the word scam when the other person may not have had any ill intent. And then some of us may be very slow to use the word scam, even when every other person who's aware of the situation is pretty damn sure that there was ill intent behind it.

A couple of reasons come to mind for why people have different thresholds before they will use the word scam. For one, admitting that someone has scammed you can make you [00:06:00] feel foolish or vulnerable. You may not want to feel that way about yourself, so you avoid the word as long as possible. Or you jump to it very quickly, right, because this is something you don't want to feel, and then you use that to justify getting some sort of revenge or payback.

People may also be slow to use the word because once you realize you've been scammed, it sort of calls for action.

Maybe that's trying to get your money back, maybe it's alerting others, or maybe it's just re evaluating some of your other connections and transactions to see if you've been scammed in a similar way without seeing it.

Realizing you've been scammed and then taking action on it can be a lot of work, and it can really upend our plans and our progress and our career. Not to mention, it's just the beginning. It's goddamn disappointing to realize, isn't it?

So I do just want to reassure you that I don't know of a single person [00:07:00] who has not felt taken advantage of in this industry at some point. If you're farther along in your career right now, it's unlikely that you're going to fall for one of those offers where you pay a publisher thousands of dollars and they market your book and so on.

What you're more likely to encounter is hiring, say, a virtual assistant who is great about invoicing you monthly, but not so great about getting the work done consistently or by the deadlines. Or maybe you're hiring an editor who delivers your manuscript with almost no edits and you wonder how much attention they actually gave to it for the money you paid.

Or maybe there's a collaborator you're sharing with who isn't holding up their end of the workload. So the feeling of being taken advantage of is similar to being scammed. So I feel like we could lump it in for the purpose of this episode. Realizing that you've been scammed or taken advantage of is one of the most disruptive feelings around.

The implicit social contract has been [00:08:00] broken, and that can leave us very insecure about what to do next and who to trust. Almost immediately, we can start to see cynicism creep in as our beliefs about others begin to morph. We armor up with newer, updated beliefs so that we don't experience that same disruptive feeling again.

We may also institute some rules for ourself moving forward, like fire people faster, or Don't take any more recommendations from so and so, or don't hire a friend to do work for you. To be clear, you're absolutely free to create rules like this for you, and I think it shows that we're learning, which is always a positive.

the problems begin to arise when our rules are too general. Like, you can't trust anyone to do the work they say they'll do, so I might as well do it all myself. Even something like don't hire a friend might be too general. Maybe your friend was [00:09:00] just not the right person for the job, or maybe if you hire someone else you know, you simply need to set clearer expectations before jumping into the work.

Because being scammed really strikes at the social norms we believe the world worked by, it's very common for the rules we create afterward to be too broad and sweeping. We can armor up quite a bit. And very quickly so that we don't have to ever feel that pain and discomfort again. But if we can gain a little bit of awareness into what it looks like internally and what actions we may be likely to take externally when we feel like we've been scammed or taken advantage of, we have a much greater chance of noticing that these processes are happening.

We can call a timeout with ourselves to evaluate whether what we're thinking, feeling, and doing is actually appropriate to the situation and the outcomes we're hoping.

[00:10:00] So let's take a look at what these patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving might look like after we've been scammed, depending on our Enneagram type. And these are general, so your mileage may vary, but see if you notice any of these things. If you can recall a time before when you were scammed or taken advantage of, where you started to see these patterns emerge.

Type 1, the reformer, is likely going to go very quickly to anger after being scammed. When you live your life considering what's fair and right, it's really easy to be blindsided when you discover that someone else is not equally considering those things and the way they conduct their business.

The anger is going to feel like righteous indignation because it will seem very clear that you are in the right since you were the one who was wronged. It's also going to be very tempting to launch a crusade against this person who scammed you, but I think [00:11:00] you already know that I do not suggest that approach.

Instead, notice how angry you are and, if you can, take a step back and see what generous assumptions you might have been missing about the other person. Where might the Agreed upon expectations for the work not have been as clear as you thought they were. So ones tend to carry around really high expectations of quality and on time deliverables as their default.

Whereas other types are simply considering other things. A little curiosity here will go a long way in turning down the volume on that anger so that you don't feel like your head's gonna explode if you don't launch into an action to punish the other party for their perceived wrongdoing. You may very well have been just straight up scammed, but I promise you that you will have a better relationship with yourself and with others that you work with if you don't turn this into a public trial.

[00:12:00] Also, think about how much time and energy you could lose on this that could be better spent on your writing. If you are a type two, the helper, you're probably going to be on the slower end of naming what's happening as being scammed or as being taken advantage of. Twos are one of the positive outlook types, and you're very good at compassion and extending the benefit of the doubt to someone else.

That comes naturally to you. So by the time you get around to accepting that you've been scammed, things may have gone pretty far, and your struggle with boundaries is probably going to come to an abrupt halt. By that, I mean, you're very likely going to drop a guillotine on the connection between you and that person.

Now, it may take you trying to help them a few times to deliver what they've promised before you accept that they either can't or won't deliver it.

It's not a bad impulse to help people be successful in upholding their end of a deal, [00:13:00] But your impulse to believe that fairness in an exchange always means that you give at least a little more than you receive might be part of the problem here. So this is likely to let things get pretty far before you pull the plug on the situation.

And of course when you pull it, it's pulled. You're done with them. But, for example, if you pay someone 500, you should get 500 worth of services in return. Not 400 and an excuse, not 300 and a really good excuse, but 500 worth of services. That's how business works.

Asking for what you need is difficult for you as a two, but this is a place to practice it before you get to the point where you want to burn the whole relationship down.

If you're a Type 3, the Achiever, getting scammed is going to feel a lot like failure. And for that reason, you're probably going to do everything in your power to try and turn it into some sort of win. But if someone is dead set on scamming you, there's only so much you can do to make it a [00:14:00] win.

We really don't want to slip into self deceit here as we attempt to deny the reality of the situation. So notice when you're trying to spin a situation of being scammed or taken advantage of into something that paints you in a positive light. That makes your ego feel a little bit better rather than a little bit worse.

Also notice your desire to hide that you've been scammed or taken advantage of to preserve your image of success. Preserving that image. That's a lot of effort spent on image creation when you could just say, Hey, this person scammed me and that's on them.

If you are a type four, the individualist, I'll give you a heads up that you're going to susceptible to anyone who seems to recognize your unique gifts. So anyone who makes you feel special is going to be attractive to you. And a lot of scammers know this, even if they don't know the Enneagram. So that can help you a lot.

Avoid the appeal of scammers to begin with, [00:15:00] but what happens when you inevitably get taken advantage of as we all do? Fours are really likely going to go into cynicism about humanity quick, fast, and in a hurry, right? This looks like people are bad at their core, they can't be trusted, so on and so forth.

Now those beliefs are designed to protect you, right? But what they do is they make you feel very alone and misunderstood. So when you start to notice these emotions coming up, the best thing you can do is reach out and connect with other people rather than withdraw into yourself emotionally. Your heart will need some extra tending, so be sure that you're looking for evidence to disprove your cynicism, not simply to reinforce it.

If you're a type 5, the investigator, being scammed is really going to trigger you, because it will make you feel like a fool, which is sort of your biggest fear. This is a very known trigger [00:16:00] of the five, feeling foolish. So no big deal, but this is the thing that you spend all that time and energy trying to avoid.

Your first impulse will probably be to withdraw and try to better understand the situation or sort of convince yourself in one way or another that you are smarter than them and that they didn't outsmart you. You're also likely to fall into a lot of intellectual cynicism. So notice when you're conceptualizing humanity to keep a safe distance from it, rather than going and gathering the robust evidence you need to form your opinions about who you are.

Whether or not an individual person can be trusted.

Try to remember that just because you were fooled doesn't mean you are a fool. If nothing else, you now have more information about the industry and how certain particular people work within it, which can help you make more informed decisions in the future.

Being scammed [00:17:00] is not an excuse to retreat into your castle and pull up the drawbridge behind you forever. It can be useful for learning lessons, and you love learning lessons if you're five, but just because you don't believe you are emotional doesn't mean that your emotions aren't over inflating the application of whatever rule you're coming up with.

Make sure that whatever lesson you're learning is granular enough, specific enough, that it doesn't lead to cynicism that continues to cut you off from the rest of the resources of the world.

If you are a type six, the loyalist, yeah, this is going to hurt. Being scammed is really going to hit those trust issues that you spend a lot of time trying to navigate. Very likely the person who scammed you will be a figure of authority as well, which hurts extra for a six. So let's say someone you trusted took advantage of you and you didn't see it coming.

That could very easily send you into [00:18:00] a series of questions about your own judgment. that can lead to this never ending pattern of doubt about who else can't be trusted, or how to vet someone before you trust them so that you can guarantee that this won't ever happen again. Your armor can get very thick very quickly as a six if you've been scammed, so just be careful.

Keep some awareness about that. Just because the person took advantage of you does not mean that everyone you trust is inevitably going to take advantage of you. So keep on the lookout for that individual instance turning into a projection on everyone. If you start to develop that cynical belief, What your attention will do is it will go toward, it will look for, and filter out anything that doesn't point to signs that someone has broken trust.

And that attention can become very oversensitive because it's activated by fear. So suddenly, people who you really trusted [00:19:00] are going to be sort of pinging that radar, um, and telling you that there are indicators that they can't be trusted. So quickly you may find yourself not really trusting anyone, including yourself.

And to be clear, that would not be a truthful assessment of the situation. Right? To say that no one can be trusted, including yourself, is not a truthful assessment. So if you notice that feeling creeping in, um, It might be time to take a beat and do things that regulate your nervous system, like deep breathing, going for a peaceful walk in nature, journaling, or even just distracting yourself with a TV show, so that those thoughts don't, you know, gain momentum.

Just make sure that the TV show isn't one where, like, everyone's betraying each other, right? Then, once you're feeling calmer, ask a friend who understands the industry. to help you deconstruct what happened and what some of the red flags might have been along the way. That [00:20:00] way you can better spot those and not conflate all the behavior of the scammer.

With betrayal. So even their benign behaviors that mean nothing could start to trigger suspicion in you if you don't take that time to deconstruct, if you're a type seven, the enthusiast, it's possible that the pain of being scammed is more than you care to deal with. So you move on from the situation before you take the time to learn the lesson it's asking you to learn.

The result of that is that you may be scammed in a similar way in the future. The pattern will just keep repeating until we learn from it. You are also what's called a positive outlook type, which means that in conflict, you can very quickly put a silver lining on something.

Now that's great for your resilience, but if you silver line being taken advantage of, then you're asking for a similar situation to come up in the future. So before you jump to that silver lining. Notice how uncomfortable it makes you to, to think [00:21:00] about how someone has betrayed or taken advantage of you and just sit with that until you can understand how it happened.

Maybe from that, create a rule for yourself so that you don't repeat the same pattern.

That rule could be something like if someone is putting pressure on me to buy an expensive product, that's a sign that I need to sleep on it before I buy the product. So creating these rules may be a new skill for you. So just feel free to ask someone else in the industry to help you deconstruct this, if that's what you need.

If you are a type eight, the challenger, one of your triggers is being blindsided. So being scammed would definitely fall into that territory. You tend to keep an eye out for anyone trying to take advantage of you as it is. So, there can definitely be a false sense of security that you have seen every threat there is.

That you are somehow immune from any vulnerability in that regard. So when someone slips through [00:22:00] and blindsides you and scams you or takes advantage of you, this is going to be a big deal for you. You're going to want to fight either physically or maybe verbally online. It's going to flare up that core fear of yours in a way that can really give you tunnel vision.

So knowing that this is one of your triggers is a great way to start maintaining control over your response. Thanks. Your desire is to maintain control of yourself, right? Be independent, not controlled or harmed by others. But when you get triggered and start wanting to burn down a village, that's a great example of losing control of yourself.

So if you genuinely want to stay within your own autonomy here, you must recognize this trigger and come up with a plan for regulating yourself before you launch right into action. A desire for revenge may present itself. And as I mentioned earlier, I am also familiar with this [00:23:00] pattern, but you don't have to listen to it.

So listening to it could take weeks of your life away from what you want to be doing with your writing career. That kind of sounds to me like the person who scammed you would still be in control of your time and energy. And I suspect that's the last thing you actually want.

If you are a type nine, the peacemaker, You're also going to be on the end of the spectrum where it takes you a very long time to admit that you're being scammed. The impulse of the nine to avoid conflict by saying, this is fine, everything's fine, is gonna catch up with you and cost you more money in the long run when it comes to being taken advantage of.

So listen to your gut early on if you're a nine. If it's giving you resistance when it comes to working with someone, take a moment to ask it why. It's easier for you to say no before you start working with someone than after you've begun working with them. So think about [00:24:00] going no and then yes. That's going to be easier for you than yes and then no.

It's really important early on that you check in with yourself and listen to those gut instincts of yours.

You are going to avoid anything that feels like conflict, even if that's demanding your money back from a scammer or someone taking advantage of you. But that doesn't mean that you are not. pissed off when you realize, and we both know that. So notice when you start to do mental maneuvers, like trying to see things from their point of view in the most generous way possible, simply to avoid Taking action that will lead to the necessary conflict that they have created through their actions.

Your ability to see the best in people and see things from their perspective is a gift, but if you don't use it in appropriate situations, it can become something that is used against you by someone who's [00:25:00] a scammer or wants to take advantage of you. So if you're tired of people taking advantage of you in big ways, but also small ways, start to notice When you are allowing it because the pain of allowing it is less than your fear of conflict.

That's the first step in deciding whether or not the conflict is actually as scary as it initially feels. No one is better at resolving conflict than a nine, so you might as well decide when it's time to go in. Just go in, because you will come up with a resolution that is is. roughly good for everyone.

If there is a resolution where everyone can come out with what they need, a nine is going to find it. So whatever your type, just begin to notice the patterns that arise for you. And when I'm talking about patterns, I'm talking about thoughts, feelings, and behaviors whenever it feels like someone is taking advantage of you or you're being scammed in your author career.

[00:26:00] It can be really helpful to retrace a time in your past when this happened because all of us have been taken advantage of before in our lives in one way or another. So think back to that time and from the safe distance of the present, try to retrace some of your steps. What did you immediately feel in that situation?

What were your thoughts? Did you try to do some mental gymnastics to avoid accepting that you'd been scammed? What kind of armor did you add after that interaction? Has that armor limited your movement in some important way, like making you more cynical so that you're less likely to trust others and ask for help in your author business?

So take a little time to just contemplate that and see if you can come up with anything interesting and new that gives you insight into how you as an individual respond to someone breaking social codes in that way. If you are wondering, what if I've been scammed, I would say, it's entirely possible [00:27:00] that it's happened to you, and we really don't want a victim blame here, so notice if you're feeling ashamed of having been conned.

Talk to yourself and remind yourself that this is practically a rite of passage of not just being an author, but being a human being, albeit an ugly and undesirable rite of passage. But remember that anyone you're likely to talk to about it will understand and have a similar experience to share, so you're not alone in it.

And then, note some of the possible reactions you'll have based on your Enneagram type, and notice if those have been things that you've experienced in the past. That can help you better recognize them in the future. And if you can recognize them, you can address the situation in a manner that feels appropriate to the situation and the scale of the perceived offense.

And then you can handle it, and then move on. And your career [00:28:00] keeps going on from there. You'll gain some insights from it, but you don't have to become cynical as a result. And then in the future, you will trust the right person.

And it might be the difference maker in your entire career. That's it for this episode of What If for Authors. Thanks for joining me. I'm Claire Taylor and I hope that you have a wonderful week and join me for the next episode. Happy writing.

Episode 22: What if I get review bombed?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If for Authors, Claire Taylor tackles a unique fear that many authors face: being review bombed. When a coordinated effort to flood your book with negative reviews threatens to undermine all your hard work, how do you bounce back? Claire dives deep into the psychological and emotional impact of being review bombed, offering practical tools and advice to help you get through the experience if it ever happens. She explores the nature of anxiety, the importance of emotional regulation, and why trying to control others’ opinions is a recipe for burnout. Claire also shares strategies for rallying support from your true fans and emphasizes the power of resilience when facing adversity as a writer.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding Review Bombing: Claire defines review bombing as a coordinated effort to damage your book’s reputation by flooding it with negative reviews. She explains how this is different from standard negative reviews and why it’s often motivated by personal agendas rather than honest feedback about your work.

• Regulating Your Emotions in the Moment: When blindsided by a review bomb, it’s natural to have a strong emotional reaction. Claire offers a step-by-step guide on how to calm yourself, recognize the emotions as they arise, and navigate your initial response. She emphasizes the importance of relocating yourself to a peaceful place—physically and mentally—before taking any action.

• Co-Regulation as a Support Tool: Sometimes, self-regulation isn’t enough, and you need help from others. Claire suggests finding trusted people who can help co-regulate your emotions and provide grounding during these moments of high distress.

• Rallying Support from True Fans: Once you’ve moved through the initial shock, Claire encourages reaching out to your true fans and letting them know how they can support you. This can be as simple as asking them to leave positive reviews to balance out the negativity.

• What NOT to Do: One of Claire’s strongest pieces of advice is to avoid posting on social media during or immediately after the initial shock. She explains why this often backfires and offers tips on when—and how—to communicate effectively, if at all.

Why You Should Listen: If you’re an author worried about negative reviews or the potential of a review bombing campaign, this episode will provide much-needed guidance and comfort. Claire’s insights will help you approach the fear of review bombing with a grounded perspective and a clear set of tools to handle the emotional fallout. Even if you never experience a full-blown review bomb, the strategies shared in this episode will help you better cope with all forms of negative feedback, so you can keep moving forward with your author career.

Join the Conversation: Have you ever dealt with a negative review or an online attack? How did you handle it? Share your experiences and insights by emailing Claire at contact@ffs.media. If you need personalized support or a safe space to work through your anxiety around reviews, consider reaching out for a one-on-one coaching session.

Remember: You’re not alone, and your career is worth pushing through even the most challenging moments.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name is Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/ustain. Today, we get to talk about a unique fear of authors that most people in society don't have to worry about.

They get to live their entire lives working for a company or a government agency sheltered individually by the larger reputation. I'm talking, of course, about the threat of being review bombed. Like if someone leaves a poor review online for my husband's police department, first of all, that's kind of funny to leave a bad review for a police department and you know there are gonna be a lot of 'em, uh, but it doesn't necessarily affect him personally.

If someone does that and it doesn't affect his ability to do his job, it doesn't feel as personal. But negative reviews are a big thing for authors to contend [00:01:00] with. It's sort of a fact of life that you will get poor reviews on your books. Now that doesn't make it hurt any less when we happen to see them, but there's usually a whole host of authors ready to welcome you into the club of people who have endured that.

You've probably heard it reframed as something like. That's how you know you're starting to get your books out to a broader audience, when you get one and two star reviews coming in. I think that's a fine way to spin it, especially if it keeps you from giving up.

And ultimately, we can't control how other people feel about the work that we produce. We can't even control if we offend other people. Whether or not someone gets offended is totally their decision.

So yeah, poor reviews are a big part of author life, and from what I've found, people can generally get over this initial pain without too much trouble. Of course, it's much easier to do that if a single bad review doesn't tank your overall average for your book. Now that does sometimes happen in the early days of a release.

So maybe one of your review [00:02:00] team members is actually kind of a shitty person and leaves you a one star review on lunch day. And yeah. I'm being really judgmental about that, because it's well within their right to not like your book, but why the fuck are they on your review team if that's the case?

Anyone with common decency would at least wait a few days if they knew they were going to leave a one star review, so that it didn't ruin your momentum. Not to mention your mood on launch day.

If this sounds like a little bit of a personal vendetta I have going on, Yeah, I had that happen to me with a reviewer on my team and she was very good about leaving her review on review day Which is great. She was even the first one to do it Anyway, grudges aside, which you're welcome to hold on to for as long as you want Just you know, try and keep them private or at least leave the person's name out.

That's probably wisdom right there But negative reviews can really put us in a tough [00:03:00] place and start to affect our overall rating on our book. And when that happens as a result of some sort of orchestrated effort against you, that doesn't just suck. That really fucking sucks. So let's talk about what we can do to more consciously get through a situation like that.

So we come out on the other side not feeling completely demolished. And so that we can make choices along the way that we feel good about. That's why today's episode asks the question, What if I get review bombed?

For clarity's sake, a review bombing, as I'm describing it, is a coordinated effort to leave one star reviews On your book or proliferate nastiness about you and your book, generally on the internet. I've seen it happen, and it is a horror show of people's worst instincts parading as righteousness.

Fortunately, it doesn't happen that much. Most authors will never [00:04:00] experience a large scale review bombing. So I do want to put that into perspective because it's not a super common thing.

There's certainly a bias that our brain can slip into though, because when we see it happening in those few times that it does, When we see that internet pylon getting started or that post of a desperate author saying, what do I do? We can let our empathy inflate the likelihood of it happening based on the intensity of the emotion that we're witnessing.

Even if you're not an empathetic person, viewing one of these orchestrated review bombings from afar will likely make you put yourself in that author's position and vicariously experience some of the horror, the shame, the powerlessness. That they're likely experiencing being on the receiving end of that.

Now, even if something doesn't happen frequently, if the fallout of it would be that intense, our brain will say to hell with probabilities. If there's any [00:05:00] chance that this could happen to me, I need to stay on guard for it. That fear can really set up shop in the back of our minds and add to the general ambiance of anxiety when we're about to publish a book.

Even if the book we're about to publish is as non confrontational and non controversial as a book can be, and we don't have any known enemies to speak of, that fear can still hover over us and suddenly remind us that at any moment our book could be review bombed and there's nothing we could do about it.

So yeah, there's a sort of powerlessness here and the fear that is terrifying. You can't control what other people do. Even our influence over others is fairly limited. And it's not super fun to look at the fact that we can't control life to the extent that we could somehow guarantee we'll never be review bombed.

That's Accepting that lack of control is just a scary thing for humans to look at. But it's important to notice if [00:06:00] this fear is taking up residence in our hearts and minds and bodies, because statistically speaking, it probably will not happen to you. And if it does, you didn't actually have control over it in the first place.

So that's not to freak you out, but as you'll see, accepting what you can and can't control here is key in getting through something like this. Anxiety tends to be a pattern that arises from the belief that we could prepare enough so that something that might hurt us will either be prevented or won't hurt as much if it happens.

I think of anxiety as a call to action, so if you're feeling anxious about something, it can be really useful to ask what that anxiety is calling you to do. It may be calling you to over prepare beyond what's even useful and reasonable. It may be calling for you to try to threaten or control others. It may be calling you to be small and stay out of the way, with the belief that doing so will protect you.[00:07:00]

It may be asking you to have your hands in a lot of different projects at once, so that if one of them goes south, you can bounce immediately.

Not all of the actions our anxiety calls us to take Are productive or realistic or wise, but only once we pull that anxiety out of the back of our minds into our conscious brain and give it some sort of form so that it stops being this nebulous fear. Can we start to really use our powers of discernment to see what it's calling us to do?

And if that's something we want to do. to spend our lives doing. Or if it's something that would just give us the temporary illusion of control, but not actually protect us from the pain we're trying to avoid.

If you're experiencing anxiety about review bombing, let's call out that anxiety and see what it thinks you should do. Maybe there's nothing to do because the anxiety is hoping there's a way you'll feel nothing. When people gang up on you, that it can prepare you, run [00:08:00] through so many different possibilities that you'll feel nothing, that it won't hurt you.

So, feeling nothing when a whole bunch of people scheme and gang up on you is actually a concerning reaction when you think about it. I'm sure many of us would like to believe we could muster up some defiance and shrug it off. But I think if you told a therapist that it didn't bother you to have a bunch of people coordinate and come after your business through reviews, trying to take your book out at the knees and make you feel like shit, any therapist worth a damn would give you that little eyebrow raise and say something like, Hmm, that's interesting.

In other words, They would hope to God that you were bullshitting yourself, rather than actually feeling nothing. Although, if you did feel nothing in that situation, if it doesn't bother you at all to think about review [00:09:00] bombing happening, they might hear a little cash register cha ching in their head, because there's clearly something going on there.

So, it's okay to admit that a review bombing would hurt. It would be really difficult. It would fucking suck. Your anxiety may run circles without end, hoping to find some way that it wouldn't hurt and suck, desperate for some possibility that you can position yourself such that the pain becomes an impossibility in your life.

If you notice that that's happening, remind your anxiety that it's wasting its time and yours too.

So instead, let's look at all the ways you can bounce back after a review bombing, because there are a lot of them. I already know that you can survive things that hurt and fucking suck. You're an author, and no author gets to where they are without having gone through some painful things and some situations that were extremely triggering and fucking sucked.

I'm going to be saying that a lot this episode [00:10:00] because of the topic. So, I know you can do that. And if you don't know that you can do that, then I recommend doing a quick reflection on your life and bringing to your awareness some of those times when you did do that. You may not have known how you got through those rough times, but you got through them.

You're already resilient to that sort of thing. You can deal with pain. So maybe it wasn't this specific situation. Like review bombing, but you've probably experienced something kind of like it with the same set of emotions before. So maybe it was like middle school and all your friends decided to gang up on you for no clear reason.

Maybe they started a rumor about you and spread it around. Maybe someone led a campaign against you earlier in your work career that just really blindsided you and was completely made up. Or maybe it wasn't made up. Maybe there was something to it. It doesn't matter either way. It hurts. [00:11:00] So, it's probably painful just to look back on those moments, but we can do a really kind thing for ourselves by shifting our attention just a little bit forward on that timeline toward how we got back up when those things happened.

The more you can reinforce your internal belief that you have resilience and use evidence from your past to show that, the more you can have faith that whatever happens, you can get to the other side of it and rebound. Developing that sense of faith in your ability to be resilient in the face of extremely painful things that you can't control, it's like taking a broom to a bunch of cobwebs.

You just clear that anxiety out of there. And when you start to feel it creeping up again, you can just remind yourself, I've done this once, I can do it again. I may not know exactly how I'll do it, but I know that I will. So let's walk through a scenario, we'll explore some of the thoughts, emotions, and physical [00:12:00] sensations of that process of being review bombed from a distance, from the perspective of our presently calm and safe minds.

We're going to activate the wisdom, common sense, and compassion that you have available to you right now while listening to this podcast when you're in what is, uh, sometimes called the window of mindfulness opportunity. mindfulness opportunity is when we're not in a hypo aroused or hyper aroused state.

In other words, we're not feeling like there's an immediate threat. Now, listening to this scenario may make your heart rate go up. So, if you notice that happening, take a couple of deep breaths in through your belly, breathing in and out through your nose, And that'll help bring you back down into that window of mindfulness opportunity.

Or back up Into it. So hyperarousal is that agitated state that we tend to associate with being anxious or hypervigilant and then [00:13:00] hypoarousal is similarly an unproductive state, but it looks more like checking out, becoming non dissociating or feeling your energy draining from you.

There's no better or worse one. to move into. But it can be interesting to notice when we go to one or the other, because we may not go to the same one every time. But if you imagine hyper arousal being Above the window of mindfulness opportunity and hypoarousal being below that window, then that can kind of give you a visual.

And if this whole topic piques your interest at all, there's a book called Unshakeable by Joanne Rosen. That's all about trauma informed mindfulness, where she lays this concept out more fully. Okay, so let's walk through this scenario. I'll pretend I'm the author, and as I talk us through this, just remember that I'm actually fine.

Okay? If you are very empathetic, just remember that I'm fine. The third book of my new series is releasing today. Okay? [00:14:00] We're starting the scenario. I already had it up for pre order and it had a few hundred pre orders on it. I sent it out to my review team two weeks ago. My review team consists of 150 people.

I'm excited to see that big number of sales on my dashboard, so I jump out of bed in the morning when my alarm goes off, I grab my coffee, and I head to the computer. Hey, hey, I've made over a thousand bucks off the sales of that book today. Things are looking great. But if I've sold this many books, I wonder what my rank is.

I ski daddle on over to Amazon to find my book sales page and look up the rank. And when I get there, I see that my book already has 78 reviews. And only a 2. 5 average rating. What the fuck? So let's stop here for a second because I think it's important to note that different people are going to experience different emotions at this point.

Will this author feel rage, panic, shame? That really depends on [00:15:00] the person. But it's interesting to ask ourselves what the emotion would likely be for us. I would probably feel like I was physically hit by a truck, and I think my brain would get very fuzzy immediately. I wouldn't be able to even access a particular emotion right away in this situation.

But you may have a completely different reaction. In this scenario and whatever it is, it's okay to just let it be that there's no better or worse way to be blindsided. So our judgment of our reaction is not really useful here.

You'll actually do yourself a huge favor if you can be honest about how messy the initial response might be for you. Again, it's not necessarily impressive to believe it wouldn't bother you. So try to observe yourself in this moment as you visualize being blindsided in that way. Observe the emotions rather than feeling them, if you can.

Observe the thoughts rather than [00:16:00] believing them. And observe the physical sensations without becoming them.

Let's talk about how we get through this awful initial moment that we're observing together. I'll be the author again. So my brain stops being quite so fuzzy. And Instead of everything blurring together, now I'm starting to get tunnel vision. This takes the form of determination to get to the bottom of what the fuck is going on, and hopefully put a stop to it.

Could I actually put a stop to it? Probably not. But I tend to default into a fight response when I'm in a hyper aroused state. So this is just a little of me dropping in here. So maybe I start by digging into the one star reviews and notice a trend. All of the negative reviews seem to be aimed at my personal politics rather than anything associated with the book.

And I'm just pulling this example because it has [00:17:00] happened to me. People have given my books, one star reviews because, , they discovered multiple books in that I wasn't a fan of Trump. I don't know how you read through four, five books of a series called like Jessica Christ, which is clearly a feminist critique on patriarchal structures and somehow think I might be pro Trump, but listen, Some people are a little dense.

I'm sure they have other gifts to bring to the world. Anyway, let's say I look at the reviews and they're aimed at my politics. For me, I would feel slightly less insecure, but possibly more angry. So this hypothetical author might not turn to anger as quickly as I would in this scenario. It may make them wonder what else these people are going to coordinate against them.

That could be scary. I don't know. Um, I've done a lot of work to accept that I'll likely die at the hands of a man considering how I act and the structures that I live in. But not everyone [00:18:00] has. And that's okay. So if this idea that there are a bunch of people out there to get you freaks you out, that's totally understandable.

Totally. Or maybe you're feeling shame and regret, and you're angry at yourself for publishing something that could be controversial. Or maybe you said something politically controversial in public at some point, or on social media. Whatever your emotions are in this moment, now that you understand the sentiment that led to this pylon, the best thing you can do for yourself, if possible, is to start to notice that you are in a state of really high emotion.

If you can name some of the emotions. You've got your foot in the door to bring yourself back into the driver's seat here. And if you can remember listening to me in this podcast episode, here's a crucial piece of advice. Relocate yourself to somewhere that calms you. Ideally, out of the [00:19:00] reach of a device connected to the internet.

And I think you know why. Uh, this review bombing will feel like an urgent crisis, but you're not ready to handle it until you can regulate your thoughts, emotions, and sensations at least a little bit. So your calm place might be your bed with the lights off and some soft music playing. It may be sitting on your back patio or going for a walk in nature.

It may be a coffee shop where you know the barista's, it may be a little corner of your apartment that you've dedicated as like a prayer or meditation space, but use this opportunity of listening to the podcast right now as a moment to think about where your peaceful space is. You're going to be able to think about the situation more clearly now, right?

The possibility of a review bombing is going to move through you in a much, with much more clarity now because you are in the window of mindfulness [00:20:00] opportunity in this moment. So find that peaceful place. Figure out what it is. Take a moment, pause this if you need, and determine what, where your peaceful space is.

Hell, your peaceful space could be your car or in the shower. Whatever it is, it's fine as long as it's a place where you have a pattern established of getting yourself into a peaceful and centered state. If you don't have that space yet, or you can't figure it out, or you're like, I don't know, I don't really have that.

Your homework from this episode is to create it. No excuses. Like, find a good tree to sit under, if nothing else, but figure out what that space is. Now, the Buddhist approach is to create that peaceful space inside of you so that it's available to you wherever you go. You can close your eyes and see it there and visit it as needed.

I think that's a great goal in all, but I'm going to be realistic and just say that you'll do yourself a [00:21:00] huge favor if you start with a tangible, peaceful space that you can physically relocate to. It's easier, and it might be enough to get you started in this regulation.

So once you're in your peaceful space, I encourage you to start talking to the scared part of yourself. And when I say scared part, it may look angry. It may look panicky, it may look ashamed, but this is fear coming up. So talk to that part of yourself. Validate it. Yeah, this sucks. This is, this is bad, right?

Let it know you understand. Because you do. It's you, right? Spoiler. It's you. So, so remind yourself that this is the bad part. It's not forever. Right now, it hurts. But if you can remember that, it just hurts right now. You've tackled the sense of permanence that can add to our fear when something goes wrong.

Telling ourselves this was the bad part is a proven method for lessening the tunnel [00:22:00] vision we may feel. I found something somewhat similar in phrasing and identical to this idea and function in Buddhism, cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, internal family systems therapy, and I use it myself.

So this is a very useful tool to have in your author toolbox in case of emergency. I can't tell you how much relief I've experienced from just being able to pause and say, This is the bad part. It reminds me that this is only a part. It's not the whole. Life is not bad from here on out. My career is not bad from here on out.

It's not ruined. This is just a painful moment. That also helps signal to me to start taking the steps I know to take during the bad part. The first of which is trying to self regulate. If you find that you're [00:23:00] in your peaceful place and you still can't bring yourself down and return to yourself, great news.

You have the option of co regulation. So co regulation is reaching out to someone who cares about you and can remain in their window of mindfulness opportunity while you relate to them what happened and how you're feeling. Because we're social creatures, we're wired to sync with others. So our breathing impulse will start to drop if the people we're around have a slower heart rate.

But you want to find someone who's good at regulation. So some people are really not the person for this job, often because they care about you too much and take on some of the emotions you're feeling rather than receiving your emotions and helping to calm you.

So figure out who your co regulation people are. If you're having a hard time regulating your own emotions, your body, and your thoughts, then do yourself a favor and reach out to someone who can help you. [00:24:00] Notice that at no point in this process did I recommend replying to the one star comments or jumping on social media to publicly regulate yourself.

I think I explained pretty well in the episode on public shaming why that is not a good idea. So let me just say it here in case you didn't listen to that episode. If anything in your brain, heart, or body. If anyone tells you to get online and post something on Twitter or Threads or Facebook or Tumblr or to your email list or on TikTok or Instagram about this review bombing, in as loving a way as possible, please tell that part of you to respectfully shut the fuck up.

And this advice is not just for Enneagram 8s. But it's also definitely for any of grandmates.

If you find that you did post something [00:25:00] in the initial minutes of that shock, after discovering you'd been review bombed, that is okay, we're all good. We get to do things that may not be in our best interest from time to time. But as soon as you can, Go delete that. It will not do the thing you think it will do.

I repeat, posting on social media in the midst of a review bomb will not do the thing you think it will do.

Now, once you feel more like yourself, which may take a while, and that's okay, it's time to start figuring out what is and is not within your control in this situation. We really want to focus our attention on what is within our control. So one thing that's within your control is not writing the book off as a loss.

The thing about trolls is that they tend to lose interest fairly quickly.

They may have shown up all at once, but over time you can get the people who genuinely like your book to show up for [00:26:00] you.

A lot of the time, if you let your true fans know, Hey, this thing happened to me and it sucks, but I think you'll understand why. I would really appreciate a positive review from those who will love the book. People will show up for you. It may take some time, but you can absolutely recover from a review bomb.

I need you to hear that. So I'll say it again. You and your book can recover and go on to live a long and healthy life after a review bomb. I've seen it happen. And the only time I haven't seen it happen is when the author gave up on marketing the book because they were discouraged. If you don't have the emotional energy to push the boulder up the hill right now, if it's still too painful for you to even think about that book, that's perfectly understandable.

And it's a perfectly fine place to be. You're absolutely free to step away from the whole situation for a while. And sometimes that's the best idea. If you do that, though, I would still encourage you to talk to someone who can give you perspective [00:27:00] and guide you through some of the feelings of shame, anger, and powerlessness you're experiencing.

You're not obligated to ever return to that book and try to dig it out of the hole, but you do deserve to not carry those feelings around with you.

So there may be some people listening who are hungry for me to do some sort of Enneagram type breakdown of what to do if you're review bombed based on type, but I'll be honest, I think it's beyond the scope of standard type generalizations to address something that can be truly traumatic. Like experiencing a pylon in your reviews.

I don't know if you caught it when I was describing what it would feel like for me, in my body, mind, and heart, to log on on release day and see that there had been some sort of coordinated effort to stop my book from having success. I described the body feeling like it was hit by a truck. The brain, my brain would be foggy, the heart center absolutely numb and not showing up.

So, that's what [00:28:00] happens to me in traumatic events. That's a description of a trauma response, really. That's why your reaction may be completely different and unpredictable. Trauma is a very complex and individualized experience that takes a lot of personal history into account.

Now, after that initial moment, You may be more likely to focus your emotions into panic if you're a 5, 6, or 7, shame if you're a 4, or anger if you're an 1, just based on the way that the triads shake out. But as much as I think that's a helpful thing to ask yourself if you're falling into a pattern, I also don't want you to feel like you should be feeling a particular way based on your type.

The important thing here is to simply ask yourself how you're feeling and accept that that is how you're feeling. Just observe it if you can. In other words, let's not have feelings about our feelings. [00:29:00] So what happens next? What happens once you've experienced a review bomb and managed to get yourself back into that window of mindfulness opportunity?

The truth is, you have all kinds of good options. So I've gotten some truly deranged reviews on my books, and I've reported them to retailers, asking them to take it down because it wasn't reflective or even related to the product. And yes, even Amazon has indulged me in this a handful of times. If someone simply doesn't like your book, then retailers won't take that down.

But that's not really the problem we're looking at here, right? Something else you can do is, just like I said earlier, rally support. And we're not rallying it for an attack on someone else, we're just rallying support for ourselves. So, if you have a large group of haters, you probably also have a large group of fans.

Many of those fans may have never left a review in their life because that's just not part of their consumer habits. [00:30:00] It happens. But if you let them know how impactful their positive review would be for you, most of your fans would be more than happy to show up for you in that way. When that does happen, make sure you bring your attention to it.

Don't let the negativity bias only allow you to see the people who attacked you. It's crucial For our well being, that we can bring as much of our attention toward the people who show up for us as the people who come after us. So that's where you'll find the courage to keep going, to keep writing books and publishing them, and to keep nurturing your fanbase.

Not because it's strategically useful, but because you feel genuine love and gratitude for the people who showed up for you during the bad part. When they didn't have to. They don't have to, but they did. So humanity, yeah, can be cruel. And it can also be wonderful. Both of those things can be true at the same time.

But it's up to us to bring our attention toward the good, [00:31:00] because the bad is pretty easy to notice. It's low hanging fruit. Deep cynicism shows a lack of this mindful approach. And it's a sort of easy default thing to fall toward. But being able to recognize the ugly part and find ways to return to ourselves and intentionally turn our attention toward the possibility of the beautiful part is one of the most inspiringly wonderful things that a human can do.

So I want that for you. And I know it's possible. And if you ever feel like nobody's showing up for you, I hope you'll remember that I'm here and I really am rooting for you.

Your career is worth the courage to get through to the other side of the bad part and to bounce back. So to answer the question of what if my book gets review bombed, I'll say that it's unlikely this will ever happen to you. But if it does, [00:32:00] you now have a few tools and steps to get you out of the initial shock of it, like finding a peaceful place and reaching out to someone who can help you regulate.

You know what not to do, posting online when you're still very much in the thick of the experience, and hopefully you can carry with you the belief that it is possible to bounce back, that the bad part doesn't last forever, and that if you let people know how much you need them to show up for you, they will in whatever way they can.

Your career will go on, and someday, you may witness someone else going through the same thing. And you'll be able to reach out to them and let them know that this is just the bad part. But you're living proof that an author can get to the other side of it, even if it's messy and painful. That's it for this week's episode of What If for Authors.

I encourage you to not immediately go to another podcast after this one ends, but instead give yourself maybe 30 seconds to To [00:33:00] take some deep breaths and remember that if you're an author, you are a person who's gotten through some hard shit and found a way to thrive on the other side of it. So that's awesome.

Give yourself that recognition. I'm Claire Taylor and thanks for listening to this episode. I hope you'll come back next time and feel free to share this episode with someone you think might benefit from it. Oh, and I would be remiss not to ask you to rate and review the podcast wherever you listen to it.

Thank you and happy writing.

Episode 21: What if I'm stuck on my book?

Episode Description:

In this week’s episode of What If for Authors, Claire tackles one of the most common and frustrating challenges for writers: getting stuck on your manuscript. Drawing on her experience as a former in-house editor, English teacher, and story consultant, Claire provides a structured approach to understanding why you might be hitting a wall in your work and how to move past it. She offers insight into the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns that might be interfering with your progress and explains how using your Enneagram type can help pinpoint the root cause of the issue. In the second half of the episode, Claire shifts gears to break down specific storytelling elements like your protagonist, antagonist, and theme—three key areas where story issues can lead to feeling stuck. This episode is packed with actionable strategies and introspective questions to help you get unstuck and back to crafting a story you love.

Key Takeaways:

• Why You’re Stuck Might Not Be About the Story: Often, the reasons authors get stuck have more to do with their internal patterns and fears rather than plot or character problems. Claire explains how to use your Enneagram type to identify these blocks.

• The Role of Fear in Writer’s Block: When your gut tells you to take a certain direction with your story, but that path triggers a core fear, it’s natural to stall out. Claire discusses how fear often disguises itself as “strategy” or “logic” and how to name it and move forward anyway.

• The Three Centers Approach: Claire introduces the Head, Heart, and Body centers as a way to explore why you’re stuck. She offers specific questions to ask each center, making it easier to identify the root of your resistance.

• The Power of Your Protagonist, Antagonist, and Theme: When you’re stuck for story-related reasons, these three elements are often the culprits. Claire explains how to realign these story pillars to strengthen your manuscript.

• Working Through Story Blocks with Your Enneagram Type: By identifying your protagonist’s Enneagram type and matching it to your theme and antagonist, you can clarify their motivations and internal conflict, making it easier to drive the plot forward.

Why You Should Listen: If you’ve ever hit a wall with your manuscript and didn’t know how to move forward, this episode will provide you with the tools to diagnose what’s holding you back and the strategies to get unstuck. Claire’s unique approach, using the Enneagram alongside storytelling techniques, offers insights that you won’t find in typical writing advice. This episode is perfect for both beginner and experienced writers who want to deepen their understanding of character, theme, and narrative structure—all while gaining some clarity about themselves in the process.

Join the Conversation: Are you currently stuck on your book? Share your experiences and questions with Claire by emailing her at contact@ffs.media. If you want personalized help working through your story, consider booking a Story Alignment session with Claire by visiting ffs.media/schedule.

Access the transcript here.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain. I'm excited about today's episode because I get to wear more of my storyteller hat for it.

So you obviously know that I do this Enneagram thing to help authors keep going in their careers. What you might not know is that I used to be an editor. Yeah, I edited in house for a romance publisher for a while. That was my 9 to 5, or 8 to 5. I also studied this whole storytelling thing in college, so I got an English degree with a focus in creative writing.

And then I taught English and literature to 8th, 9th, and 10th graders for a while. Anyway, storytelling is what originally got me down the rabbit hole of the Enneagram. I found it really useful [00:01:00] for better getting to know and crafting my characters. So we're going to get to use a little bit of that today and I'm very excited about it.

Of course, we're also going to look at the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns that might be coming into play with today's topic. So hopefully this episode doesn't get too long. I feel like I've been going way long lately with my episodes. Anyway, one of the services that I offer for authors is called The Story Alignment.

How that works is they fill out a questionnaire about their book that can kind of give me a head start on what might be happening with it and where the problems might be coming up. Then we chat for an hour about the book and usually solve those problems as well as, you know, finding some new and interesting ways to really level up the book, give it some more oomph.

I've been doing these story alignments for years now, so I'll give you some tips to take away from what I see as the most common problems that authors run into. Oh wait, I guess I should tell you what the topic is [00:02:00] today. Today's episode is asking the question, what if I'm stuck on my book?

This is such a massively huge topic that it almost seems silly to try and approach it in a single episode. Lots of people have written lots of things about getting stuck in your book. So I'm going to try to stick to the stuff that you probably haven't heard in other places. And of course, a lot of that is going to be Enneagram related problem solving.

So, let's start with the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns first, and then we'll finish off with the fun story related stuff. Most of the time when people are hopelessly stuck on a book, it's not because they can't figure out the plot or there's something wrong with the story itself.

That might be the case, but if you've written a few books and you kind of have the hang of how to tell a story, taking a step back from the manuscript for a little while or zooming out to a 10, 000 foot view of it can start to unstick things pretty [00:03:00] quick. There's a lot more to Addressing the actual story issues, which I'll talk about later.

But basically, a lot of the time when authors are stuck, it's because some sort of long standing pattern, usually stemming out of our core fear, is starting to flare up.

If what we know in our gut, in our intuition, needs to be in the book, starts to poke at our core fear at all, we can really easily come to a grinding halt. So this could look like an Enneagram Nine, the peacemaker, whose gut is telling them to write this particular character, but maybe that author is worried about creating controversy by writing that character that way.

So that controversy really pokes at the Nine's vulnerability around conflict, and so the Nine is just kind of torn in that moment. Sometimes the book just wants what the book wants, and if completing that order scares us. Yeah, we're gonna find that our attention is going basically [00:04:00] everywhere but the page.

We may also be burning a lot of extra energy trying to find an alternate route around what our gut is telling us to write.

If you want to try to find that alternate route, work around, find some way that you're not as controversial or whatnot, you're welcome to. And I mean that. There really is no pure form of your story that you have to get out at the end of the day. You're in control, right? You are the driver here. And it may even work out better in certain ways if you do it the way that your fear is telling you to do it, rather than your gut.

If those two things are in conflict with one another. I'm not saying one way is better or worse, I'm just saying that if what your creative inspiration is telling you to do and telling you to write is something that's too uncomfortable for you to imagine publishing, or that hits on one of your triggers, it's very common to get stuck here.

And unless you put to words why this is happening, and really [00:05:00] flesh it out for yourself, it's almost impossible to move forward. That's because our fear disguises itself as a lot of different things, including Wisdom, sometimes it'll, it'll disguise itself as common sense, or it'll disguise itself as strategy.

So you might think it's just a strategically poor idea to write that character like that, or it's a bad idea to have the book end that way, or, I shouldn't add that twist. People won't like it. And so we think we're caught between what we want to write and good strategy, but the whole time that strategy, quote unquote, has been fear disguising itself.

When you name fear as fear, you put yourself back in the driver's seat.

You can know that you're afraid of something and still do it anyway. That's what courage is. And sometimes that's what it takes to move forward in your manuscript, a little bit of courage. Because at the end of the day, you never know [00:06:00] how it's going to be received by readers. The only way to know is to go find out.

We do that by writing the book and publishing it, not by staring at the page and hoping that an obvious certainty will appear to us about which direction to go. Some certainty that will guarantee us safety from any possible pain when we finally publish the book. It's also possible that we're struggling to write the book because our life situation is such that we are just not prepared to write the damn book.

We may be emotionally occupied with something else or we may not be at the point where we can make the tough decisions to let certain things go so that we have the time and space to sit down with our book and give it the energy it needs. It can be super frustrating when the reason we're stuck on the book is not a plot problem or a character problem.

If we let our frustration continue to simmer, that can leave us feeling sour about the whole author career in [00:07:00] general. So the very best thing we can do for ourselves if we've repeatedly sat down to write and have struggled to get through the words is to start to emotionally regulate ourselves.

We don't want to create a negative connection between our writing and ourselves. And sometimes we'll do this without really meaning to, where we'll try to shit talk ourselves. We'll sit and it's hard and we go, you know, don't be a wuss or just push through it or whatever we're going to do to try and bully ourselves through it.

That's creating that negative emotional connection with the writing. So the best thing we can do in this case is to practice compassion for ourselves and to start activating curiosity rather than judgment in those moments. Start asking yourself some questions. So here are three questions that I like to ask to get people started.

This is really just to activate that curiosity and turn down the [00:08:00] judgment and criticism a little bit. It's not just ones that have judgment and criticism. It can be all types. So ask yourself, first, what don't I know about this scene or character? Yeah. Two, is the scene somehow uncomfortable for me to engage with emotionally?

And three, what does it feel like in my body when I sit down to write this scene? Do I feel tense, restless, numb? What do I feel in my body?

You may have noticed that these three questions are designed to tap into your three centers of thinking, feeling, and action, or the head, heart, and body centers. Approaching these three centers with curiosity and then actually listening To what they say without judgment about whether or not they quote unquote should be responding that way is sort of a pro tip for self regulation.

I mean, it just works [00:09:00] so well. If it's not working for you, check to see if you're immediately dismissing the answers you get because you don't feel like they make sense or that you should feel something different. So if your heart center is giving you an answer, for instance, that is an emotion you don't feel like you're allowed to feel for whatever reason, then you're going to get stuck again, right?

So you're getting your answer and you're just ignoring it or dismissing it. You're gonna stay stuck. If the answers you get to these three questions baffle you, which they very well might, the next step is to continue to ask questions. So maintain curiosity as long as you can.

You're likely to learn something about yourself that will not only help you get unstuck on the book today, but will either keep you from getting stuck in the future or help you get unstuck faster, because you now know about that part of yourself.

Now, if you already know what your least developed center of [00:10:00] the three is, Then you're already a step ahead. So start by asking that center a lot of questions when you get stuck on your book. It's probably been trying to tell you something, but since that connection is not the most natural for you to reach for, you just aren't seeing it unless you make a conscious effort.

Our least developed center, or whichever one we're the lowest of on the three, of head, heart, and body, That's always going to be the one that we have to reach for, as opposed to our primary center, which is just our default. So if your least developed center is, let's say your heart center, it's not a bad idea to ask it the question, what emotions are making it difficult for me to be present with this manuscript?

Something like that. If your action center is the lowest, another good question to ask is, What information am I waiting to get before I write the rest of the scene? And is that even information I can get before actually writing the scene? You may find that a specific bit of information comes up for [00:11:00] you.

You need to go find X, Y, and Z. Or you need to sort out X, Y, and Z about this character's history. Okay, great. Do that. And then ask yourself the question again. Eventually, you'll start to reach a point where it's clear that the only way to find out the information you still need to write is to start typing, to take that action.

So that's if you have a low action center. Now, you may have some throat clearing to do when you get started on that action, but that's okay. That's what revisions are for. If your thinking center is your least developed center, then you may ask yourself, What all am I trying to hold in my head instead of writing it down?

Or even, and this is pretty meta, What questions do I have about this book that I haven't put into words yet? So write those things down so that they can stop rattling around in your head center.

I've found taking the three centers approach to being stuck on a [00:12:00] manuscript to be the most effective, not only for myself, but for the people I work with. It really gets to the root of the reasons why we aren't engaging with our manuscript the way we would like to. Okay, now that we've addressed all the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns that may be coming into play, Presumably, we can talk about the story related stuff.

Okay. So what if you're stuck on your book and it actually is the story? That's the problem. How do we get a story that's jumped the rails back on track?

So it's interesting when I read over the questionnaires for the story alignments, almost inevitably, the author has dropped something in there with the caveat of, I don't even know why I'm putting this here. It doesn't seem relevant. That little detail from their story is almost always the key to pulling things together.

Your subconscious. Everybody already knows that that bit is important, but it can be hard to figure out why. That's one of the reasons it's really nice to have someone else look at these things with you. [00:13:00] Most of what I do is help people bring the subconscious into the conscious so that they can see how it all works together.

They've already put all the pieces on the table and maybe they're just having a difficult time figuring out how they click into place. So this is really great news for those of you listening. You're probably a lot closer to moving forward with your manuscript than you think.

I prefer to take an approach of minimally invasive surgery when we're looking at manuscripts, especially ones where the first draft is complete, and the author doesn't like extensive revisions, or maybe they've already completed their revisions, but something just doesn't feel right still. The answer to a stuck manuscript is almost never.

rewrite the whole thing. That would be kind of shitty advice to give, wouldn't it? Because who's actually going to be like, okay, yay, I get to rewrite the whole thing. My definition of good advice is advice that the individual will actually take. And most of the [00:14:00] time, if I were to tell someone, which I wouldn't, but if I were to tell someone you need to rewrite this whole thing, they would probably not take that advice.

It'd probably get them deeper into stuck fill. Anyway, most of the time pieces are all there already. The exception is when people come to me with a bare bones idea and want me to help them brainstorm and flesh it out, which is also something I love doing with authors. But most of the time a lot of the pieces are there. There are three main elements of a story that I like to dig into first and that can usually solve 90 percent of the struggle with the manuscript. And those are the protagonist, the antagonist, and the theme. Let's start with the protagonist. The most common issue that authors run into with their protagonist is that they don't know them on that deep level.

And this is so common that if you realize this is the case for you, don't take it too hard. Okay. But it's also where the Enneagram is really fucking useful. So what type is your protagonist? Once you [00:15:00] get this nailed down, a lot is going to click into place. You're going to realize where you were overlaying your own motivations onto your protagonist where they may not have belonged. It's also the case that sometimes it's fun to take a couple of iconic characters and blend them together to create your protagonist. This can work if you're looking solely at traits, but when we go to the deeper level of core motivations, it's possible that you're trying to mash up two different Enneagram types and the character is just feeling inconsistent as a result.

If you don't know what your protagonist's motivation is, and what they're trying to avoid, it can be really difficult to figure out what to do. What the hell the story is actually about. If you don't know what the story is about, it can be really difficult to know what direction to steer it in. So pin down your protagonist's Enneagram type first, and then see what starts to naturally want to adjust to that in the manuscript.

If you've already pinned down your protagonist's [00:16:00] Enneagram type, then the next place I would look is your story's theme. I like to approach theme as a one word concept. I want the concept to be something that people can feel a whole lot of different ways about. This concept might be courage, or responsibility, or enjoyment, or a number of other things.

Almost infinite number of other things. You can also think about the theme of your story as the underlying nature of your protagonist's conflict. The relationship between the theme and your protagonist is the most intimate in your story. So sometimes we get stuck on our book when the relationship between those two things is either undefined, Or simply not a strong natural fit.

For instance, A theme of justice is going to fit pretty naturally with types one and eight. That doesn't mean you can't make it work with other types, but when you learn about the natural attentional patterns of the one and eight, you see that their [00:17:00] attention is going toward that theme of justice anyway, and they're going to have some strong feelings about it that may get them into some trouble, which is great.

Great news for the conflict of your story. If you want some more ideas about what themes each type tends toward with their attentional patterns. I do have a whole list of those in my book, Reclaim Your Author Career, under the section on theme.

If you've recently nailed down your protagonist's enneagram type, and you either hadn't considered typing them before, or were thinking that they were possibly a different type when you started writing, then there's a good chance that you may find yourself adjusting the theme of your book to be more strongly suited to that particular protagonist's type.

Here are three questions that are really useful to ask when you're looking at that protagonist and theme relationship. 1. If I asked my protagonist what beliefs they held about the theme at the start of the story, what would they say? 2. How might they need to change [00:18:00] these beliefs, or at least refine them, to overcome the challenges of the story?

3. What do I need to throw their way? To force them to adjust these beliefs and for how do those original beliefs? Change or develop by the end of the story in a way that's impactful in the climax

Those are big structural questions But in asking them you're likely to have some sort of epiphany about the nature of the story you're writing You may even see the ending which has so far alluded you pop into vivid view These are powerful questions, but they also can take a little bit of time, so don't let yourself get frustrated if the answer doesn't come right away.

Again, if you need help walking through these, you know where to find me. And finally, once you have the relationship between your protagonist and theme sorted out fairly well, then I'd suggest looking at your antagonist. Your antagonist is the best tool for [00:19:00] driving the change of your protagonist's beliefs about the theme.

If your antagonist isn't triggering your protagonist big time, then it's going to be really difficult to drive the story forward toward a conclusion.

It's rarely enough for your antagonist to just put your protagonist in physical danger. You really want to make them an existential threat to your protagonist.

That being said, in romance, the antagonist is usually So this is a great way to kind of understand the romantic partner of your protagonist.

There really is nothing that can put us into an existential crisis, quite like romance. So everything I just said about the antagonist and their job, it still works. Falling in love and starting a relationship triggers the. Childhood needs of autonomy, security, and attention like nothing else. And we know that those are the three triads of the Enneagram. Autonomy, security, and attention. Those are the childhood needs. In other words, [00:20:00] romance antagonizes the shit out of us as human beings.

So you want to pick a partner for your protagonist who forces them to confront their faulty belief at the start of the story. If the two of them are going to end up together. Don't let your protagonist have both things. Don't let them keep that faulty belief and end up with the person they want to be with.

True love demands ego sacrifice. So make your protagonist sacrifice something.

Even if you aren't writing a romance, your antagonist can be shaped with the same considerations. So if you've got your protagonist and your theme sorted out, and now your antagonist doesn't seem to be doing much for driving things forward, here are some questions to ask. 1. What is my antagonist's Enneagram type?

2. What does my antagonist believe to be true about the theme? 3. How does that show up in their actions? And 4. How does their belief about the theme challenge [00:21:00] the protagonist's belief about the theme?

Now if, in reassessing your protagonist, theme, and antagonist, you start to think that the whole manuscript you've written so far needs to be thrown out, my best advice is, Don't panic. It's probably not as big of an undertaking as it feels immediately. So, if you can shift your attention away from whatever is making this feel really urgent, like a deadline, and start to get excited about how the story is going to come together now that you understand it more fully, That excitement will take you a lot farther, a lot faster than, say, terror.

And if there are still nitpicky things that aren't quite working in your manuscript, try to address the larger parts first and see if those other bits don't click into place in the meantime. Your subconscious has been chewing away on these things and if you just give it some space it may come up with something interesting.

And if it doesn't, That's also not an [00:22:00] emergency.

Turn to some support. Sometimes it's just time to call in the cavalry. If you have author friends you can talk it through with, or an editor you have a strong relationship with, or even a spouse who just has a knack for it, or is a good listener, talk through your plot problems with them.

It may be that even just talking through it, saying some of these things aloud, is exactly what you need for those last few pieces to snap into place. And then, of course, you can always schedule an appointment with me.

I know sometimes people get nervous meeting with me for the first time, but do it anyway. I promise you won't regret it. We'll have a good time. So if you're wondering, what if I'm stuck on my book? My answer is that you don't have to be stuck for that long. Getting stuck on a book is just part of being a writer, and if you don't experience it often, that just means it'll be scary when it happens.

But it doesn't necessarily mean [00:23:00] It's a sign of anything, like you've run out of ideas or your career is over or you'll never write again. It doesn't have to mean anything that big. It just is what it is. You're stuck and it's time to get unstuck. So if you get stuck, the first thing I suggest is checking in with your three centers and asking those questions I listed earlier in the episode.

Return to your manuscript, after you've done that, and see if you can't get some of the wheels turning. Most of the time, once we get a little momentum, we can keep going from there. And if it doesn't work, and you're sure it's something to do with the story, walk yourself through a check on your protagonist, your theme, and your antagonist, like I laid out.

There are processes that can help you get through this. The biggest step is turning down the fear, so that you can start those processes. If you can get to that place, you're already well on your way to getting back into your writing and finishing the [00:24:00] story. That's it for this episode of What If for Authors.

I hope you have a wonderful week of writing. Or of not writing if you're taking a break. Whatever. I'm Claire Taylor and I hope you'll join me next week as we deconstruct all the reasons that something that seems really scary does not have to be that scary in the end.

Episode 20: What if I'm publicly shamed?

Episode Description:

In this week’s episode of What If For Authors, we tackle a difficult topic—public shaming. Claire dives into what happens when authors, as public figures, find themselves the target of online attacks or social media pile-ons. She shares practical steps for managing a shame campaign, from getting offline and regulating your emotions to deciding whether you need to bring in a crisis manager. But beyond the tactical approach, this episode digs deep into what shame really is, how it works, and how to transform toxic emotions into tools for growth and self-compassion. Whether you're worried about an angry reviewer or facing criticism that seems to come out of nowhere, this episode equips you to handle public shaming with resilience and grace.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding Shame vs. Guilt: Claire distinguishes between shame, which tells us that we are bad, and guilt, which tells us we did something bad. Understanding the difference is crucial to not letting shame control our responses.

• Practical Steps During a Crisis: Claire outlines what to do if you find yourself the subject of online shaming—step one is to get offline, regulate your emotions, and refrain from engaging. 

• The Role of Empathy in Combatting Shame: Shame isolates, making us feel undeserving of support and empathy. The antidote? Finding a safe, empathetic person to share your feelings with. Expressing your shame helps release its grip and restore a sense of connection.

• How Each Enneagram Type Handles Shame: Although Enneagram Types 2, 3, and 4 are in the “shame triad,” every type has a unique relationship with shame. Claire explains how recognizing these patterns can help lessen the hold shame has on your life and career.

• Why Self-Compassion is Key: The ultimate goal is to embrace the fact that while good people can do bad things, it doesn’t make them unworthy of love and connection. Self-compassion and honest reflection allow us to experience guilt without spiraling into toxic shame.

Why You Should Listen: If you’re an author who has ever worried about a bad review, social media backlash, or being misunderstood publicly, this episode is a must-listen. Claire’s candid discussion of how shame affects us at a fundamental human level and her practical advice on what to do when you’re feeling attacked will help you build resilience, develop self-awareness, and prepare for the inevitable challenges of being a public figure.

Join the Conversation: Have you ever faced public shaming or harsh criticism? Share your experiences and strategies with Claire by emailing her at contact@ffs.media. If you need support, Claire is there to offer empathy and guidance as you work through these complex emotions.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name is Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain. I'm going to tell you right now that today's episode is probably going to make you very uncomfortable to listen to.

It's also probably going to make me very uncomfortable to record. That's because we're going to be discussing one of the most unpleasant human emotions, in my opinion, and in most people's opinion.

But as you know, if we don't talk about it, then it just sort of sits there, right outside of our view. Threatening us ominously. If you are someone who publishes books, congratulations, you're now a public figure. What I mean by that is you've entered into a group of people whom the general population believes they have a right to criticize [00:01:00] and somehow deserve to control.

Now, if you're from somewhere like Texas, where I'm from, just being a woman puts you in the category of, uh, someone others think they have a right to control and criticize. But, I digress. So, once we become public figures, this looming threat begins to appear. Really, as soon as we get on social media, the threat begins.

Or, maybe even as soon as we leave the house nowadays, with everyone having cameras within reach. And that threat is that we will do or say something that leads everyone to turn against us. shunning us. That is a very deep human fear.

If you look at the Enneagram, all nine of the core fears are actually designed to protect against being shunned by everyone else and losing our connection to others. Each type tries different maneuvers, like attempting to be perfect, trying to outperform others, or being the strongest of the group. But [00:02:00] make no mistake, all of it is designed to guarantee your access to connections with others.

Yes, even the self isolation of the five is designed for that very purpose. That's why on this week's episode, I'm going to address a deep concern, one that's often so scary, it's not even vocalized. But make no mistake, it's, it's there. And that is, what if I'm publicly shamed?

There are some practical steps to take when you're being shamed online. And I say when, not if, because if you participate in any form of social media, or just publish books, Someone's going to get a bug up their ass and come after you and trying to make you feel ashamed for whatever it is. So there are some practical steps to keep from baiting a rabid dog, and I'll talk about those. But I also think we need to discuss what shame is, how it functions, and how you can lessen its grip on your head, heart, and body. There's also the matter of Enneagram types 4 being in the shame triad, [00:03:00] meaning much of their subconscious attention is focused on avoiding shame.

Does that mean that they are the only ones who need to listen to this episode? Absolutely not. Everyone can experience shame, so let's just get that out in the open. I will say though, if you're a 4, you're probably going to learn some really useful techniques as we talk about how shame functions. You have the opportunity to learn something that might change your life in this episode.

I know that sounds super braggadocious of me, so I take no credit for the knowledge that I may or may not effectively convey. These are just things I've learned from other people, much smarter teachers of the Enneagram than me generally, and I'm really excited to relay it to you in case it unlocks some new understanding that could lead to a little bit of liberation.

So most shaming nowadays happens online. That's where the public gathers and just to validate your fear Yeah, it is super scary to think about one angry fan or disgruntled author reading something you wrote Possibly out of context or [00:04:00] misinterpreting some action you took as bad faith and then weaving a story about you That doesn't seem very true to you Here's what you shouldn't do if you discover that negativity about you is starting up online.

First, don't strike back. Shame has this way of telling you that if you shame them even more, you'll feel less ashamed. There's a retaliatory energy to it, but make no mistake, that's just an evolutionary advantage of shame to self perpetuate. The first thing you want to do if negativity starts online is to get offline and begin regulating your emotions.

This is your very first task. If that shame has started to stick to you, and it does very easily, it's going to tell you not to reach out for help, because that would mean talking about your shame. So shame lies to us, telling us that if we talk about it openly, we'll only feel [00:05:00] more intense shame. That can be true if you talk to the wrong person about it, so don't do that.

You need to find someone who will show empathy, who will show empathy. When they hear about your shame. I'll talk more about that later, but for now, just trust me. That's the next step. It'll help you regulate your emotions so that you can then think more clearly about what to do next.

I read a book by Chris Syme called Crisis Management for Authors a few years ago. And that talks about how authors can manage a crisis like this in the most effective way, to keep from spiraling and to avoid accidentally feeding the monster. So she recommends not doing or saying anything for the first, I think it was 24 hours, maybe 48 hours, but I think it's 24, to see if it'll just die off on its own, , whatever the drama is, just see if it dies off.

If you're gonna be able to do that though. You need to manage your own sense of shame. If you can't regulate that, not saying anything for 24 hours will become impossible. And by not saying anything that includes vague [00:06:00] posts. Okay. No vague posting, nothing. Disappear from social media for 24 hours. If things still haven't calmed down after that, then you may want to reach out to someone who handles crisis management, depending on how popular you are at the time.

It's definitely more difficult for a shame campaign to gain momentum against an author that nobody knows. If that's you, just wait it out for the 24 hours and focus on managing your emotions of shame and possibly anger. That'll be your biggest task.

If you're more well known as an author, and it's clear the campaign is picking up speed against you, then go hire someone who specializes in crisis PR. It'll probably be the best money you've ever spent, honestly. Does it suck that you have to spend it? Yes. Is it fair? No. But someone who doesn't have actual skin in the game like you do, and who has experience in this area, is guaranteed to do a better job of managing it [00:07:00] than you will.

All you have to do is let them handle it. Or maybe just get a consultation and they can give you some good advice. It depends on the person, but those people do exist. And I'm sure you can find one that, you know, you like, or you vibe with via Google or a personal recommendation and then just go from there.

Okay, so we know the basic practical steps for when something like this happens. It's rare that public shaming occurs in person anymore, like if you're on a stage or something. But I guess it could happen, right? If that's the case, it's going to be really difficult. There's no way around that. If you can, take some deep breaths and use some of the skills to combat shame that I'll talk about now. So shame is a socially focused emotion. It threatens our connection with others, but also with ourselves. We can only ever be as connected to others as we are to ourselves.

So if you're feeling really disconnected from others and unable to connect [00:08:00] with them, the good news is that you can turn your attention toward connecting with yourself through things like mindfulness, self compassion, physical activity, and so forth. Kind of the added bonus of doing this Enneagram work on ourselves. We're clearing out all the false narratives that make it really hard for us to connect with others. We don't have to focus on fixing our relationships with others. We really only need to work on our relationship with ourselves, and then it naturally becomes easier to connect.

To connect with other people.

Anyway, the important thing to know about shame, outside of it being a socially focused emotion and one that is geared toward creating control over another person, and if you're following along, yes, liberation is the opposite of control, hence working toward liberation of ourselves is a great way to break free of the control that shame has us under.

It is also important to know about shame that the goal is to tell us that we are wrong. It doesn't allow us to see the possibility that we simply made a transgression. [00:09:00] Instead, it tells us that any wrongdoing we may have carried out was a reflection of our own inherent wrongness, or badness, or unworthiness of love.

To be able to disagree with shame, we have to accept the reality that good people can do Bad, harmful things. Caring people can do selfish things. Protective people can do predatory things. Peaceful people can do aggressive things, and so on. We need to agree with the premise that while an action may reflect a deeper part of us, it does not reflect all of us.

No matter what we've done, we can still be deserving of love and connection. This is not a small ask for some people listening. You may already be thinking that you don't believe what I just said. You may believe that a loyal person could never cheat on their spouse. So if they cheat, they must be a fundamentally disloyal person.

Or you might think that any reader with a [00:10:00] true sense of depth and beauty could never enjoy a surface level book. Those two things may seem incompatible to you, but humans are very complex, and that's both good news and bad news. In this case, it's good news.

When we mess up and step outside of our integrity, which everyone will, the best approach is to look at the behavior and say, that was the wrong thing to do. I wish I hadn't done that. I'm going to do my best not to do it again, and in the meantime, I'll try to make things right. Those simple steps, the backbone of a true apology, are not only the best way to avoid shame, but also the best way to show love to ourselves.

It's not I did something I didn't like so now I'm a terrible person who is no longer worthy of love, protection, or connection. It's I did something wrong and now I want to make it right.

This is very important. If we water the seeds of shame through self loathing, not [00:11:00] only do you not deserve that, but it also makes it really hard to bounce back in our careers. There can be a belief that this self loathing, this penance, will somehow make things right, but that's just shame lying to you. To note here, there is a difference between shame and guilt.

So shame is, I am bad, and guilt is, I have done a bad thing. Essentially, guilt can lead to regret, which is a powerful emotion for setting things right and making amends. It calls us to do the uncomfortable work that may be required to repair connections, our actions have frayed or broken.

By that definition, guilt is not the same thing as what my husband and father carry around all their lives, often called a Catholic guilt. So Catholic guilt is generally a deep belief that there's something inherently sinful or wrong about you. In other words, it's just shame. A generalized sense of shame.

So that's why it tends to be so destructive. Guilt, on the other hand, is actually a really [00:12:00] useful emotion. People who can't get to guilt, whose egos don't even allow them to admit that they did something that hurt a connection, become very unpleasant to be in a relationship with over the long term. Maybe even over the short term.

But as long as we're experiencing shame, it's almost impossible to get through that and get to guilt. Shame takes up all the oxygen in the room. So hopefully you're starting to see how unproductive shame actually is, even though when we're in it, it seems to be speaking cold, hard truth to us. We'll feel shame throughout our author careers, whether or not it's cast on us by the public.

So learning to identify when we're experiencing it is a handy tool to have in our toolbox. If you can notice when you're feeling shame, Especially for Enneagram 2s, 3s, and 4s. It might be almost all the time. Especially if you're a social subtype of 4, which is known as the shame subtype. But if you can start to recognize shame, begin [00:13:00] logging what it feels like in your body.

This not only helps you better identify it in the future, but it also brings you out of being in shame into observing it. Which immediately helps over identifying with it. Observing our emotions rather than being consumed by them is what we call mindfulness. Oh yeah. Mindfulness is effective because it depersonalizes our emotions.

These emotions are things that are happening, but they're not necessarily the truth of the universe or the truth of who we are. So when you feel ashamed, What does it feel like? Does it feel like tightness in your chest, tingling in your arms, a foggy brain? It could be anything. So the important thing is to notice when it's creeping up on you.

And the more frequently you notice it, the faster you'll be able to recognize it. And the sooner you'll be able to start taking steps to relieve yourself of it. The first thing you want to do when you're feeling shame, and this is gonna feel counterintuitive because of [00:14:00] the lies shame tells us, is to find someone you trust, someone empathetic and tell them, I am feeling a lot of shame about blank, whatever.

So this is immediate relief from shame because it counteracts shame's desire to make us feel separated and disconnected from other people. Empathy connects us with others, so by finding an empathetic listener, you're quickly shining a light on shame's lie in a way that's pretty impossible to dispute.

If you're not sure who in your life would be that empathetic listener, this is where a good therapist might come in handy. It's also where faith in a loving God can be really helpful, reminding you that your connection to the collective will always be there because God is everything, God is forgiving, and God doesn't judge you.

If your version of God is not that loving and forgiving, this won't work. You may be trapped in [00:15:00] shame. You'll likely always live with a cloud of shame over you if you've crafted God in the image of a judgmental human.

So anyway, that's just a tip for my deconstruction friends. If you don't believe in God, you can just ignore that part.

Now I understand this is a podcast for authors. So let's bring this back to your author career. It's damn near impossible to write through a thick fog of shame. Unless maybe you're writing some sort of angry manifesto. Which, those don't sell that well, so maybe we want to reconsider. Um, but also, why would you even try to write something?

Through a thick fog of shame. It's incredibly demotivating. If you notice that shame is the presiding emotion when you sit down to write, your writing time might be better spent addressing that shame rather than trying to use it as some sort of fuel for the story you're crafting. The world could certainly stand to have more stories about [00:16:00] shame, where people experience it and navigate it, but those stories don't exist.

don't actually need to be written from a place of deep shame. In fact, if you try, you might end up crafting stories that encourage people to feel more shame in their lives. Because again, shame is designed to proliferate. As a side note, you've probably heard me use the words good and bad and right and wrong more in this episode than in any other.

And Enneagram one, although my inclination as a one is to use that language. I have to be mindful about not putting right and wrong where it doesn't belong. So, the reason I use the words right and wrong a lot in this episode is because those are the words generally used in literature about shame. Am I a bad person, rather than I did a bad thing? So, bad can mean whatever it means to you. You could replace bad and good, right and wrong, with whatever labels your Enneagram type [00:17:00] tends to overuse.

For instance, a four might use original or authentic as good, and ordinary or unoriginal as bad or wrong. An 8 might use strong as right, and weak as wrong, and so forth. So it's not just coming from my Enneagram 1 filter, all of this language. Although it is really nice to not have to self filter quite so hard for this episode.

Uh, just a little treat for me. Okay, so I've kind of poked at this from a few different angles, but just to spell it out. Shame decreases our sense of connection to ourselves. The stronger that sense of shame, the more disconnected we are. That disconnection from self is also what we call self awareness.

I'm not talking about the sort of self consciousness where you're overthinking things at a party. Self awareness is simply the awareness of the patterns we tend toward, so that we can observe them rather than be consumed by them. Once we can observe through self awareness, we're [00:18:00] able to make different decisions, and that's usually the only way we can make different decisions.

So connection to self determines self awareness and vice versa. The measurement of that connection is what we call the levels of development in the Enneagram. Sometimes these are called levels of integration, but I like development. Uh, there are nine levels of development for each type, three healthy, three average, three unhealthy.

If you wanna read more about this specific to your type, Rizo and Hudson cover it extensively in the wisdom of the Enneagram and on the Enneagram Institute website. So shame has a way of spiraling us down these levels of development. It disconnects us from the truth that we are already, the thing we seek to be.

We are already worthy of love and that doesn't change. We are already safe and taken care of. we already have the guidance we need. We are already significant and meaningful in this world and on and on. So shame tells us that's not true. That means to [00:19:00] move toward integrating these truths. We have to tackle shame.

We have to develop tools and practices that we can reach for when shame inevitably tries to take us down. And it's best to put these practices into place and develop these tools when we're not able to.

By the time that happens, it's really too late to start the practice. It just won't work. So here's one place you can start. I want you to think about your author career. And I want you to dig up one piece of shame you feel about it. You'll feel shame about it in some kind of way. Everyone does. It's a very universal experience.

If you feel like shame is, it's not there that you don't have anything you feel at least a little bit ashamed about, keep looking. You've probably created a lot of razzle dazzle to avoid calling the shame what it is, because shame is just that painful. It's just that painful to admit that we're feeling it.

Maybe you've fallen asleep to it, or it feels more [00:20:00] like anger to you, but keep looking until you find it. It's there. And if it takes a lot of work to find, that's a really interesting thing to know about yourself, that you bury shame pretty deep so that it's hard to address.

If you're able to write down what that shame is, Do that. If you're not in a place where you can write, maybe you're driving or it's just not safe to do so, I don't know, then pause this and say aloud to yourself what that shame is. Then I want you to think of one person you can express that to, someone who will offer you empathy.

I want you to run this experiment so that you can observe the relief you get from speaking the shame to the right person versus holding on to it. You may find that you immediately feel better, and that writing or a marketing task that seemed impossible before now seems much easier. Interesting. So maybe that's writing the next scene, or reaching out to an established author who offered to promote your book but you couldn't respond to because of [00:21:00] Some feeling you were having.

It could be anything.

But we want to run the experiment mindfully to begin reprogramming your brain's response to shame in small amounts before that shame floods you. I guarantee you if you haven't been doing this work diligently, your brain's response to sever connection. Disappear. Check out. Fight back.

Something that harms connection. That is what shame will trigger as a response inside of you. And as we've discussed, that's the opposite of what we want to do. Yeah, the idea of being publicly shamed is a nightmare. But this is something we can prepare ourselves for ahead of time to better respond when it happens.

And the benefits of preparing ourselves for the future will also immediately impact our present. And possibly even improve our relationship with the past. So to answer the question, what if I'm publicly shamed? I'll say this, it will suck. [00:22:00] It will be painful, but there are practical steps you can take to avoid making it worse.

And there's a lot of work within your control that you can do to make this pain less intense and help it pass more quickly. So that's all inner work centered on how we respond to shame. It's possible that if we're publicly shamed. It's because we did something that we wish we hadn't done, something that we regret.

Not just because the shaming occurred, but because what we did wasn't in alignment with our integrity, or it hurt someone unintentionally. But only when we work through the shame can we reach the guilt associated with what we did, feel regret. And use that guilt and regret to work toward repair, where humans and humans fuck shit up.

It happens. The people we never got apologies from are often the ones most consumed by shame. They can't reach the point of guilt and regret. So we don't, we don't want to be those people, right? So [00:23:00] let's work together and reach out to each other when needed so that perfection and never messing up isn't a prerequisite for a long, sustainable author career.

We can take comfort in knowing that we get to be human and be in the public eye. The pain that comes from someone being disgruntled or genuinely hurt is part of the process, but it's not insurmountable by any means. So that's it for this episode of What If for Authors, and I'm so glad you joined me.

I've coached authors who've gone through the massive public pylons before, and I understand the soul crushing nature of it. But of course I've also faced public attempts to shame me, sort of a natural consequence of being a woman writing religious satire. What I've learned from my own experience and from working with others going through it is that shame is never productive. If you need help dealing with shame, you can reach out to me. If you don't know anyone else who can offer you empathy without judgment, send me an email. Let that be your starting point.[00:24:00]

You have support. You have connection. So send me an email at contact@FFS.media. I'm Claire Taylor, and I hope you'll join me again next week for another episode of What If for Authors. Thanks.

Episode 19: What if I'm on a tight budget?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If For Authors, Claire Taylor tackles one of the biggest challenges many indie authors face: working with a tight budget. Claire shares insights from her own experience of starting out on a shoestring budget and provides practical strategies for authors who want to make their writing career work without breaking the bank. Whether you're an author with no extra funds or someone who’s being mindful of their spending, this episode dives deep into how to navigate publishing costs, leverage skills, and avoid common budget pitfalls based on your Enneagram type.

Key Takeaways:

• Start Small, Learn More: You can launch your author career with very little upfront cost. Claire shares how she started out with just a website and Adobe suite and worked her way up over time, stressing the importance of learning new skills to save money.

• Trade Skills with Other Authors: One great way to get things done without spending is to trade services with other authors. Claire discusses the value of learning key skills, and how fair exchanges can help you stay on budget.

• Where Budgeting Anxiety Comes From: Each Enneagram type faces different fears and anxieties when working on a tight budget. Claire walks through each type and how their specific tendencies affect their budgeting decisions.

• Avoid the Credit Card Trap: Claire advises against opening credit cards or overspending on courses and marketing tools before you’re ready. Patience and gradual progress are key when working on limited funds.

• Overcoming Mindset Blocks: Having a tight budget is not necessarily a disadvantage. Claire explains how shifting your mindset from scarcity to opportunity can build resilience and help sustain your author career in the long run.

Why You Should Listen: If you're an indie author struggling with budget constraints or just looking for ways to make your money stretch further, this episode is full of actionable tips and advice tailored to each Enneagram type. Claire’s personal experience and expert coaching help demystify how to balance financial limitations with building a successful author business. This episode will not only help you feel empowered to work within your means but also give you the confidence to continue on your path, no matter how tight the budget may be.

Join the Conversation: Sign up for the 5-Day Author Supercharge course at FFS.media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a Humor and Mystery Writer. You can check out my latest books to sustain your author career by going to ffs.media/sustain. Man, that's a mouthful some days.

Anyway, I've received feedback from folks lately that they really appreciate the shorter length of my episodes. Maybe like 25 to 35 minutes. I hear you. I love the feedback. Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't think this is going to be a short episode because I have a lot to say on our topic today.

We will see though, maybe I can get a little bit of auctioneer energy going and we can just get through this quicker. Even though I am, I am filming this right after lunch. We'll see, Hey, miracles can happen. All right. So people start their author journey from all different entry points. [00:01:00] Maybe you're working a nine to five that pays bills, but isn't that interesting?

Or you've had a long career doing something else like practicing law or medicine or working in law enforcement. And now you're ready to try something a little bit different in its pace. A lot of the people I work with have disabilities that make it hard for them to get a job or stay in a job. And so their resources are limited,

But they're hoping that in pursuing an author career, they can generate a source of revenue that will make their life a little easier while also allowing them the flexibility that they need. I also work with a lot of authors who are stay at home parents, and maybe you've always wanted to write, and you're also hopeful that it could generate a little side pop for something like family vacations, or even saving up for kids college.

Hearing about where the authors I work with are coming from, what life experience they're bringing with them, and what situation they're working within, it's really one of the most interesting perks of what I do. [00:02:00] I really never hear the same story twice. But one common thing that I do hear is anxieties about the cost of publishing, especially as an indie author.

So that's why today's episode is going to be asking the question, what if I'm working on a tight budget? Now a tight budget is going to look different from person to person. For some people, it might be that they have no available income to spare when it comes to investing in their book, in their career, like zero money.

It's all relative and a matter of perspective though, right? So some people might consider a tight budget 10 grand to get the book from inception through editing, get it a cover designer, and launch it with some basic marketing. I don't really know that I'm an authority on how much everything should cost, but I will say that people who are charging you thousands of dollars simply to publish your book are most likely scamming you. They're playing this [00:03:00] middleman and saying that you need a middleman, but you really don't need a middleman.

Most of the time, they're not producing value other than possibly saving you some time and effort when it comes to learning how to do the basic things that they're doing for you with their service.

If you plan on publishing more than one book, it's absolutely worth the investment to learn how to do the things like Working with a cover designer, formatting for an ebook and print, and maybe creating some basic graphics, that sort of thing. So this is what I'm going to talk about for most of the episode. If you're on a tight budget or no budget, I assure you that you can make it work. It's gonna take more time, and if your time and energy are limited resources, then it may just be a while before you can publish that book. And that's okay. There's really no race going on here. I know it feels like there is.

You know, death could come for us all at any moment. But living life in a rush like that is not a great way to enjoy any of it. What we [00:04:00] also all know, probably by now, is that I hate talking about myself on this show. It, I don't know, it just feels really embarrassing to me to talk about my own personal stuff.

I do it, because sometimes it helps illustrate a point, but it is a little bit embarrassing. , and also, I know that I'm not a universal example, so I do worry that if I give a single example Some folks may just compare themselves to that, and it could be a favorable comparison, but it could also be an unfavorable comparison.

So don't take any examples that I give from personal experience as a, this is the one way to do it. Okay. That being said. I will use myself as an example sometimes or explain where I'm coming from because I think it gives you a sense of my perspective as I explain these things. And in this case, it does show that I'm not one of those very moneyed people who shows up and goes, Why don't the poor just work harder [00:05:00] if they want to be rich?

Uh, that's not me. . When I first started writing with a career in mind, I was still working as a teacher. And so I was working 60 to 70 hours a week, getting paid jack shit, shout out to Texas for devaluing teachers, but then blaming them for every fucking social ill. Anyway, at the time I was also planning a wedding that was getting very expensive.

I didn't , particularly want to have a wedding. I was helping support John cause he was barely making above the minimum wage while he was going through the Academy. So, yeah, uh, it was still the most money I'd ever made working as a teacher at the time. I'd worked some pretty shit jobs, but I really didn't have anything to put towards writing at the time.

So this was where that tight budget really, really showed up for me. And even since then, I've had times where things are just not going according to plan or I need to make a pivot and I need to really tighten things up again. So I do have some experience with this.

So when I [00:06:00] started my writing business, in that it wasn't making money at the time yet, but it was, I was running it as a business with a desire to sell books. , I started with just the expense of like a cheap WordPress website and the Adobe suite, the Adobe Creative Suite. So that included Photoshop and Design, Premiere and Illustrator.

I had some experience with Premiere and Photoshop, but not much. , so I think at the time that was like 30 bucks a month. So it wasn't a zero dollar a month budget, but it was less than a hundred. And I probably kept that budget for the first year, year and a half. Once I had enough books out, I sort of dipped my toes into Amazon ads at that point.

So I was generating a little bit more revenue for my editing at this point. I quit my job as a teacher, so my income was a little less than before, but my husband's income was a little more than before. So it was kind of, it kind of balanced out. Anyway, I won't bore you with all the details, but I will [00:07:00] say that it was a little while before I started to throw real money at my business.

It was a few years. So you can do a lot on a tight budget for a long time because the most important part of building up your business is simply making writing good books. You don't even have to get them edited one at a time if you don't have that money. You can write a bunch of books before you start hiring someone to edit them for you.

And frankly, you don't technically have to hire an editor. Oof. I know. I, I know. I know. But there is no rule that you have to do that. So there are tools like Grammarly and ProWritingAid that you can use to kind of get your book into decent shape. And if you're comfortable with that whole minimum viable product thing, then that can work.

If you're an Enneagram one, don't worry. I'm not talking about this for you. This is not for you. Enneagram one's [00:08:00] minimum viable product is like oil and water. So the biggest tool that you have, if you're working on a shoestring budget, is your ability to learn. If you are unwilling to learn new skills, this is going to be much, much harder.

So, not impossible, but much harder. If you don't already have at least one very useful skill for authors, then it's safe to say, Time to develop one, essentially. Now this could be making websites, writing sales copy, like maybe you're good at writing, , sales page blurbs. It could be editing, beta reading, cover design, creating graphics in Canva.

Maybe you want to learn how to do ads really well. So you want to work on a shoestring budget, you need to find something that you're at least decent at that authors need. And then what you do is you start trading off services with other authors. This is just how you start from the ground up. If you don't have money, you use your time and your [00:09:00] expertise.

If you don't have time, you need a lot of expertise. If you don't have expertise, I've got great news for you. There's this thing called YouTube. It's a great resource to learn all kinds of useful skills.

If you have the time to dedicate to it, but some skills, especially those around marketing and advertising will take some initial investment to get good at. So anytime I start a marketing platform that's new, I expect to lose a bunch of money at first. I call it tuition, makes me feel better. And it's so much cheaper than even a single semester of my college education.

So that's what I do. I just consider it tuition. You've got to learn. There's going to be that initial investment. You could also call it education tax, you know, whatever feels right. But if you don't have money to throw at that at all, Then you probably don't want to start developing skills in something like marketing and ads.

If [00:10:00] you can afford 20 bucks a month to create a Canva account, there is a lot of need for graphics that authors have. , and you can start to create little graphics packages. you know, go out and make an account and something like Upwork and offer this as a service to generate some income, but I don't really recommend it.

I think the best way to do this is simply to create some graphics for yourself and post them on social media. So meet other authors, tell them what you're offering. If you can find a few people who are the sort of maven personality types, who know a bunch of other authors and enjoy recommending services that they like, those are the people to start with.

And you want to give them some services for free. And you want to, you know, do them some favors and give them your best work. And then you'll start to see the slow trickle of other authors who are coming in and asking if you can help them. So you can either charge for these [00:11:00] graphics, or if you're working with other authors who have a skill that you need, like maybe they love to beta read, then offer to swap services.

So one word of advice on swapping services. You need to make sure that the effort and the general price estimates have balance. So if they're going to spend 15 hours beta reading your book, let's say, and then you only offer them five marketing graphics with their book cover, that's not really an even trade, is it?

So as an Enneagram 1, I know a thing or two about things that are fair and what happens over the long term with relationships when things are not fair. So I think it's really important to keep track of the work that you're doing versus the work that they're doing for you. If you're, if you're conducting swaps of any kind, keeping track of things.

Tip for tat may be bad and like say a marriage, but this is not a marriage. This is a business exchange. Even if it's really friendly and [00:12:00] congenial. Keeping track will also allow you to validate any feelings you begin to have that maybe you're being taken advantage of, which sometimes happens. People will take advantage of people in this business knowingly or unknowingly, but especially if they are not, the most pro social people and they know that you're just starting out and you probably are in a power down position.

I'll do an episode on getting scammed at some point soon, so I'll just leave that there for now.

Okay, so all of this is pretty basic practical information and a lot of it is probably things you've already heard before or could have figured out on your own. So why do people still have anxiety about getting started or downsizing to a tight budget? What is the thing about working on a tight budget that really starts to make people anxious?

So this is probably the simplest approach for me, but maybe not the easiest because I'm feeling a little lazy today, but whatever. [00:13:00] So I'll just go through the types and talk about where the fear is going to show up in this process of getting started on a tight budget. Instead of starting with the reformers, like I usually do, because I love a good sequential order.

I'm going to jump to the end and go to the peacemakers first and then work my way backwards. I don't know. I'm just feeling a little love for Peacemakers today, and I don't want them to have to wait till last like they usually do. Anyway, okay, if you're an Enneagram 9, the Peacemaker, there are going to be a lot of moments in this jumpstart process that could possibly unsettle your peace of mind.

Every single one of these that pops up is going to look like an exit rant for you. Any opportunity, any, any task that comes up that might disrupt your peace of mind is going to make you wonder if there's another option. For instance, it generally takes a long [00:14:00] time to write a book. So let long time mean whatever you want it to mean.

My point is that it feels like a long time from starting a book to finishing it. If you have other responsibilities in your life, which you probably do. And this could look like another job, taking care of a relative or whatever, those responsibilities and time commitments are going to come into conflict with actually getting this book written.

And when that happens, you are very likely to not want to experience the energy of anger. That is very important. That is crucial to saying no to things.

Anger helps us protect our autonomy, which includes our wants and needs. It's a signal that someone may be taking advantage of us and we might want or need to give them a no.

But if saying no feels like conflict to you, what will likely happen? is you will look at your book and say, it's not that big of a deal. It's fine. If I don't work on this today, [00:15:00] it's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

I've seen a lot of nines. It's fine themselves into never completing that first book or whatever the next book is. So nines, you can have a bit of a complex of I'm nobody special, and that can lead to a desire to sort of stay out of the way. Now doing that makes it really hard to recognize what skills you have to offer for something like a trade with another author.

If you're working on a tight budget, it's not that you don't have skills. It's that the need to stay hidden to protect your autonomy and avoid any sort of feelings of conflict or anger is making you fall asleep to the skills that you have that do make you special.

So if you are a nine working on a tight budget, With possibly limited time or many other responsibilities. Notice if the book isn't getting done and ask yourself if you are, I'm finding it the, it's not a big deal. [00:16:00] Um, approach to that book because it's really hard to write when that's the case. All right.

Type eight, the challenger. If you're an eight, what I really discourage you from doing to start out if you are on a tight budget is. opening up a credit card. Okay. Keep an eye on that. Maybe don't do it if you can help it. So the vice of the eight is lust, which is sort of this. I need it right now. Energy working on a tight budget almost always means doing one project at a time or taking one approach at a time and doing it slowly to see if it's working at all before rushing straight into it.

If you're an 8 and you haven't worked on that all or nothing mentality, you're very likely going to run up against that credit card limit very quickly, before you even know whether or not you can earn that money back.

There are some things in this industry that cannot be forced. So if you're an eight, your approach of saying nothing will stop me, [00:17:00] I'll make it happen. It can get you into some trouble if you're on a tight budget. Because again, I know you don't want to hear this eights, but sometimes the situation is such that you can run into the brick wall as many times as you want.

And that wall will not come down. You'll just end up with a concussion. Yeah. So if you are an eight on a tight budget, look for where you're rebelling against your tight budget. I mean, you're the one that's setting the budget, so there's really no reason to stick it to yourself. Just keep an eye on that.

Sevens, the enthusiasts will have a similarly tricky time staying on a tight budget. So this is not to say that every seven has some sort of shopping addiction or anything like that, but the vice of the type is gluttony.

So the vice is just the sort of, , you know, trap that we tend to walk into of our type over and over and over again in every way. That's why vices are super fun. So the vice of gluttony, it's less of a focused intensity [00:18:00] than the vice of lust. That the eights have and more of an everything at once pattern, right?

So the thing that sevens build their life around is avoiding limitations.

Limitations is what's called the vulnerability of the seven. And so you can see how limiting a budget is not going to feel very good to the seven. What this may look like is blowing the budget by trying to do too many ad platforms a little bit without mastering them. So buy, buy money. That's a real quick way to do it.

But it may also look like starting too many projects at once, but not getting any ready for an editor and therefore not really moving the business forward. Writing the book is generally the cheapest part of the process and it's the most important. If you don't finish a book, it's really hard to ever get out of that stage of having a tight budget unless your financial circumstances change outside of your writing business.

So if you're a seven, just start to notice the ways that anything that [00:19:00] feels like limitation will, which will be a lot for you, triggers that need for stimulation, for going and getting everything all at once, but not closing off any options or possibilities.

If you are a six, the loyalist, keeping tight reins on your budget will probably feel very natural. What you might run into though is that old pattern of doubt. So with the money you have, how do you know if it's going to a smart place or if you're being scammed? How do you know if the person who's telling you what to do is a credible authority? How do you know if you're writing your book the right way? And of course I'm being sarcastic because there's no right or wrong way to write a book.

So if you're trying to do all this on a tight budget, that doubt is going to likely slow things down to a crawl. The best thing you can do, and probably the most natural thing for you to do, is to start building your network with other authors of various experience [00:20:00] in the industry. If you're a six, your gut is pretty damn good at figuring out who you can trust and who is just out for their own ambitions. Go ahead and use that gift. In this case, if you meet someone who seems trustworthy in this industry, it doesn't matter if you can see what expertise they have that might be useful to you now or in the future, just connect with them.

Because what you really need is someone to bounce ideas off of who seems to have your best interest in mind. So when you start to go back and forth on a decision, you won't have to do that indefinitely. You can go and talk to that person you trust who understands a little bit about what you're going through because they're going through it themselves or have gone through it themselves and you can get their advice.

And then this is important. Just take their advice. Honestly. If you're going back and forth between two options and you really can't see one that is jumping out to you as the better option, then probably you don't have enough [00:21:00] information to know yet. And the only way to get that information is to make a decision and move forward.

Listen, it might turn out to be the wrong decision. You regret it. Welcome to being an author where you make a lot of decisions you eventually wish you hadn't. Uh, that's just part of the process. So if you can end up making more beneficial decisions over the long term than decisions you regret, even if it's just like one or two more, you're doing great.

It'll become easier for you to make decisions as you get more experience in the industry. But when you're starting out and on a tight budget, or you're starting out in a new pen name on a tight budget, and you have previous experience, but are getting experience in the specific genre you're in, then the only way to have the information you need to make an informed decision is to try things out.

So probably if you can hear what your gut instinct is saying, just go with that. A rule that usually works well for sixes is always go with your first instinct. Your [00:22:00] second instinct will come along, maybe a third, fourth, fifth instinct. , if you just default to your first instinct over the long term, you'll see positive results.

But again, if you're really stuck, just ask one of those connections you've made and take their advice. Besides people like it when you take their advice. You know, it strengthens relationship, builds trust, so forth. All right. Type fives, the investigators. Okay. Fives. Listen up. I know you probably got very excited when I said that working on a tight budget means going and learning a bunch of new skills on the internet for you though, that part is going to feel safe and not scary, or at least less scary than concluding that you now know enough to get started on action.

Your natural attention towards self sufficiency is, it's going to be a huge benefit to you and working on a tight budget. It just is. Until, you know, it's not. And then it's very [00:23:00] much not. That's because fives have a hard time knowing when they know enough to get started. So fives generally want to have zero questions left before they start taking action. But there are always questions that can't be answered until you take action. That's why the scientific method isn't just hypothesis conclusion. You have to run experiments, and you have to run experiments enough that the information you're getting, the data, is significant.

Okay. I've seen fives blow through that tight budget very quickly by signing up for a bunch of courses that they never take. So this would be known as the sort of knowledge hoarding that we sometimes see with fives. It comes from that fear of being incompetent showing up and it's showing up in our spending habits.

Will I ever read all of these books that I buy? Of course not. Will I ever take all of the courses that I purchased? Also no. No. But that's not the reason that you [00:24:00] bought those. If you're a five, the reason you bought those was because your core fear was kicking up. Just one more course, just one more how to book.

And then maybe I'll know enough that I have zero risk of looking foolish when I take action. And the irony of it is that a five who says, yeah, I know a little bit about cover design probably knows more about it than someone of almost any other type who claims to be an expert. If you're a 5, I guarantee you that you are selling your knowledge short.

Fives are also usually the last authors to switch from doing everything themselves to hiring other people to take things off their plate. I can't tell you how many fives I've worked with who are making really good money having started with a tight budget, but because they want to reaffirm their competency by doing things themselves, they're wasting a lot of time doing something that someone else could do just as well or better.

If the five just paid [00:25:00] them. So fives, you're gonna say it's about saving money, but I really need you to pause and reflect on that. Honestly, are you maybe struggling with the idea of asking for help?

If you already know you're capable of doing those things, how much more confirmation do you need before you'll let someone take that off your plate? So you can do other things you'd like to do besides, you know, say the administrative work.

Okay, but that's, that's a question for a later time. Once the five has worked to the point of being off that shoestring budget, we're not necessarily needing to be on as much of a tight budget. Okay, four is your turn. If you are a four, the individualist, you might struggle with the feeling that your book is better than other books you've read that are selling more copies.

This might make you just want to give up. And the defense mechanism I see that pops up is best vocalized as, eh, good [00:26:00] books don't sell, only crap sells nowadays.

I also sometimes hear all of the bestsellers are terrible. People only want surface level books. They don't understand depth anymore. Right? And so on. If you find yourself saying this or thinking this, it's probably a good little sign that envy, which is the vice of the type, is kind of creeping up on you.

So yes, some people may write books that you think are significantly worse than yours. Yes, some authors have a whole lot more money to work with than you do, and that is not fair, I suppose. And yes, some of those authors with much more money than you write books that you think are inferior to yours. Okay, so all that, valid.

But if you let that sentiment take up residence It'll demotivate you to do the basics that you [00:27:00] need to do to eventually get more eyes on your book. Namely, write the book. It's also likely that even if you don't see your own envy as a four, which many, many fours don't, I can still tell you that it's there.

Time and time again, I'll be working with a four and I'll mention, the vice of envy to them and they'll go, I'm not envious. And then we'll have a conversation and they'll go, Oh, okay. I guess I am shit. I guess it's kind of everywhere. So if you're not addressing your patterns of envy, these are emotional patterns of envy.

You can kind of forget about networking, which is really important to work in a tight budget. If you feel disdain for every author that has more money available than you, or whose books you think are inferior to yours, you're really shooting yourself in the foot there. Other people can sense the envy, even if it's [00:28:00] in a blind spot for you.

And a lot of types have absolutely on point radar for it. So if you don't manage that pattern of envy and try to interrupt it and reprogram it, if you give it space to settle down in your heart, You may end up wondering why other authors don't respond to your emails or why they don't feel a strong desire to push you out to their readers.

And that can lead to the feeling of abandonment rejection that can sort of trigger some cycles that if you're a 4 you're probably familiar with so I don't have to explain them. So I know it's really hard to hear this and it's a tough pill to swallow. But the number one thing I see keeping force from success starting up an author business on a tight budget is this pattern of envy.

So I'm pointing it out to you so that you have the opportunity to inspect it. It hides itself very well, and it's incredibly destructive as a pattern. It can also often show up as waiting to be saved or [00:29:00] rescued rather than self rescuing. So. It can be quite insidious and it can be quite demotivating if you're working on a tight budget.

The bottom line is it doesn't really matter how brilliant your book is if this emotional pattern is calling the shots. So, if you are a four, look at that envy and if you notice that you are focusing your attention more frequently on what others have that you don't, that's a sign that it's time to refocus on what you do have at your disposal as far as resources, as far as skills, time, people, you know, that can help you get going when you're working on this tight budget.

All right, type three, the achiever.

Now, you might think I don't have much advice for a three getting started on a tight budget because the attentional patterns of the three really lend themselves to the whole bootstrapping philosophy. Threes are very good at marketing and promotion too because they have a natural talent for knowing what someone [00:30:00] else wants and being able to see through their eyes so that they know how to pitch something to that person or to a larger audience.

So the problem that threes run into here when they're trying to work on a tight budget. Is really about jumping into the marketing phase before you have a substantial product or catalog to market. So this comes from that need to be seen and to go get attention.

You can certainly put together some graphics to get people excited about a book ahead of its release. But I do occasionally see threes jumping into promotion before they even know what the book is going to be about. This may look like buying a cover that they think will sell or making one, putting together a bunch of pretty graphics, building a flattering website that makes them seem very successful, and then being like, Oh yeah, I guess I should write this book.

The problem is that, like I said, writing a book can take a long time, even if you're a three who can find the most efficient route to [00:31:00] anything. If you're already hooked into the gratification of getting attention through marketing. It can be really hard to pull back and not receive that kind of attention during the process of writing the book.

For that reason, writing the book can become incredibly difficult and just not hold your attention.

If you're a three that cares a lot about projecting the image of success. That can put you at risk of overspending, but it can also leave you on the edge all the time. Since a part of you knows that you don't yet have a product to back up that image of success, or maybe you only have a few books and they haven't yet taken off.

That's okay, but it doesn't feel good to try to maintain an image of success when deep down you don't yet feel successful. That drains a lot of energy. So really the biggest risk for a three is getting ahead of themselves and jumping straight into the marketing and the image [00:32:00] construction before writing the books.

Three is you don't need to know your brand yet. Write the books first. You will feel much better about the marketing if you do. Enneagram to the helper. The part of getting started on a tight budget or pulling back into a tight budget that will likely have the most pitfalls for you is the trading off of services with other authors. If you're trading services with someone else, your first instinct is going to be to give more than you receive.

Twos have a very difficult time receiving help. This is Not a revelation to any twos, right? This is the first thing that we generally mention when we're chatting. But in the mind of the two, they're supposed to be the helpful one. That's how they reaffirm their self worth. So what happens when they receive help from others?

What does that say about their self worth? Hmm. But giving substantially more than you receive is how you end up [00:33:00] being stuck on a tight budget for a really long time. It's also how you burn out before you ever start generating enough income to get off of that tight budget.

The secret hope behind the over giving of the two is that they will receive the appreciation that they're desperate for. And, you know, maybe you'll receive some appreciation. Maybe that will happen for you. But Not to be too much of a killjoy or a cutthroat capitalist here, but at the end of the day, businesses run on money, not verbal appreciation.

So if that verbal appreciation leads to sales from your book, then great. But the need for that appreciation can sometimes blind the two to the reality that appreciation is not leading to a sustainable income to continue writing and publishing.

Appreciation is feeding such a deep emotional need that money can seem entirely secondary.

And you [00:34:00] all know me by now. I'm not some sort of money at all costs person by any means.

But I do know that twos, like everyone else, wants to be able to pay their bills each month and being on a tight budget can be stressful over the long term. So if you want to get off that tight budget and you're a two, just make sure to check the numbers rather than going entirely by whether or not you feel appreciated when it comes to evaluating your writing marketing efforts.

And finally, Enneagram type one, the reformer.

There's a book called the Buddhist Enneagram.

And it describes each type as a different kind of warrior.

Type one is called the warrior of exertion. I definitely had a good laugh when I first read that. It's the first place that I've seen that kind of pattern described. So it's not quite like the challengers intensity of forcing things, but it's more like the one develops a high [00:35:00] tolerance to exertion and to white knuckling to make sure that everything is done to a standard of quality as close to perfection as possible.

If you're working on a tight budget and doing all of the things yourself, your life will remain stressful as long as you're trying to do all of the things to perfection.

I need ones to hear this. Okay. There is no reason you should know how to do all of the things well. Figure out which things you can do the most subpar without facing a major lack in sales. So it's really important if you're working on a tight budget as a one that you pick which areas of your business are going to get a C plus effort.

And I know that hurts to even think about, but honestly, I say this with love, who made you so goddamn perfect? Right? Seriously. It's only our ego that tells us that we should be able to do everything really [00:36:00] well. Being a healthy one means learning to love yourself, even when you're being a C plus student in some things.

So if you're going to stay on a tight budget and not give yourself a medical emergency from stress, and I'm not even kidding about that TMJ and migraines anyone. Yeah. If you're going to work on a string budget, you need to make a conscious decision about what you are going to let go in terms of quality.

You are going to be really good at a few things. So maybe let those be the things that you're an A plus student in. And then when you start to make back the money in your budget and a little extra on top and your business starts to really be profitable, The next big mountain for you to climb is going to be admitting that you could pay people to do things that are not essential for you to do and trust that they could do at least as good or better or maybe even [00:37:00] just a little bit worse of a job as you do.

And that's okay. It's worth paying them to do. It's worth not having to do yourself so that you can go enjoy life or just be slightly less stressed out. I don't know how many times I've had this conversation with, uh, an author who's a one where they don't want to let go of some aspect of their production and publishing.

And I ask them, are you any good at it? And they say, not really. It's like, so all you have to do is find someone to pay who's not really good at it. That shouldn't be too hard to find. , you know, but most people are going to be, you know, if you're letting go of your C plus, projects, the things that you just aren't very good at anyway that just take a lot of effort, you're probably gonna be paying someone who that's something that they are naturally good at.

And so you may get better work out of it. But anyway, if you're a one and you're trying to work on a tight budget, you need to pick what you're going to allow to be not your best [00:38:00] effort. Nobody's grading you on this. You're not going to get in trouble for slacking off here.

So stop messing around with those graphics where you're just moving a text box one pixel to the left and maybe two to the right. Just stop. Nobody cares. If your writing business is going to fail because your text isn't completely centered, then there are probably deeper problems going on that could use more of your attention.

But most likely you'll just be fine. Okay?

If you're working on a tight budget, Whether you're just getting started or whether you're revamping your model as you make a pivot, there's definitely a path forward for you, regardless of your type. But you are going to feel some sort of way about it, depending on what Enneagram type you are. And if you don't bring awareness to those feelings and those inclinations of your deeply rooted patterns, there's You could be [00:39:00] stuck in that tight budget for a lot longer than you want to be, or end up in burnout, or end up with massive credit card debt.

It's also just fine to stay on a tight budget for a really long time. There's no rule that says a successful author has to spend a lot of money. But do be aware if you're staying in that mindset for a long time out of fear, or whether you're able to make this choice outside of that, because it actually is the best thing for your wellbeing and creative life.

So to answer the question of what if I'm working on a tight budget, I'd say, welcome to the club. There are a lot of authors doing it in all stages of their career. If you start to become fixated on it as a disadvantage, then it will become a disadvantage. But if you can focus on your ability to pull it off, and you can learn how to do that, it can be a huge boost in confidence and free up a lot of options later on down the road [00:40:00] when you may not be on such a tight budget, but You want to make a pivot that will require you to pull back a little bit in your spending.

Or, you know, when sales just do that thing that they do sometimes, which is dip out of nowhere, shit happens.

The authors that stay in this the longest are the ones that are mentally and emotionally able to expand and contract their business appropriate to their situation and the industry at large. I know it can be easy to get down on ourselves if we don't have a whole lot of money to work with, but when you start to feel those thoughts and emotions creep in, remind yourself of the skill that you're developing right now, and how it could be the difference maker in sustaining your author career over the long term.

That's it for this week's episode of What If For Authors. I'm Claire Taylor. And if you're currently on a tight budget, I do offer more free resources than just this podcast. You can check out my free five day [00:41:00] author supercharge course at ffs. media forward slash five day. And that's the number five and the word day.

Or you can jump into the Enneagram type calls for authors that I do, or you can, , sign up for one of the open monthly Q and A's. Or you can just go ahead and go for all of it and sign up for my email list where I drop tips for authors based on my training and experience, just freebies, kind of whatever is coming to mind that I see a lot of authors are dealing with.

I like to tap into the zeitgeist and sort of extract what needs to be addressed and, and drop that in my emails for free. So my email list is also where you can make sure that, you know, when I have more free offerings coming out, so you can go to ffs.media/joinjoin to sign up, thanks for tuning in y'all. Happy writing.

Episode 18: What if I disappoint my parents?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If For Authors, Claire Taylor dives deep into a hidden anxiety many authors face—disappointing their parents. Whether your parents were loving and supportive, critical, or absent, the relationship you developed with them still influences how you approach your writing career. Claire addresses how these childhood patterns show up in adult life and impact your creative decisions, even when you think you’ve moved past them. By understanding the role your parents’ approval plays in your subconscious, you can start liberating yourself from their influence and reclaim your author career.

Key Takeaways:

• Unpacking Childhood Patterns: Our adult decisions, especially in writing, are often influenced by unresolved dynamics with our parents or guardians. These patterns show up even when we think we’ve moved past them.

• Three Core Childhood Needs: Claire breaks down how the Enneagram types relate to the childhood needs of attention, security, and autonomy, and how these unmet needs manifest in your writing career.

• Parental Approval vs. Creative Freedom: Many authors struggle with writing authentically because of the fear of parental disapproval, even when they aren’t consciously aware of it.

• Reparenting Yourself: Claire introduces the concept of reparenting, a way to heal your inner child and give yourself the unconditional love and approval you may not have received from your parents.

• Practical Exercises: Claire provides exercises to help you visualize what it would mean to fully please your parents and how many aspects of yourself you would have to suppress to do so. She also asks listeners to imagine how they would run their writing careers if parental approval wasn’t a factor.

Why You Should Listen: If you've ever felt like you’re holding back in your writing career due to what your parents (or any authority figure) might think, this episode offers crucial insights. It’s not just about realizing how much influence they still have, but about taking back control of your creative decisions for yourself.

Join the Conversation: Reach out to Claire at FFS.media for one-on-one coaching or author alignment sessions.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a Humor and Mystery Writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain. Today's episode topic might be a little baffling to some people, but I urge you to listen anyway, because what I found is that the people who need to hear this the most often don't recognize that they do.

Ain't that just kind of how it works with this sort of thing? I don't need help. Oh, I might need to hear more about this. Uh, been there. So this is really an anxiety that hides. So underneath one's nose that you can't even see it. Okay, so the topic this week is, What if I [00:01:00] disappoint my parents?

So we're all adults here, right? We may like to flatter ourselves into believing that because we pay our bills and taxes, because we run our own author businesses, we've fully moved out of the role of child and into the role of adult.

If that were how it worked, I would love it. But it is not how it works. Even a little bit. So our brains don't hit an age and suddenly shake off all that old crap they learned about our family dynamics and the part we play in the family of origin system. Instead, we just kind of carry it onward. Just kind of keeps going until we, uh, intervene.

So being an adult doesn't mean you have a fresh start from being a kid. It just means that you have the opportunity to start sorting through all the shit from your childhood. To make better sense of it and start moving on, not have to carry it around all of the time, to start to see the world in new and different [00:02:00] ways.

So let's say your parents are great, okay? They are nice people who parented you well and you love them dearly. You'll still want to listen to this episode. Or let's say your parents were, you know, maybe sort of hit or miss in raising you. You can certainly point to certain things they did for you and feel gratitude for it, but you can also maybe think back on a few patterns and be like, ooh.

That was a really unhealthy thing to do or to say to your child. If that's you, this episode is for you, too. And, you know, if your parents were shit, and you know they were shit, and you've dismissed them as shit, and don't have a relationship with them anymore, this episode is also for you. Has one or both of your parents passed?

That's okay. Still for you. Not raised by your parents, but raised by grandparents, an aunt, foster parents, or some other guardian. [00:03:00] Okay, a little more psychologically complicated, but this is still for you, this still applies what we're talking about today. So we see that it means it's for everyone, truly.

That's because no matter what, you have a relationship with your parents, and I'll call them parents, it could be a guardian, , but I'll just use the word parents so I don't have to repeat a long list of possible things. And whoever parented you is kind of what I mean. Um, but you have a relationship with your parents, and you developed it from the perspective of a child.

And it's really fucking important for children to make their parents proud of them. Whether that's because doing so is the only way to feel safe and cared for, or because you just deeply loved them and didn't want to see them upset or embarrassed. So even if your parent has passed, that dynamic you developed with them when you were a child still exists.

It's how people still hope their parents are proud of them long after the parent has passed. [00:04:00] So the relationship still lives inside of us. In that child version of us that we're carrying around through these patterns that were developed very early on in life. So wanting to make your parents proud, it can be a positive motivator.

In some ways, if you know deeply that what makes them truly proud is for you to be your full spectrum, liberated self through your writing, no matter what that looks like, then great. That might be a little boost to help you along this path, knowing that. But, but, how many of us have parental voices in our heads that are saying, Just do whatever is you, even if it makes some people uncomfortable, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

How many of us actually have those voices saying that? We can only be so lucky as to be raised to deeply believe that no matter what we do, our parents [00:05:00] will be proud of us.

So this means that most of us have parents where their approval is conditional, not unconditional. And when you're writing fiction, you will bump up against those explicit or implicit conditions. Of that approval, if your parents raised you in like purity culture, you will bump up against the choice of writing the sex scene, the way you want to write it on page and disappointing them or earning their disapproval or cutting the scene that your head, heart, and gut are telling you to write so that you stay within the parameters of their conditions for love and approval.

So this is just one example, right? But there are a million of them that I see authors bump up against constantly. I can't tell you how many times I'm working with an author on their story, and they want to write a particular scene or character in a particular way, but they can't make themselves do it because they're worried about what their parents think.

Yes, these are full grown [00:06:00] adults, and most of them don't think of themselves as beholden to their parents approval, but that's what it is.

This can really get in the way of writing the story you want to write, and writing it how you want to write it. And when that happens, you might find yourself stuck on the story or feeling like you're basically driving with the parking brake on when you sit down to write. It might even give you like a full on anxiety attack when it's time to publish the book. Just from thinking about some vague authority figure who you might get in trouble with somehow, without realizing that the authority figure is just the specter of one or both of your parents.

Until you realize that's what it is, that specter is this vague, nebulous, imposing, uh, feeling of your parents watching over you, and not necessarily in a, uh, healthy way, [00:07:00] and until you name it and call it out, that cloud of internalized disapproval will continue to make itself a nuisance.

So there are three triads of the Enneagram that spell out the childhood needs of each type, and I've talked about these in episodes before, but I'll refresh us on it. So twos, threes, and fours on the Enneagram are stuck in the childhood need of attention, or being seen and appreciated. Fives, sixes, and sevens are Eights, nines, and ones are stuck in the childhood need of security, or having enough resources.

And eights, nines, and ones are stuck in the childhood need of autonomy, or exerting influence and control without being influenced or controlled by outside sources.

The fact that we see these childhood needs appear so brazenly in our author career and how we build the whole damn thing around getting these needs met shows us that the child [00:08:00] is still alive and well inside of us, calling most of the shots until we name the pattern, evaluate it, and begin challenging it from our adult state.

The neural pathways were formed early, long before our prefrontal cortex develops and then allows us to regulate our thoughts, actions, and emotions.

And that regulation is the element of being able to notice them. Notice that they are happening and say, I don't want to do that. So now that our brain, work, big, good, as adults, our responsibility, but really our huge privilege, Is that we can choose to develop different pathways that lead us to thinking, feeling, and doing things differently.

But these neural pathways were originally formed when the most important person to our survival was our parents or the other adult caretakers in our lives. So our personality formed in the context of [00:09:00] those relationships and how they kept us alive. And it's really important to just notice that And respect, because there's nothing broken here.

This is just the process. It's just a stage in the process of sort of reclaiming those patterns and saying, I think I'd like to be in the driver's seat. So attention triad folks are likely to feel afraid that if they disappoint their parents or do something they disapprove of, they'll be deprived of attention, which Can lead to something like starvation in a small child neglect is a massive danger to small children and babies and that sort of thing.

And it's at those stages. That these patterns really start to take hold. So security triad folks are likely afraid that if they disappoint their parents, they won't have access to enough resources and protection, which can, you know, lead to starvation or being preyed upon [00:10:00] as a small child. And autonomy tried folks are likely afraid that if they disappoint their parents, they will have some of their autonomy stripped from them, which is just a human need to feel like I am a person who is different, but it can also lead to, you know, being preyed upon and vulnerable in that way.

If you're out of control if your caretakers are unable to take care of you for whatever reason, if you don't have a sense of autonomy. Then who's going to meet your needs, right? So there are big, , life or death associations that we develop with these needs for attention, security, and autonomy.

So it's no, you know, small deal here. We're really having to go pretty deep into these needs to try and, you know, maneuver things around a little bit and, , get things moving in a direction that better suits us and what we want to accomplish in life. So basically. Disappointing our parents is high stakes if we've never really [00:11:00] dug into this.

And if you've already dug into that sort of inner child work, you're probably not done yet. There's a lot to unpack. Um, there are just so many little beliefs that, you know, you have to hold up to like, one by one and inspect. And you have to do the same patterns. You have to inspect them in every different context.

You have to be like, oh yeah, it is showing up at work. It is showing up in the way that I, I don't know, clean the house in the way that I relate to my friends. It's showing up a little bit different in a lot of ways. So it just takes a lot of work, but the rewards are obviously worth it or else I wouldn't be encouraging you to do it.

So here are three truths to remember that are the basis for why it's okay to disappoint your parents and to make the best decisions for your business. Independent of what your parents think are the best decisions. Okay, so here are the [00:12:00] three statements. First one, your worth is not dependent on your parents approval.

Your security. Your autonomy is not dependent on your parents approval. Your autonomy is not dependent on your parents approval. And that will seem really obvious to your developed adult brain. I'm not talking to your adult brain though. I'm trying to deliver that message to your child brain. Hey child, you're grown up.

Your parental figure is now you. Just much older. So you have unconditional love from the older version of you. They think you're worthy and they'll preserve your security and protect your autonomy. Regardless of what your parents say or do.

So, mm, without airing too much family business, I'll just say that my parents used the we're disappointed in you line a lot when I was a child, and it [00:13:00] felt like the sharpest weapon they could have wielded against me. I felt that disappointment for every dumb kid mistake I made. Until I eventually learned that I ought not act like a kid.

And I definitely should never make mistakes or choose the wrong option. I didn't have like a physically violent upbringing outside of a few instances, but it was also never clear to me that violence wasn't on the table if I fucked up badly enough. So I only say that to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.

And I'm probably downplaying it a little bit here just out of sort of a, you know, lingering sense of obligation to my parents reputation and because I tend towards faking good rather than faking bad. But I did spend a lot of my life having to keep important parts of myself a secret. And I did that because I knew I would disappoint my parents if they saw those [00:14:00] parts of me.

And disappointing them, like I said, came with a ton of pain and emotional turmoil for me. It really hit my self esteem hard. So most people in their teens and early 20s probably function this way to some extent, right? Hiding little parts of yourself and your life from your parents. So it's probably going to sound familiar to you.

It's a pretty common experience here. And that's all fine and dandy until we start writing and publishing. Stories, or nonfiction, God forbid, because when you publish a book, anyone can read it, including your parents. And that's where this anxiety, this topic becomes very, very important for authors to consider.

So if you put those important parts of yourself into the book, you're showing them to your parents for the first time. And that can be scary. And it can cause annoyances, [00:15:00] like how my dad reads my book and offers feedback about what I should have done differently. You know, he criticizes what he doesn't like about it and explains the themes of my books to me, , that is annoying.

Or when my mom reads the emails I send out or my nonfiction and wants to talk about it, which basically amounts to, you know, demanding. A personal explanation for me. So, you know, for all I know, they're listening to this episode. They're a little stalker ish in that way. Um, and if you're wondering why I ended up in the autonomy triad, well, there's a little something for you.

It's a clue. So the reason I'm able to keep going despite the unpleasantness of my parents behavior around my work can be traced back to a particular. Moment that I had. So I was in my early twenties and feeling kind of the weight of their disappointment heavily for one reason or another. And I was driving about to exit the highway.

And so naturally my intellection was at the forefront. I was driving safe, [00:16:00] maybe, I don't know. It's never really safe to drive in Austin, but I was, I'm sure I was, uh, not in traffic at the time. So don't worry, , it's all good. I survived. , so anyway, I'm driving and I asked myself what I would look like if I were the precise person who made my parents proud all the time.

What shape would I have to take? Dear listener, I shit you not. When I say I would have had to be a completely antithetical person to who I know I am. For one, I wouldn't say things like, I shit you not. And, not gonna stop saying that because it feels great and cursing is good for your health. But anyway, once I wove together who that person would be, really was able to visualize it, it was actually Pretty humorous.

It was so far from me that becoming that person would be about as helpful for fulfilling my purpose on this earth as having a lobotomy, [00:17:00] sometimes asking the questions and following through with an answer is the only way to start liberating yourself from the nebulousness of things that can kind of haunt us for decades.

Like, you know, what I do on this podcast. And that's why I do it, because when the anxiety is vague, it's usually more scary, and it's better at controlling us, because the threat seems like it's everywhere at once, and the consequences could be anything.

The consequences of me doing me, regardless of whether my parents approve, , they're, they're that I get to do whatever I want. And enjoy discovering the depths of who I am and what I'm here to do. And also a consequence is that, uh, my parents will occasionally try new and interesting maneuvers to regain control over my psyche and steer it to whatever pleases them.

You know what? I can always hang up the phone though. So that seems like a pretty small price to pay when I take a step back and [00:18:00] look at this from my adult brain. So you're welcome to try that exercise out, and I'll give you one more that is directly related to your writing career. So here we go. Imagine that your parents will cheer you on whatever you do.

Whatever you write, however you write it, that no matter what creative or business choices you make, your parents pride and support for you will not waver one ounce. Imagine that. Let it settle in. What would you have done differently so far in your writing career? And what would you do differently right now?

If you really, truly felt that way? The truth of that.

If you can spend five minutes after you finish listening to this episode, just thinking about that in silence, maybe even journaling about it until something interesting comes to the surface, you'll begin to see just how much your parents approval or disappointment has been calling the shots for your book business [00:19:00] rather than what is best for you and your book business calling the shots.

And then what, what do you do when you realize how big the problem is? Well, you can start by talking to the child version of you. So what you do is you let them know that you, the adult version of you, will stick by them no matter what. So, I know this sounds very convoluted, it sounds like sort of, , you know, mental acrobatics, and it is, but it works.

It's called reparenting, and it's just so fucking effective if you'll go all in on it. If you're thinking this is stupid, I'm not gonna do this, you know, that fear of looking foolish, of feeling foolish, , to yourself really, because you can do whatever you want in your mind and no one's going to know about it.

So if you're too scared to feel foolish, that you won't even practice something interesting in your mind to try to unpack some of this, then you might have, you know, some bigger blocks that we, we [00:20:00] maybe we'll talk about in a future episode, but just ask yourself to try to do this. Talk from the parent or the adult version of you to the child and sort of reparent yourself.

So, it really is life changing, so I recommend that you give it a shot if you haven't already. So, talk to your inner child like you needed to be talked to when you were young. It will really heal up some places where you may not have even known you were hurting. And only when we can do that, Can we stop subconsciously dodging that pain all the time and retake the reins of our life?

We don't have to know that we're hurting in a particular way for that hurt to be something that we will do a whole song and dance to avoid touching. We will structure our whole life around not triggering that pain. even if our conscious mind doesn't know it's there. So this is where we really start to dig up this stuff so that we can notice what we've been [00:21:00] avoiding and not have to take the long way around all the time.

I also invite you to notice if at any point during this episode you felt the need to defend your parents honor just because you're considering that they didn't parent you the way you needed. If even just thinking, which is a private action, no one has to know about, if even just thinking that they might have failed you in some way triggers your need to defend them to yourself, or to write me an email explaining that your parents did the best they could and you understand why they parented the way they did, then oh my God, you really need to do this work I'm talking about.

If you are spending all this energy. Protecting your parents reputation from your own awareness? That's interesting. I mean, basically it's like, when did you learn that it's your job to protect your parents feelings that way? Um, of [00:22:00] course they were doing the best they could. We all do the best we can.

That's a given. So why are you jumping to their defense rather than feeling what you need to feel to heal what of yours needs to be healed? So that's a lot. I came at you a little bit on that one. , but these are longstanding patterns. You know, if we're getting up there in age, we're adults and we still haven't, , addressed to this.

Then it's kind of lightly suggesting and being like, have you considered, it ain't going to get there. We've built a lot of defenses around it. So that's why, that's why I'm being a little, uh, a little costing with it. But you know, I hope it works. So to recap. If you're letting what your parents would think about the decisions you make for your writing determine what you do, uh, stop.

Stop it please. Or keep going and wonder why you [00:23:00] feel disconnected from your writing and why going with your gut feels so difficult or even terrifying. It's your choice. If you want to tackle this and reclaim your author career as it were or if you want to keep wasting energy by straddling strategies between what your deepest self is calling for you to do and what won't upset your parents and then not actually doing either one of those successfully and feeling lost the whole time.

Totally up to you.

If your parents do not pay your bills, they are not your audience. Stop writing and marketing to them. I beg of you. So to answer the question of what if I disappoint my parents, I'll say that you will live and I mean that because your younger self may not believe that you will live but you will live and it's important to remind ourselves of this and not only that you'll live more fully if you disappoint them in the course of making yourself [00:24:00] proud.

There are so many strategies for how to cut the cord when it comes to feeling unable to do something your parents might, you know, call you up and lecture you about, but the first step is to acknowledge that. That the court is still there and that's the biggest step. So if it's still there, try the exercises I suggested and just be open to what comes up for you.

So imagining the person you would have to be to make them proud all the time and how many parts of yourself you'd have to lop off to make that happen. And then be fuckin honest with yourself about where you've made decisions in your author career thus far. That were designed to keep them happy, not to move your business in the direction of your ultimate goal.

So, yeah, it might be painful to see all that, but dammit, we gotta look at it. We just have to if we want anything to change. If we want any shot at choosing the fulfilling thing for us. [00:25:00] So that's it for this week's episode of What If for Authors. Thanks for joining me. I know this episode poked at a much deeper body of work, so if you want some one on one coaching on it, Feel free to book an author alignment with me at ffs.

media forward slash schedule. I appreciate you taking the time to listen. And if you like this podcast, I would love it. If you'd leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, or you can follow the podcast on YouTube. Maybe tell a friend. Anything would be fantastic. So, have a great week of writing and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode for you.

Happy writing.

Episode 17: What if I don't enjoy writing anymore?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If For Authors, Claire Taylor dives into a very scary question: What if I no longer enjoy writing? Claire addresses the underlying fears, resistance, and emotional blocks that may contribute to the diminishing joy of writing. By exploring how each Enneagram type uniquely experiences this struggle, Claire provides practical insights and diagnostic tools to help you reconnect with the pleasure of storytelling. Whether it’s perfectionism, doubt, or fear of vulnerability, Claire offers actionable steps to reignite your creative passion.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the Fear: Losing the joy of writing often stems from underlying fears or resistance, not the loss of storytelling itself. Claire reassures listeners that the innate love for storytelling never truly disappears.

• Diagnostic Check: Claire emphasizes the importance of checking in with your body, emotions, and mind when facing resistance to writing. This mindfulness approach can help identify and address the root causes of the struggle.

• Personalized Tips for Each Enneagram Type: Claire offers specific advice for each Enneagram type, helping authors understand their unique challenges with writing and how to overcome them.

• Reconnecting with Joy: Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed by obligations, perfectionism, fear, or control issues, there are steps you can take to clear away the clutter and reignite the joy of writing.

Why You Should Listen: If writing feels like a chore or you’re worried that you’ve lost the passion for it, this episode provides insightful tools to help you regain your creative spark. By understanding the deeper emotions at play and learning how to manage them, you can rediscover the joy that led you to writing in the first place.

Join the Conversation: Do you have a topic you’d like Claire to explore or need support with your writing journey? Reach out to her at contact@ffs.media, and consider booking a one-on-one coaching session.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career by going to ffs.media/slash sustain. I recorded a bunch of the earlier episodes a while ago and all at once because that's just what works best for my brain. I like to batch things. And then I had to move on to a bunch of other tasks and projects for my business. Like, I don't know, trying to sell some of these courses that help, help pay my bills.

Um, trying to, you know, Fill out the Liberated Writer Retreat in October so I don't lose thousands of dollars on it. Mm, easier said than done when everyone's, you know, being very, very conscious of where they're spending their money, which is great. Which is great. It does require a little bit more focus on this project for [00:01:00] me.

You know, and I've also been trying to record the Sustain Your Author Career audiobook, which hopefully by the time this episode airs, will already be out. I don't know. I had a sore throat for a while, so I kind of had to stop recording the audiobook. Um, so it didn't, you know, I didn't sound like hell on it.

Anyway. I've been doing a lot of other projects between recording these episodes. Oh yeah, I'm also writing my own damn fiction, , theoretically. it's on the list. It's easy to let that fall by the wayside if I'm not really careful about it. Um, but we'll talk more about all of that, the, the writing process in today's episode.

But my point is that. I'm recording this episode after not recording this podcast for a while, so I'm trying to remember how I do it. It's been a very big season of transition in my life this year. I can't tell you how over it I feel some days. Very over it. But what it means [00:02:00] is that sometimes if I take a break from a project for a few weeks and then come back to it, I feel like a completely different person when I'm working on it.

I have to be like, wait, how did Claire do this? Anyway, I'm at that point in recording this podcast, but also in writing the fiction book I'm working on. I also have a series I really want to get back to because it's finally starting to sell. And I just, I love writing it. But that's another thing where I'm like, How do I do this?

How did I do this? Who is the person writing this? So I have to go back and re read the first three books of that series before I can really get back into that version of me in that story world. Anyway, just a little aside about how being a fiction writer is so fucking weird. Speaking of being a writer It's usually defined, in a general sense, as being a person who writes things.

They can be fictional things, they can be non fictional things, [00:03:00] but you're probably writing things, if you're a writer. And if you are a person who writes things, then I would bet money that you are also a person who occasionally freaks out because your love of writing things has slowed down or dried up, and you're worried that it will never come back.

So, that brings us to our episode topic today, which is what if I don't enjoy writing anymore?

I have asked myself this question before. Listen, it's a scary question. What if, what if I stop enjoying writing and don't want to do it anymore? What do I do with this identity of being a writer? What do I do if I hate writing, but my income is totally dependent on it? What now? If you're like me, you may start wondering if it's too late to go to law school, or whatever.

Whatever school you're thinking of. , but before we begin applying, let's just [00:04:00] pause a beat. So, I think it's natural for a lot of strange emotions and thoughts to get stuck like glue to our writing habits. But writers love telling a good story, and I think it's important to remember that that part of you will never change.

When you're out with friends, you'll still find yourself telling stories, and I think that's a really important thing to notice in ourselves. If you're a writer, you are one of those people who is described as a natural storyteller, more likely than not. That doesn't mean that you couldn't improve on your craft of storytelling, we all can, but it usually means that you think of everything in terms of story.

Although, here's the truth. All humans do. Right? Humans make sense of the world with story. Story is just the through line that we find for a bunch of different data points that are generally meaning neutral. Story is how we weave them together to create meaning. Meaning. So, okay, bear with me. [00:05:00] Think of like the atoms in the air, okay?

The atoms in the air, or around us in our environment, it's not air, air is an emergent, you know, definition, but the atoms around us are moving very quickly. Relative to what we normally experience from that data. We craft a definition of what we call temperature, which measures the speed and movement of atoms.

It's been a little bit, maybe, maybe there's a more precise definition that I'm missing here, but you get the point. Then using the data of temperature, we apply label like, Oh, it's hot. Something is hot. Then we decide that if it's nice and hot outside for many days in a row, We are going to call that summer.

Then maybe for you, you take the data point of summer and a collection of data points from your childhood and associate summer with a time of, you know, adventure, playing around. So now you have a [00:06:00] story about summer, right? So we build that story for a lot of reasons, including placing ourself in space and time.

Sort of creating an anchor of what is now, what was then, what will be later, and so forth. It also helps us figure out the meaning of our lives within the context of the data we're swimming in. And psychologically speaking, that's a big fucking deal for human beings, to be able to have a sense of that. A sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of relevancy.

It's very important to our daily functioning. Now I go off on this little philosophical tangent simply to point out that storytelling is so essential to the human mind that you don't really have to worry about there being a time when you stop enjoying storytelling. Storytelling itself, whether you enjoy it or not, you're going to keep doing it, right?

This is how we communicate with other people. We communicate through stories. We [00:07:00] communicate with ourselves through stories. So really where we start to run into problems as writers is in the process of converting those small stories that we have into something more long form. Or maybe you just get sick of typing.

Honestly, there are days where I'm so sick of typing on my keyboard or my phone that I just, I can't, I can't eat more. I can't even stomach. The typing process. So this is probably more of a weird little, like, me thing. But all that to say, I understand if typing is the thing that's making you gag a little bit when you think about writing.

So there are workarounds for that. And for everything else. But, you know, it could be a number of other things that is making the writing process unpleasant for you. Emotionally, physically, or psychologically. And that problem can become so big that it feels like all of writing is a chore. And that's when the fear starts to come in that, you know, maybe I don't like writing anymore, [00:08:00] maybe I don't enjoy this, maybe I don't want to do this anymore, what now?

For a writer, especially someone who has built an author career, that thought creeping in can be very unsettling. So let me just assure you that it's not the storytelling you're sick of. You may be sick of the genre tropes you're writing, right? There may be certain parts of the kinds of stories that you're writing that feel boring or worn out, or just not on the level of where you are in your life right now.

But your drive to tell stories is still there. So, all we really have to do is With that resistance to writing when it comes up is just to take a step back and look at the particulars of what you're writing, maybe how much you're writing when you're writing, how you are writing. , we can get pretty analytical here.

And I find that depersonalizing this, , conundrum with. A little bit of analysis can be pretty useful, so it [00:09:00] takes away a lot of that fear reaction that sort of hovers over us when we think, Oh no, this might be the end for me. This might be the end for my author career if I never enjoy writing again. So, keeping the faith.

That we have not lost our enjoyment of telling a good story and that it's still there, perhaps buried under layers of resistance and the general clutter of our brains. We can start to check in with our three centers when it's time to sit down and write. So check into your body center. Notice any sensations that are arising when you think about writing your manuscript.

Is there tension, restlessness, any sort of burning or tingling sensation? If we tune into these sensations, they're are a lot of answers to be found. There may be something completely different going on in our lives that has become connected in a sort of vague, correlative way to the process of writing, that actually [00:10:00] has nothing to do with writing.

So tuning into our body center can start to unravel this mystery a little bit for us. Next, ask yourself what emotions come up when you sit down to write. Is there a nagging feeling of inadequacy? Are you feeling insecure? Are you feeling empty, isolated, indifferent? If you're struggling to write, it's probably going to be a mixture of the less pleasant or negative emotions that you're feeling when you sit down to write.

Having a bunch of pleasant feelings associated with writing does not tend to cause problems of this nature. Right? Have That's pretty obvious. And then check in with your head center. If you have an internal monologue, what is being said to you? What self talk is happening when you sit down at the computer?

If you're a visual person, maybe what situation or what images keep popping into your head or what interaction with someone is haunting you right now? Which, let's be real, can happen. If you [00:11:00] recently had someone blindside you with painful criticism, is that coming up for you in some way when you sit down to write?

Once you discover where these negative thoughts and feelings and sensations are coming from, simply by just asking them questions. It's amazing how effective just pausing and asking fully formed questions can be. Then you can really start to dig into them and use the tools that I talk about all of the time.

So these are tools that you learn from Reclaim Your Author Career and in Sustain Your Author Career. They're the kind of tools that you learn from working with, you know, a therapist or a coach and so on. So the tools may look like talking through the situation with yourself and journaling about it until your brain is sort of processed, whatever that block is.

, an effective tool for you might be talking it over with a friend. , there's a number of things we can do once we assess what is really the blockage there. So, if you notice that this block is something like shame based, a [00:12:00] shame based bit of resistance, , then a lot of the time the best thing to do to combat shame is to open up about it.

Just tell someone you trust about it. Tell them, I'm feeling a lot of shame about this. Right? Don't have shame about your shame. Right? We all feel shame. But when we start to talk about it, that's when it really starts to loosen its grip. So, tell that person that you trust what it makes you feel, even if there's no logic to it.

And you know there's no logic to it. This is not a head center thing. This is a heart center thing. So don't let your head try and become overbearing. Just speak the shame. If you feel like it's some sort of control thing that's stopping you, For instance, if you're an 1 in the, what's called the autonomy triad, then you can do some breath work and some visualization exercises to remind you of your autonomy and agency and where you [00:13:00] end and another person begins.

So, , the twos, the threes, and the fours are more likely to be dealing with the shame. The eights, nines, and ones are more likely to be dealing with the control or autonomy struggles. So if you really want to get crazy and deep about it with the autonomy thing, you can remind yourself that there really is no them and me in a very real sense.

And that even the idea of a human is an emergent theory. Right. What, what is the composition of a human, which atoms are the humans, which are not right. And we're getting into a little bit of like, I don't know, the sort of emergent theory of cosmology, but we're also getting into a little bit of Buddhist teachings.

It's all, it all, it all overlaps, right? But essentially our definition of human is Is a pretty loose one that's easy to kind of deconstruct into like, well, what is it? [00:14:00] So that can be it can be really scary to people who are dealing with autonomy issues But once you get through the bulk of those, it can actually be really liberating to be like, yeah, it's fine.

Human is an emergent theory, so it's okay to feel influenced by people. And we don't have to get our hackles up all the time. We can still have agency. And now if it's some sort of scarcity issue that's blocking you, you don't feel safe writing, or you feel like writing is not working toward your security enough, then we can do some of the fear work that the 5's, 6's, and 7's need, remembering that Life is not a zero sum game.

At the same time, there are trade offs that everyone must make. So, if you're a five, maybe you need to go remind yourself that energy flows freely, and that in trying to block off your energy from invasions of other people, you're blocking yourself off from all kinds of sources of energy. Uh, and so on and so forth, right?

So that would be my first step if you feel like you don't enjoy writing [00:15:00] anymore. Right? It's really about looking for what is getting in the way of the flow of telling a story. What is kicking up that fear? And it may not look like fear. Okay? Fear doesn't always look like we're shaken in our boots. It can look like self judgment.

It can look like a lack of boundaries. It can look like, , Intellectual superiority, people pleasing, uh, a lack of focus, fear can look a lot of ways. So just a diagnostic check, it might seem overly simple, but we have a tendency to skip over this step. We usually go fear, , jump to conclusions, freak out, right?

So this, this diagnostic check step, Is so, so crucial. So the fear though, it's not good at letting us move into our critical thinking. It's not good at that. Fear really helps sever us from our three centers., [00:16:00] So the fear will make us skip over it. But like if we have anxiety about hitting a goal by a certain day, and if we're worried, we may not hit that.

Or if there's some sort of fear of our identity shifting, anything like that. That just, that is what takes us out of our critical thinking, right? It takes us completely offline. So this pause to diagnose so that we can troubleshoot will have to be a conscious effort.

But we can practice remembering to do this step because it's, you know, it's really hard to do anything else without first pausing to see what's going on. Right? Well, it's easy to do other things, but it's not necessarily easy to do productive things that move us in a positive direction. So, if we don't take the time we need to run the diagnostic, we will end up trying to fix the wrong issue.

So sometimes when you run this little diagnostic check, just seeing what problem was hitting in our subconscious mind is enough. To shoo it away. So that we can get back to [00:17:00] writing. If that happens, we're very lucky. And it wouldn't be a bad idea to take a moment to feel grateful. But even if that doesn't happen, even if it's not that immediate of a fix, and we realize that there is a much deeper issue that is blocking us off from the flow of storytelling, we are still better off than we were before.

Let me be clear. Deeper self knowledge is always a step forward. Our brain may tell us that it's better to not know, and that by discovering an issue, we are actually creating or intensifying the issue. But that's really just not how it works. So if your brain is telling you that's how it works, then your brain is trying to protect you, but in a very misguided way.

Fear has a tendency of growing very large in the shadow of the unknown. So knowing helps us reduce fear to a reasonable size by defining [00:18:00] it. Okay, so notice when we're getting signals that it's better to not know And to not pry into what is stopping us, or to just skip over the diagnostic part. Because, you know, knowing may somehow be worse than not knowing.

That's not the case. Once you know, you have agency, and you can take action. When you don't know, you lack agency. And any action you take is unguided and unlikely to be successful. So, instead of taking action on what we can control, What we do is we end up trying to exert control on things that are outside of our control, and that is just an energy drain.

And it really shifts us out of alignment. So knowing what is going on is going to move you forward in a way that not knowing what's on will not. Anyway, okay. So let me do a quick run through to get everyone started with the [00:19:00] common blocks I see by Enneagram type. So these are the things that I most commonly see as the culprits for why people come to me going, I don't enjoy writing anymore.

What do I do now? Okay. I will try to make this a quick run through, but y'all know me by now. This is, what, episode 17 or something? Uh, you know, I try to keep it short. Anyway, let's dive in. So when Enneagram Type Ones, the Reformers, aka the Principled Writers, start to fear that they don't enjoy writing anymore, often what's happening is that they don't feel like they deserve the joy of writing.

So, this is usually something like, I haven't earned my writing time yet. Uh, there are usually a lot of other responsibilities that feel like the more responsible thing to be giving your attention to, if you're a one. If you haven't been keeping an eye on your sense of personal [00:20:00] obligation, you know, then forget about it.

Because you're gonna be committed to so many things that seem much more high stakes than writing. Even if your income comes from the books you write.

That sense of personal obligation stretches our attention so thin. And then the one's tendency is to pick whichever activity is least fun and do that first. In this sort of subconscious way of thinking that we have to earn life not being a slog. So, there may also be a few like thorns of criticism that have gotten stuck in your craw lately.

And those, you know, they may be threatening to emerge again when you sit down to write. So that makes the writing process, , precarious and rather unpleasant. So what I would suggest, if you are a 1, is looking at all of the things that you have taken on as your responsibility, finding just a little bit of humility about how you don't have more capacity than every other [00:21:00] person on earth.

You know, risking disappointing a few people if you have to, but offloading some of the responsibilities you've taken on out of a sense of personal obligation so that it doesn't feel like everyone on this planet is waiting for you to hurry up and get your writing done so you can go fix the world.

You probably also want to look at what sort of words your inner critic is saying to you lately, and then, you know, address those. So, maybe say them out loud to someone. Doing this often helps us see how ridiculous, and frankly cruel, that inner critic is. So don't let them hide inside your head. Say those words to someone else and watch that person's reaction of horror.

Maybe ask yourself if you would ever say that to someone who you loved dearly. Now there's a lot more inner critic work that you can do, but basically, do it, do it with a therapist, read some books on it, that's an issue you're going to want to address if you can get back to the non judgmental joy [00:22:00] of crafting stories.

So when Enneagram Twos, the helpers, aka the helpful writers, struggle to connect to the enjoyment of writing, It's usually because they don't see the immediate impact that their writing has on other people. It's also probably because there are a lot of other temptations around them that they are not setting boundaries with.

So these temptations for a two look generally like people who need help. People that the two could serve and get that gratification from of being helpful. Do books help people? Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you're a writer, it won't be hard for you to think of a book That's really helped you in your life more than the author could have ever known, right?

More than they probably dared to imagine. But it's not always easy to remember that we could be that author for someone else. So the first thing you need to do if you're worried that you no longer enjoy your writing [00:23:00] is to ask what boundaries you need to be putting. And our boundaries aren't things that we hand to other people and say, Hey, hold this for me.

Boundaries are rules for yourself that you will not break. They are promises to yourself that you will uphold around your time and your energy. and around your emotions, thoughts, and actions. I will do this under these circumstances, and I will not do this under these circumstances. It's that sort of thing.

So your boundaries cannot be contingent on other people respecting those boundaries. If that's the case, If you're hoping to imagine boundaries and hand them to someone else and then that other person will never infringe upon your boundary and it will not, and they'll just accept them and they'll just say, oh, yeah, no, this is great that you're setting a boundary.

No problems here. If that's what you're expecting with boundaries, you're in la la land. That is not how boundaries work. Sometimes, [00:24:00] oftentimes, people get upset when you set boundaries. , that's just the way it is. There is no perfect way to train split hairs so that you can have your boundaries and people please.

So if you need to address the people pleasing that goes behind not wanting to set boundaries in the first place, then that is where I would start. Yes, there might be a lot of deep work required to clear out the clutter between you and your enjoyment of writing. It's worth it. It's worth it, and you don't have to earn it.

You can create that space for yourself just because you want it.

Okay, when Enneagram Threes, the achievers, aka the productive writers, So, I think that's one of the reasons why readers struggle to connect to the enjoyment of their writing. It's usually, uh, for one of two reasons. So, maybe it's that the trajectory of their writing so far has not been designed around their desires sufficiently.

So, whatever promises of approval led them in that direction in the first place, [00:25:00] maybe that approval is starting to run a little bit thin, that appeal of it, and now they no longer enjoy reading those kinds of books for that audience, for the sole purpose of approval. I don't know. Or maybe the approval has dried up and sales are going down.

So if you were doing something for approval and then the approval is slowly being withdrawn, your enjoyment may very well go down. Although to be clear, this was not really true enjoyment here that we're talking about, right? But it was enough to hold your attention and give you a few pops of acceptance that felt really good.

The other thing that may be standing between a three and their enjoyment of writing is just that they're not getting as much feedback from people. So if that's the case, then it may be that you're focusing more on quantity than the quality of feedback and that the quantity has gone down, in which case.

You have a lot of power to change where you put your attention there. Or it could be that you were writing in a hot genre, and not as many people are reading it as were [00:26:00] before, or I don't know. Maybe you just haven't been giving, you know, readers the invitation implicitly or explicitly to provide you with feedback.

So possibly you could create some channels that invite readers to give you more feedback and approval along the process, and that may help you re engage with the writing. So go share a snippet or something, you know, or you can do some of that deep inner work on people pleasing that I mentioned for the choose.

It goes for threes as well. It looks a little bit different, but at the heart, it's the same thing. So threes aren't generally called people pleasers, but all of the performance that threes feel the need to do is about trying to get people to like them or at least think about them. Which is a close second place for being liked for many, many people.

So when Enneagram 4s, the individualists, aka the authentic writers, stop enjoying writing, [00:27:00] it's usually because they feel like a part of themselves that they want to show won't be appreciated. So sometimes fours can develop this association between suffering and authenticity, or complexity and authenticity, that can make the idea of writing being enjoyable or easy set off the fear that it would somehow be shallow or inauthentic, right?

Oh, if it's enjoyable, it must be shallow. If it's easy, it must be inauthentic. So forth. If that's the case, then the work there is to really challenge the notion that suffering is somehow more authentic than enjoyment, and that complexity is always more authentic than simplicity. So maybe the writing is coming easily because you're inspired.

Maybe it has nothing to do with whether or not you're selling out or being shallow. Doing a [00:28:00] little bit of work around that and asking yourself where you have started to correlate depth An authenticity with words that aren't necessarily synonymous with it, like complexity and suffering for a start, , that can go a long way toward realizing that you are actually limiting the range of tools you have for your storytelling.

You are limiting the amount of authenticity because, listen, simplicity. Joy, happiness, ease, those are all parts of, , the human condition. Those are all authentic parts, right? So it's okay to enjoy the process, and for the, the writing process to be without a bunch of obstacles. So sometimes the most authentic thing is the most natural thing for you to express.

And sometimes depth is quite simple. So you don't have to work that hard to protect your authenticity. Okay. Basically, everything you do is authentic as a four. Just go with the flow on that. And then some of [00:29:00] the things that you do that are inauthentic are also okay, because that's part of being human.

We really can't be authentic all the time. It's okay to want to have a place in society from time to time. It's okay to want to be seen, to, uh, maybe fit in a little bit, and to need attention and recognition. That's a okay. So, you know, you can allow yourself to want that too. When Enneagram Fives, the investigators, aka the rational writers, stop enjoying writing, it's usually because the fear of not knowing enough yet has started to kick in.

It can also be much more stimulating to, like, win an argument on the internet, or to do a deep dive on a subject that you may not actually care that much about, instead of, you know, taking the risk of being seen by writing for an audience. And as long as you're not journaling, you are writing for an audience, so.

Writing can also stop being enjoyable for [00:30:00] fives if you are trying to do it entirely from your head center. So I work with quite a lot of fives who are intuitive writers., Associated more with the gut center and they get stuck because they write intuitively for a little bit until their head center starts to say, hold on, hold on, I need to make sure that this makes sense before you can proceed.

, and then making sure that everything is rational and that they know exactly why they're doing everything, you know, this is, if this is during the first draft for an intuitive writer, it's going to disrupt the flow completely. Right? It's going to, the head center is just absolutely throwing a wrench in the intuitive process.

It'll just lay the smack down on your gut center, so to speak, which is, you know, where you're writing from if you're an intuitive writer. So if you have your head center trying to do that gut center stuff, that important gut center work, , it's just not built to do that. [00:31:00] It does it very poorly. And then, at the same time, you're depriving yourself of the enjoyment of writing from your gut center.

So, a lot of fives have a hard time accessing their intuition outside of this writing process. So this encroachment of the head center on the gut center can make things Not fun.

The trigger to the sort of rational thinking's interference on the intuition is the fear of looking foolish or being exposed as incompetent. That's usually where it's coming from. There can also be a fear that the intuitive writing process will somehow get off track and waste time and energy writing things that don't.

end up making the cut in revisions. If that's what's happening, just notice that this is a scarcity pattern and that writing things that don't make the cut in revisions is just part of the drafting process. Also, it's not wasting time and [00:32:00] energy per se because there was probably something in that that you needed to know that you could only find out from writing that part that you ended up cutting.

You got more knowledge out of it in the end. So, not a waste of time and energy at all. Sometimes it just takes reminding the head center of this if you're a 5. When Enneagram 6s, the Loyalists, aka the Faithful Writers, stop enjoying writing, it's usually because they're unsure if they're doing it right.

Uh, this is just , the doubt patterns kicking in for the 6. So, there's a fear that they're not on the right path. And they're going to end up stranded in some way without any way of getting back on the path.

This may look like sitting down to write and worrying that you're not doing it correctly, or that you're screwing something up that you won't be able to fix later, or that you're doing something that is going to make people turn on you, or that you're heading in a direction that is risky. So this could be financially risky, this could be socially [00:33:00] risky, it could be creatively risky, anything.

Now, for some sixes, specifically counterphobic sixes, the risk could be a little bit of a drive, but there are still limits, and even counterphobic sixes get caught in a pattern of doubt, the reaction just looks a little bit different from the phobic sixes, so phobic sixes when , hit doubt, they're likely to stall out, , whereas counterphobic sixes are more likely to immediately pick a direction and go in that direction in a somewhat reckless manner, rather than just like, just taking a beat, sitting in that doubt for a second, trying to think rationally about it, maybe even tapping into the gut center and the heart center for more information before making that decision, uh, you know, trying to tap into that inner authority that the sixes get.

separated from. So this is not going to be the first impulse of most sixes, phobic or counterphobic, to tap into that inner authority. Either way, [00:34:00] the stronger that doubt becomes and the more it presents when they sit down to write, the less enjoyable that experience will be.

And if you're a 6 and you're experiencing doubt in a lot of other areas of your life, That's going to flood over into your writing. So it may just be that you need to give other parts of your life a little bit more consideration if you're a counterphobic 6, or you need to remember that all you can control is your reaction to the outcome and not the outcome itself, and make a decision, and then move forward if you're a phobic 6.

When Enneagram 7s, the enthusiasts, aka the enthusiastic writers, stop enjoying writing, It's usually because there is some pain they're experiencing around writing that is making their attention go to all of the other enjoyable things in their life. If you ask a 7 why they're not enjoying writing, they'll usually tell you that they're bored.

So oftentimes the feeling of deprivation, that core fear of the 7, doesn't [00:35:00] present as fear, but rather as boredom and disinterest. So when I hear a 7 say that they're bored with their manuscript or that they're bored with writing, what I often wonder is What about this is painful or uncomfortable for them and how do we build up that pain tolerance?

Is it that there is pain around the reader responses to their books recently? Is it that there is a scene that has gotten tense or uncomfortable for the Seven to write? Or is this Seven caught in a pattern of emotional shallowness as a way of avoiding deeper pain, and therefore they're unable to access that depth necessary to really sink into the story?

To find the novelty in the depth and to lose themselves? If so, If you are a seven, and you are no longer enjoying your writing, I'd look at what options you're giving yourself that are more pain free than writing, but also less gratifying. You probably need to cut those options off, at least during your writing time.

But [00:36:00] also, I would notice where you're telling yourself, hey, this is boring, because that's probably where you're experiencing pain that you haven't built up a tolerance for. But that pain is necessary to create the richness that you're seeking. When you are seeking that core desire of satisfaction.

There's gonna be some pain involved in writing a book and if your expectation does not include that you're going to wonder why you keep getting bored and why writing is just no longer enjoyable. When Enneagram 8s, the challengers, aka the bold writers, stop enjoying writing, it's usually because they've hit a point where they feel like the writing has somehow started to control them.

This could be the writing process. It could be reader expectations. It could be genre conventions. But if an 8 stops feeling in control of their writing destiny, there's a good chance that they're going to, , rebel and try to find something else that [00:37:00] makes them feel more independent and will bend to their will.

Another possibility is that the writing process has started to become easier and not as much of a challenge for an eight. That'll make them lose interest. So if it's not as much of a challenge and the eight doesn't have to use their usual tool of forcefulness on everything, then it's really not giving them the sort of reinforcement that they are strong.

You know, and it's like to have that from their pursuits. They like their pursuits to reinforce their image that they're strong. So this can, you know, go a little excessive. I don't think I'm surprising any aides by mentioning that it's can get into excess a little bit, but, , there, there can become almost an addiction to the struggle, to the, the forcing of things and challenging everything.

, so it's all in service to reinforcing that sense of self that I am strong and I am powerful. Of course, the real challenge to a challenger is to allow [00:38:00] themselves to be vulnerable and to offer themselves and those around them kindness and compassion. So if you're an 8 who is wondering if you don't enjoy writing anymore, , and what that means, you probably aren't using the word enjoyment unless you have a really strong 7 wing.

You're probably using a word like rewarding. Writing isn't rewarding anymore. If that's the case, then you're probably addicted to a struggle, and when you don't have, , you don't have anything to force because you have achieved some level of mastery, it actually freaks you out. Because you don't know where to find your sense of strength and power other than conquering something.

So, what you can work on is asking yourself how you can be a stronger writer without needing to force anything. Where can accessing the softer parts of you be the challenge that you work on in your writing? Does every likable character have to be a badass? Do all of the innocent minded, naive characters have to be presented in a negative light in your [00:39:00] story?

So, the work I'd suggest here is to notice how much of your writing career has fallen into this pattern of needing to force things. Because, spoiler, If you're caught in a pattern of forcefulness, you're not actually in control. That's right. The patterns are controlling you. You are not controlling them.

And no amount of your defense mechanism of denial can change that fact. You have to regain control of these patterns. Okay, when Enneagram Nines, the peacemakers, aka the harmonious writers, stop feeling enjoyment in their writing, it's usually A slow diminishment of that enjoyment over time. It's like a lessening, or a wearing down, or a dampening of that passion.

It usually sounds too benign, like the internal monologue of, Eh, it's not a big deal, nobody cares if I do this. Eh, nobody will notice. Right? No, it's likely that you aren't fully aware of these specific words and sentences, but the sentiment is there.[00:40:00]

So this process of the Nine telling themselves that it's not a big deal and it doesn't matter is a way of armoring up against the desire to show parts of themselves that may rock the boat. So if you're a nine, all you're doing is deadening very alive parts of yourself when you do that, and all in service of keeping a false sense of harmony.

I say it's a false sense of harmony because harmony is everything. Harmony exists simultaneously with conflict, and as long as two people are showing up fully and presently, there will be a natural level of conflict between different people who have different desires. There will be a certain amount of vying for your desire and your need to get met.

But without that friction, what's achieved is not harmony, but neglect, an abdication of one's agency. So this is really important for 9s to think about and try to internalize. What important and [00:41:00] valuable parts of yourself want to be seen, not only by others, but also by you? That you are not allowing to be seen for the sake of trying to preserve your internal peace and your interpersonal peace.

I want you to consider how you are lying by omission to try to manipulate others and avoid the unpleasantness of conflict. And the reason I'm calling you out like this so harshly, I know it's harsh. I know. The reason I'm calling it out and, and terming it lying by omission is because you've probably been rewarded in a lot of ways by people with narcissistic tendencies who like that you just go along with whatever they say.

It's very convenient for them. So it's very possible that you have not been fully awake to the reality of this impulse within yourself, but hiding parts of yourself and not showing up, Is being dishonest to yourself and others in a sort of passive aggressive way. It's, it's a form of [00:42:00] manipulation, but a very, very covert one.

Um, in a lot of ways it's another form of people pleasing. , but the people who really love you and want to see as much of you as possible, They want you to show up. So when you fall into those patterns of it doesn't matter. I don't matter. You're withholding very important things for people who care about you.

But you're also withholding parts of yourself from your own awareness. You're falling asleep to essential parts of your being, like your wants and needs. Kind of essential. So that makes it very hard to deeply engage with your writing, which is generally a fantasy of our wants and needs. If you can't access the depth of your own wants and needs, it can become very difficult to access that yearning that propels the story.

from your character's points of view. Okay, so that was a lot. But just to sum up, you may not be enjoying your writing today, but you can get back to the enjoyment. There is [00:43:00] always enjoyment to be had in writing if you can clear away whatever is pulling your attention somewhere else. Usually fear. When you notice that the enjoyment is diminishing or gone, try to remember to pause and run the diagnostic check to figure out what's going on.

So I've given you some hints based on your type, but it could be something else. Just listen closely, right? Humans are very complex.

If writing just hasn't been hitting like it used to, probably you have a deep underlying pattern that needs to be addressed. Is that the best news you've heard today? Probably not, but it is a path forward. And I've seen enough people be successful in rooting out those patterns that I hope it gives you a little bit of hope that you can get back to the point of enjoying your writing.

And when you get to that point. You'll probably be enjoying a lot of other parts about life as well. So to answer the question of what if I don't enjoy writing anymore, I will just say that if you want to get back to enjoying [00:44:00] writing, there are steps that you can actively take. You have agency in this.

You're not subject to the whims of the four winds. There are things that you can do to clear away the clutter that's making writing less enjoyable than it used to be. Your love for storytelling and your compulsion to do it, that'll always be there in some capacity.

So you don't need to be anxious about that. It's there. It's waiting. We have evolved for it to be there. It is part of the human experience. So, you know, you may need a break from the process of writing for a little bit to go handle other things or to continue with a particularly messy part of the Transformation process you might be going through, but try to practice faith that you'll come back to that enjoyment.

And if you're in a hurry to get back to it, just try some of the things that I talked about in this episode. Or you can reach out to me and we can do some one on one work together. So that's it for this episode of What If for [00:45:00] Authors. I'm Claire Taylor. Thanks for joining me. If you want to book some time with me to reconnect with the enjoyment of writing, head on over to ffs.media/schedule. And let's do it. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Happy writing!

Episode 16: What if I'm struggling to focus?

Episode Description:

In this insightful episode of What If? For Authors, Claire Taylor tackles a topic that resonates with many: struggling to focus. Claire explores why maintaining focus can be such a challenge in today’s world, how societal structures often work against our ability to concentrate, and what we can do about it. Whether you’re battling distractions from your phone, dealing with trauma, or feeling overwhelmed by perfectionism, this episode offers practical advice and mindfulness techniques to help you regain control over your focus and improve your writing productivity.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the Challenge of Focus: Claire discusses how modern environments, especially the pervasive influence of smartphones and digital media, make it difficult to maintain focus. She emphasizes that this struggle is not a personal failing but rather a systemic issue exacerbated by technology and societal demands.

• Mindfulness as a Tool: Claire shares mindfulness practices that can help you reclaim your focus. These include deep breathing exercises, checking in with your body, emotions, and thoughts, and addressing any underlying needs or fears that might be hindering your ability to concentrate.

• The Impact of Trauma: Trauma can severely affect your ability to focus. Claire encourages listeners to seek therapeutic interventions if they are struggling with unresolved trauma, assuring them that working through these issues can enhance both their well-being and their creative output.

• Practical Steps to Improve Focus: From turning off phone notifications to setting up a supportive environment for writing, Claire provides actionable steps to help you minimize distractions and create a conducive space for focus.

Why Listen? If you find yourself frequently struggling to concentrate on your writing or other tasks, this episode will offer you both understanding and practical solutions. Claire’s compassionate approach to the topic reassures you that you’re not alone in this struggle and that there are effective strategies you can use to improve your focus.

Join the Conversation: Do you have a question or topic you’d like Claire to explore? Send an email to contact@ffs.media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, sustain your author career by going to ffs. media forward slash sustain. I think we're going to have a great time together today.

The topic we'll be looking at is one that I take great joy in working with authors on because there is so much good news I get to deliver. If you're listening to this close to when it releases, it'll be early September ish, Labor Day maybe even Labor Day precisely, if my calculations are, are somewhat correct.

Um, I think that's appropriate for the topic we're talking about today. Earliest September is when many folks with school age kids are able to take their first deep inhale of the new school year. So I think this is coming in at a perfect time for y'all, [00:01:00] uh, if I do say so myself. And if you listen to it later, well.

I reckon it'll still be applicable. This is, this is not something that is a seasonal struggle for people. So, , okay. Today's question is what if I'm struggling to focus? And boy, is that one we can all relate to, huh? The environments we spend our time in are not necessarily designed for focus, for the most part.

Society hasn't been structured with focus in mind for a very long time, if ever. Yet, we put the ability to focus for long periods of time on this pedestal, and then tell everyone who's struggling to adhere to a very narrow definition of focus That, well, there's something wrong with them. Right? And if your focus naturally flows towards something that's not beneficial to generating income, shame on you.

Shame! Okay, so clearly I have some feelings on this topic. You probably [00:02:00] do too, and why wouldn't you? It's sort of a dream to be able to sit down and focus for hours of uninterrupted time, and, you know, you knock out all your work and then go, I don't know, sit in a garden and read for the rest of the day, or go meet up with friends, or whatever.

But that's just a dream most of the time, right? Dreams are important to have, but they can also be a bitch. They can also haunt us. So when I'm talking about focusing, inevitably a question about ADHD will come up. A lot of folks have it or suspect they have it, and there's a big conversation around it recently, so it's sort of front of mind for us, and I think that's great.

I'm all for destigmatizing the different ways in which we experience life. So here's what I'll say about ADHD in the context of our discussion today about focus. Please don't say that won't work for me right away because you have ADHD. Okay. So we're, that's not a, I'm not even going to try it excuse if you have ADHD.

So the Enneagram is all about noticing where our attention flows [00:03:00] And there are a lot of reasons why we may not feel in control of our attention and therefore may struggle to focus our attention where we want it to be. Most of the non medical interventions , like mindfulness that can help , us with focus are also suggested to help people with ADHD.

So, the things that we talk about on these episodes, the mindfulness practices, are also things that you can do that will help your ADHD, right? So, If you need medication, go get the medication, right? Go talk with your doctor, , you two are the best equipped to make that decision. But you can also do these mindfulness practices, right?

You can build these in as well. There's no, you know, , interfering with your medication by doing mindfulness. So if you're dismissing some of these mindfulness interventions and practices because you have an ADHD diagnosis, you are doing that out of fear instead of knowledge.

[00:04:00] Just to, uh, just to put some words to that, so. Um, the last bit I'll say about ADHD before we dive into all the other focus stuff is that yes, the discussion of it enters my conversations with authors of two specific types most frequently. , there are two types where I end up having this discussion, essentially.

Are those the only two types that could have it? I don't know. I don't think so. But it does make sense in the context of how these two types respond to their fear. One of the types that I commonly, uh, have this ADHD conversation with Their fear is, , manifested through muted attentional patterns or checking out, right?

So that makes focus very difficult because everything's kind of feels kind of distant. , and then the other is their fear manifests through scattered attentional patterns. So the stronger and more unaddressed the core fear is of these types, the more likely they are to suspect or possibly even be diagnosed with ADHD.

And, you know, [00:05:00] they may have it. So I'm not saying they don't. Yeah. But I know there are always questions about which types can have what when it comes to things like, you know, depression, anxiety, or even being on the autism spectrum. My experience is that all types are fair game. Um, but with ADHD, there are two types where it shows up.

It makes a lot of sense for showing up most frequently. So yeah, I'm not naming those types. You might be able to guess. Um, feel free to guess. I'm not going to confirm or deny, but yeah, if I'm working with you one on one, it may come up. Anyway, moving on from ADHD because I'm not a doctor and I'm getting exhausted from towing the line here to make sure I stay in my lane.

Alright, so today we're going to look at why it's really fucking hard for everyone to focus. Why the world makes an uphill battle. Uh, what other factors may be at play besides environmental, what you can do for yourself to retrain your brain, and why you might be beating yourself up about it for no good [00:06:00] reason from the start.

Alright, let's see. I think I want to talk about phones, trauma, emotions, perfectionism, capitalism. Uh, there's a lot to get to. In this discussion about focus. So I'm just going to pick one and dive in, I guess. So we need to talk about our phones first, obviously, and like computers and screens in general. So you're either listening to this on your phone or maybe a computer, right?

Maybe a smart TV, whatever, either way, these devices. We're not, and are not designed with human flourishing, let alone focus in mind. They are designed for maximum use. There's a book called Irresistible by Adam Alter. That's incredibly illuminating on this, the sort of design that goes into Our devices.

It breaks down how the mechanisms of our smartphones have exceeded our brain's [00:07:00] capacity for conscious decision making, essentially, we're starting to recognize this more as a society lately, right, that this is happening, but it's important for everyone listening to hear me when I say You will not beat the addictiveness of your phone with willpower alone.

Our brains aren't evolving as fast as this technology is. Hubris will tell us that if we're just strong or smart enough, the phone won't control us. But that is That is hubris because the science shows that the phone is able to hijack our dopamine receptors before we even know what's happening. If you play video games, it's the same thing.

So these gamification techniques have surpassed I would go so far as to say that phone and app interfaces are actively toxic to our focus. They really are. [00:08:00] Uh, there are even apps now that you can buy to help you practice your focus. Don't do it. That is, that is such bullshit. It's like the drug dealer saying they 3 supplements.

I clearly am not a fan of what smart devices are doing to our focus and yet I have an iPhone. Of course I do. I run a business. You'll hear about these anomalous folks in Hollywood. I think Christopher Nolan is one who don't have a cell phone. Right? And every time I hear that, I think, wow, it sure would be nice to have a full time assistant to take all my calls from me so I could be so unburdened.

Every time I hear someone famous and rich talk about not having a cell phone, first of all. He's always a man. Make of that what you will. And then I think, what woman does he have doing his labor for him? Splitting her focus constantly so that he can preserve his like a delicate baby bird. Anyway, I don't like what smartphones do to our focus.

And [00:09:00] yet for most of us, we don't really have a choice about owning one or not if we want to work at the pace of the world around us. So that is kind of the reality of it. What can we do about it to protect our focus? There are a few things that everyone needs to be doing today. Turn off push notifications and those little red numeric note notifications on your apps.

The little ones with the numbers, turn them off. All of them go into your settings and turn them off. I will not be swayed on this point as being step one. If you give a shit about having focus, as soon as you feel or hear that vibration or that ding, your focus is toast, especially when you're writing.

You got to be diligent about this. So most phones have a setting where you can turn everything to silent except calls from specific numbers. So I recommend doing this too. Be selective. , but if you have children, add their numbers and their school's number. Add your [00:10:00] spouse's maybe. I don't know. I don't add mine.

Because anything John's calling me about can usually wait until one of my writing breaks. And if it's an emergency, He's a police detective, so he knows much better people to call about that than me. So if you're wondering, no, I don't, I don't give anyone this exception that they can, uh, that their call will go through, but I've spent years, , rehabbing myself from feeling responsible for fully grown adults and I don't have kids, so yeah, nobody needs me right away.

Everyone in my life can wait 25 minutes until I finish my writing sprint. And I love that about my life. But your life may be different, and that's totally okay. There are still options. , I'm not gonna let you go, Well, Claire doesn't have kids. So she doesn't understand. So I'm not gonna do any of this.

There are still things you can do. Right? , but be very choosy in whose problems you let interrupt you during your writing time. And this goes extra for Enneagram twos because you're hooked on helping people and an opportunity to do that will always feel more appealing to your brain than writing the next sentence.

Even if there's no [00:11:00] urgency to whatever request is coming through. So if you are not someone's emergency contact, do not list their number as one of these that can come through. Okay. Okay, so phones. Allow them to interrupt your thoughts as little as possible when you're not actively using them for something.

When you are not proactively going, I need to look this thing up, right? Erase those interruptions. Eliminate them as much as possible. Now, when you are actively using your phone, Um, I suggest you don't give yourself complete free reign, use apps to limit your screen time, especially on social media and news outlets.

So social media is built for us to scroll endlessly on it, and our brains will just do that if we don't build interventions prior to starting the scroll. It's not only the fact that your brain is going from one image to the next, it's also what those images are that can really screw up our focus.

Thanks. So think [00:12:00] about this. Within the course of like 10 minutes on something like TikTok or Instagram, you might see two authors celebrating big milestones, right? Activate envy or some other feeling of inadequacy when you see that. And then you see a puppy video. And right now, I want a puppy so bad that just seeing these makes my heart ache. , and then maybe you see an image of, uh, bloody body parts from Warzone. I don't even think that that sequence I just described, the author celebrating to puppy to, uh, Warzone, is even an extreme example that I'm giving, right?

This is like everyday scrolling social media for many of us. So, what the fuck is your brain supposed to do with all that? You think you may close the app, move on with your day, and your brain isn't somehow still scrambling to process all that emotional information? Yeah, no wonder we're struggling to [00:13:00] focus.

We just gave our brain impossible homework to do in the background of our activities. So this is the same with news outlets. We're social creatures, and we're not built to take on the worries and pain of the entire world all the time. It makes it very hard to focus on the worries and pain of those around us, who we can actually impact, uh, when we're carrying the weight of the world.

So I was chatting with Becca Syme a few months ago, and she said something to the effect of, People need to check the news, not watch it. Absolutely spot on. And I would actually go a step to say that most of us don't even need to be checking the news on a daily basis. Right? Maybe check local news every so often because that's your community, right?

Staying informed about your community, that's totally normal. And humans have been doing that since the dawn of time. but maybe keep up with the national news from time to time to be an informed voter. World news can [00:14:00] also keep us informed since voting for federal officials requires some knowledge of their beliefs.

On global politics and maybe there's something going on in a place in the world and you think, okay, I do want to donate, or I do want to do a little something for this. But if you stop to think about how often you are actually taking action based on the information you read about on the news and, you know, getting freaked out and in a panic is not action.

It's not productive action. Then you may realize that most of your consumption of the news Is not being turned into useful action. It's being used to fuel an outrage, addiction to fortify your existing beliefs. And to fill you with adrenaline. So do those sound helpful to being able to focus your attention where you want it to be?

Or do those sound like the kinds of things that hijack our brain by putting it into hyper or hypo aroused states so that calm focus becomes impossible. So you have to make a choice [00:15:00] here. You have to make a choice between focus and the consumption of news and social media. And I want. Everyone listening.

And I probably needed to do this myself to look with honesty at the choice we have been making, because we may try and fool ourselves into thinking that we could do both or that we are choosing focus when that is not the reality of the patterns we've been following. So I promise you that the days when you spend the least amount of time on your phone or computer will on the whole.

Be some of the best days of your life. So think about it. Outside of a few exceptions, the times when we forget about our phones are when we're out with friends, in nature. Watching our kids sporting events, reading a paperback book, maybe a pool day, all of those. Those are the kinds of activities that strengthen our muscles of focus, too.

So consider that when [00:16:00] you're fighting against the idea of limiting access to your phone. The way to well being is not through a screen.

There are other things that can negatively impact our ability to focus, so trauma is a big one. Focus requires being present. And it's difficult to be present when your body is stuck reliving a past event over and over again, and it can't move from the past into the present. So, thankfully there are a lot of effective therapeutic interventions for trauma nowadays.

Some cost money, yes, but some don't. So I can't think of a better investment to make in your author career than spending money to help yourself address a traumatic event or something like CPTSD. So that would be the chronic PTSD from your childhood or maybe like an abusive relationship, something like that.

I know it feels scary to poke at that part at all. But I promise that doing so won't lose any parts of you that are helping you be [00:17:00] creative, right? So there's this idea that our traumas might make us better writers and I hate that notion. I call bullshit. Lessons learned. Can help us be better writers, but that's not necessarily what trauma is.

You can have lessons learned without the trauma. You can have the strength of getting through something without the actual trauma living in your body. So maybe once we get to the other side of traumas, they can inform our writing and give us compassionate insight. But when your body and mind are stuck in trauma, you are not a better artist.

Okay. So let's release that idea. Trauma. just makes things harder. So working through the trauma with tools like EMDR, this is the rapid eye movement, , therapy, , cognitive behavioral therapy, plant therapy, meditation. It's just something we all deserve to give ourselves and it's not going to hurt your writing or your creativity.

It's not going to hurt your [00:18:00] career. It's going to make your career easier. easier for you. So until we start to do these interventions, and I do suggest if you have something big that you need to work through, it's worth, uh, just sort of finding, scrapping together the money to go see a therapist to have that support.

But until we do it, until we start taking that first step, we can't expect our brains to have the bandwidth To focus deeply on the task at hand, on whatever that task is, especially if it's a creative one. So, those are some of the general causes that I mostly see when authors are struggling to focus.

There is another one, and it's simply an internalized attitude. And so, I will mention it. This internalized attitude is capitalism. I always feel like I have to say that I do support capitalism, so that a bunch of tech and crypto bros don't at me. Um, I do think capitalism is pretty good. And can create prosperity for most people.

But I also don't [00:19:00] think that it's immune from critique. Uh, and I think it's dangerous to assume that anything should be immune from critique. Even the Enneagram. so yeah, I don't think it's immune from critique. And I don't think the U. S. is doing a very good job at capitalism lately. Because it's not generating prosperity for most people at the moment.

It tends to be, uh, very heavily weighted towards a few people. So maybe there are some things we can adjust while still keeping it capitalism. , anyway, there's my Type 1 Strive for Fairness showing up. Capitalism comes with its own belief system, as all economic systems do. So one of the beliefs that's perpetuated by it is that your value is determined by how effectively you can produce.

So that's more of an implicit than an explicit component of it, but it is there. We are trained, starting at an early age, that our job in the workforce is to create as much value as we can in as short amount of time as possible, and that, and at the cheapest possible cost. I don't feel [00:20:00] neutral about that idea.

I Believe, and this is what we, uh, learn as we do this Enneagram study, but your value as a human is inherent and you don't have to earn it. But when we learn that we do have to earn our value, we start to look at any time that isn't focused production as points off of our value. This holds especially true for Enneagram type threes, the achievers, but I've seen the belief knocking around the minds of people of all types. And, you know, it's a cause of consternation when someone's struggling to focus. So this leads me to this specific point. Is it actually a problem if you struggle to focus from time to time?

I mean that on a human level. Is it actually a problem? Or is some of the concern around it created as a result of beliefs? [00:21:00] That all the time you spend being unfocused is time wasted, and that time wasted is value wasted. So I don't want to dip too far into the natural fallacy here, but I think often about, , how even just 200 years ago, humans needed to be able to maintain sharp focus.

for no more than like a few minutes at a time. So even the deepest thinkers in history are philosophers and poets. They spent a lot of time just kind of fucking about, right? Write a little, fuck about. Think a little, do some manual labor, fuck about some more. What I see changing is that our environmental demands on our attention have increased in the last few centuries and our beliefs about focused work have shifted towards squeezing every last drop out of each worker.

And the outcome of that mentality hasn't become an important conversation. We haven't had a very large conversation yet [00:22:00] about whether any of this makes any goddamn sense. Instead, we have everyone running around like, My brain is broken because I'm struggling to focus on my manuscript. Listen, I find myself feeling that way sometimes too, right?

But you see how we might get to that conclusion and how ridiculous of a conclusion it is. Maybe our premise is faulty here. So the first really big idea I propose for everyone listening is to consider that maybe your brain isn't broken or faulty. Maybe your brain could simply benefit from some more proactive protection. Against the state of the world in which it is trying to function. So what if the world has run amok and your ability to focus is just fine. What if the modern world was constructed sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.

with other values and goals in mind than the [00:23:00] average person's ability to feel sane.

Some people's natural patterns of attention are going to be better suited to the existing structures than others, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily have broken parts in your brain when it comes to focus. I think that's really important for us to start with as a major concept in this discussion around focus.

Maybe we are not the problem. Okay, so now that we've sorted through the fact that there might not be anything broken with you specifically and you are likely instead trying to shoulder responsibility individually for a systemic problem, let's look at some of the things that are within our power to do to help protect our focus from the interruptions of the world.

So I already talked about the phone stuff, so I won't repeat that. , if you have trauma that's being left unaddressed, it may be time to start looking at that with lots and lots of support. Uh, and there's plenty more we can look at. So, okay. Imagine this. You sit down at the computer. Your phone is on silent in the other room.

You open your manuscript. [00:24:00] Maybe pull up your beats if you work with beats or an outline. And you know what needs to be written next. Yet, you can't get started. Something is interfering with your focus. You feel like your eyes are just darting everywhere but the computer screen. What do you do? Here's what I suggest.

Start by checking in with your body. Are there any aches and pains that need to be addressed? Are you hungry or thirsty? Did you get poor sleep the night before? If it's one of those things, take care of that need. Grab a snack, get a glass of water, make yourself a coffee if you don't have time for a nap, whatever, then sit back down.

If your focus still isn't there, move on from your body to the next center of intelligence. So how was your heart? What emotions are you experiencing right now? For many of us, we won't know how to answer that right away. And that can become a big factor in being unfocused. Because [00:25:00] emotions work on their own logic and time frame.

A lot of us would rather just ignore them, if we can, and just sort of Move on. Nothing to see here. Just set them aside and get to work. And if we absolutely have to check in with our heart, we might start by asking ourselves what we're feeling and then deciding if any of those feelings are valid enough to bother with.

Have you caught yourself doing this? Have you checked in with your heart and started judging your emotions without feeling them? So, let me ask you this, who decides what emotion is valid or not? What is a valid emotion? What if all emotions are valid simply because they are?

So our pattern of sorting our emotions based on some template of validity is not a healthy pattern. Feelings aren't meant to be sorted and herded like sheep. They are meant to be felt. Now, I'm not saying you should act. On every emotion you have that, that's important, [00:26:00] right? But while that emotion is inside of you, you're allowed to feel it.

Nobody can stop you. No harm comes from just feeling it, right? So you're allowed to feel it. And sometimes that's the only way to keep it from tripping up your focus. So can we think about our feelings? Can we deconstruct them? Certainly. Right? And that can be very helpful. But many of us skip right over the feeling part to the deconstruction, and that is not going to take the edge off like you think it will.

It just makes feeling that emotion a later problem, and in fact it can actually damage your connection to your feeling center of intelligence if you judge your feelings rather than feeling them. So, this looks like checking in with your heart, and you notice you're sad, maybe. , maybe you're grieving something.

What many of us will do is ask if it's valid for us to be grieving, right? Ah, that happened years ago, I should be over it. That's judgment. That's determining the validity [00:27:00] of your emotions rather than feeling the grief. But taking a moment to feel that grief, maybe even a cry, that is a step towards completing the emotion and it's very likely to help you feel more settled and able to focus on the other side of it.

So maybe you check in and notice you're feeling inadequate, right? That's not a flattering emotion to notice, right? Oh, I'm feeling inadequate. A lot of people would, , do very well to notice that they're feeling inadequate, , and feel it rather than acting on it. So it's not fun to feel, right? But if you check in with yourself, if you allow yourself to see that feeling without judgment, Then you'll be much more able to walk yourself through it.

So talk to the emotion. I know this is going to sound lame. Talk to the emotion like you would a small child. So you're talking to the child that's still inside of you, living sort of amongst the patterns you learned when you were young, that child may be scared that if they're not living up to some nebulous expectation, , that they're afraid that they won't, Um, you [00:28:00] know, be loved or cared for as a result.

So that's big, right? So pause and talk to that version of you. The adult version knows better, right? The adult version of you has some perspective that if this particular scene you're trying to write doesn't come out the way you want in the draft, you won't lose any love or protection that was worth having, right?

But our emotions usually come from a much simpler place inside of us. And so they do kind of require special care. Your other option is to. Ignore the feeling or invalidate it and continue to wonder why you can't focus. So yeah, it's your choice. So much of our inability to focus is from fear. So your amygdala sends signals to your sympathetic nervous system to prepare for action.

Your body redirects blood away from your vital organs and toward your arms and legs. Your attention shifts too, from focused and calm to very scattered. You're scanning for threats for new developments to tell you if you're safe or still in danger. So this is why mindfulness practices. [00:29:00] Are essential to focus.

They are the best thing we know of to retrain our brain. So I've read so many studies examining the impact of mindfulness practices on amygdala activity. It's, it's just nuts. , although to be fair, the sample sizes are usually not large enough to be statistically significant in their results, but I've certainly experienced the benefits throughout my life of mindfulness on my own fear.

So I had so much anxiety all of my life. And it showed up largely as perfectionism for me. So yes, perfectionism is a, , manifestation of anxiety, , for all you type ones out there and some of the other types who have perfectionism. Uh, it's, it's not a, uh, badge of honor. It's, it's anxiety. Maybe she's born with it.

Maybe it's anxiety. And anyway, now I experience Very, you know, sort of infrequent bouts of anxiety. And when I do, I'm like, Oh, weird anxiety is back. So granted, some of [00:30:00] that is probably related to my life situation. So I feel much more secure in my relationships and finances now than I didn't like my twenties when the anxiety was on full blast, right?

Of course, of course, that's going to be a factor, but at the same time, someone could be in the same situation as I am and not feel secure. So my sense of security in my relationships and finances is pretty dependent on my outlook and that outlook has been shaped by mindfulness practices. So let's distill this down so I can give you something useful, , for focus to take away from this episode.

So if your focus has been jumping around throughout this episode, notice that. Bring it back to my voice. , and I'm going to give you a practice. So here's the full practice I do when I, , can't sit and focus on the manuscript. I've been putting off, you know, some particular emails for a while, , which happens, step one, very simple. Sit up straight. Okay. Step [00:31:00] one, sit up straight. It's impossible to breathe properly for relaxation when you're slouching. So you end up with shallow breathing instead of steady, calm breaths. , even just being at your screen. I was reading this article about this concept of screen apnea, where we start to lose mindfulness around our posture and our breathing changes.

And , we spend hours breathing like we can't breathe, right? Like we have apnea. Anyway, Sit up straight, place your hands on your thighs, roll your shoulders back, and breathe into your belly through your nose. So you should feel your stomach expand on the inhale. Draw your breath into your belly and then upward until you feel your diaphragm start to expand.

That's really important, feeling that diaphragm start to move. So let out the breath slowly. There are all different time amounts here that people advocate for on the in breath and the out breath, but breathing [00:32:00] in and out of your belly and diaphragm is already a step ahead of where most of us started from.

So good enough. Just breathe in deep, slowly. Breathe out deep, slowly. Whatever that means to you, right? Just, you know, if you start to get lightheaded, maybe, maybe change the the rhythm a little bit. Now, check in with your head center, okay? Is there more information you need before you can tackle this task?

What is it? Do you still have questions you need answered? What are those? How are you going to figure those out? Is it your thinking center of intelligence that's making it hard for you to focus? So this is, we're looking at this center. If you can't think of anything else you need before, , taking the step that you need to take on this project, then maybe it's not your head center that is getting in the way, right?

So then move on to the next center. Let's look at your heart. Check in with your emotions. What are they? What do you need to feel before you can focus on the task at hand? What emotion is making it [00:33:00] hard for you to be present and focused? Feel what needs to be felt without judgment on whether it's valid and then, you know, make sure you talk to the emotion kindly and with care and compassion.

Next, move on to your body and check in. Are there any aches and pains that are making it difficult to be present? Do you have to pee? Are you hungry? Are you tired? What maybe needs five to ten minutes of care right now for your body? Okay, now bring your attention to the task at hand that you're struggling to focus on.

What is the first step? What fear is it triggering that may be splintering your attention? So in this relaxed, relaxed state that you've created through the deep breathing, through the introspection, walk yourself through that fear and imagine yourself taking that first step. If you start to feel anxious when you imagine this, return your attention to your deep breathing.

And then go back and try again. If it still feels [00:34:00] impossible, , to take that first step, if you're trying to imagine it and it's just not happening, ask yourself what support you need to take the first step. Do you need an accountability partner? Do you need a writing buddy? Do you need a more conducive environment?

Hell, do you need a shot of espresso? So take a few more deep breaths and then open your eyes. So now not only are you calm, but you may have some really interesting answers that you weren't taking time to seek out. So maybe you have a few steps to take, like caring for your body, asking for support, doing a little research, having a cry.

Um, probably not all of those things, maybe just one or two, but on the other side of doing that. You can feel pretty confident that you're, you've cleared the path for your focus, or maybe just the stillness, the deep breathing and reflection was all you needed, right? That's very often the case. So maybe you open your eyes and you feel inspired and focused, and then you dive in.

[00:35:00] That's great. Okay. Now, fair, fair warning, real talk. If you are new to this technique, You're not suddenly going to be focused throughout it. Your mind will wander as you check in with your three centers, you'll find yourself slouching, doing shallow breathing, again, all kinds of things. When that happens.

The most important thing is to not get upset at yourself. This is not a failure. This is just a thing that happens with our attention. Anyone who does mindfulness practice regularly can tell you that this is going to happen. So when we notice it, we just bring our attention back to whatever, , whatever we were focusing on before.

And we just continue on, right? You lose focus. You're like, Oh. I'm I've lost focus. I'm thinking about something completely different. Well, that's interesting information is observed that thought, but now it's time to go back to my heart center where I left off, right? So yeah, this is just not a big deal.

Don't get mad at yourself. That's counter productive to the [00:36:00] exercise. So mindfulness is never an invitation to abuse or castigate yourself. It's opening a door for love and compassion, which both deeply improve our focus. So, if you are wondering, what if I'm struggling to focus? My answer is, you and everybody else, friend.

Let's just be real about this. The degrees to which we struggle and the flavor of that struggle will be different, but we all face it. There's Nothing wrong with you. The systems we are living in are not designed for all types of attentional patterns. So try to avoid taking your struggle to focus as a personal failing when you're doing the best you can in poorly designed systems.

That being said, You always have the option of increasing your ability to focus and troubleshooting when you are struggling by using mindfulness techniques like deep breathing, curiosity, and self [00:37:00] compassion. You do have tools, right? You have some power here. And sometimes, When you do all the things, and none of it seems to work, that could be your mind, your body, and your heart's way of saying, Today's a day for messing around, right? And just being playfully unfocused. So you deserve days like that too, even if they didn't make it onto your calendar in advance, right?

Adults! Also deserve to play hooky sometimes. I'm a big advocate for this. So that's it for this episode of What If For Authors. I'm Claire Taylor. Thanks for joining me and staying focused for this entire episode. If you want to book some time with me, be sure to go to ffs. media and you can poke around my offerings.

I have group courses, individual coaching, and so much more to support you in your lifelong passion for writing. So thanks again for joining me and we'll chat again soon.

Episode 15: What if I don't write to market?

Episode Description:

In this thought-provoking episode of What If? For Authors, Claire Taylor explores the question, What if I don't write to market? Claire deconstructs the notion of market trends, breaking down how many assumptions about what sells are actually based on correlations rather than causations. She also addresses the fears and misconceptions many authors have about the necessity of writing to market for financial success.

Key Takeaways:

• Defining "Writing to Market": Claire explores what writing to market actually means, challenging the idea that there is one clear definition of "the market" for any genre. She explains how commonalities between bestselling books don’t necessarily define the market, and that following trends doesn’t guarantee success.

• Correlation vs. Causation: Claire discusses the importance of understanding the difference between correlation and causation when it comes to identifying what makes a book successful. Authors often mistake trends as being the cause of success when they might simply be coincidental.

• Meeting Reader Expectations: While writing to market isn’t a guarantee of sales, meeting reader expectations in your genre is crucial. Claire talks about the importance of understanding the psychological appeal of tropes and delivering on the promises that your genre sets up for readers.

• Flexibility and Creativity: Writing to market doesn’t mean you have to abandon your creative impulses. Claire encourages authors to find a balance between writing the stories they want to write and making them marketable. Sometimes adding a few familiar genre markers can help orient readers without compromising your unique vision.

• Sitting with Uncertainty: Claire acknowledges that some books and series may not take off, despite an author's best efforts. She encourages listeners to accept the uncertainty of the publishing industry and to keep creating in a way that aligns with their true vision.

Why Listen? If you’ve ever wondered whether writing to market is the key to success, this episode will provide clarity and challenge some of the common assumptions in the industry. Claire offers a nuanced perspective on the balance between creative integrity and marketability, helping authors navigate the complex world of genre trends and reader expectations.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or topic you’d like Claire to explore? Send an email to contact@ffs.media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs. media forward slash sustain. Okay.

So today's topic feels long overdue. We're only at episode 15, but it always already, it feels overdue. So, , I would guess that's because it's one of the most frequently discussed topics in the industry. Today we're talking about writing to market. That's right. Today's question we're going to explore is, what if I don't write to market? Oh God, I have so much to say on this topic. So, so much. I'm really going to have to narrow it down. So I don't spend all day talking your ear off about this.

So I may not hit all of the points that I want to hit, but I'm going to go straight for the [00:01:00] heart of it. I think let's, let's get into asking the questions that not a lot of people are actually asking about this whole right to market thing. So if you're like, what if I don't write to market? What if I don't know what that means?

Oh my gosh. Will I ever have a career? I mean, spoiler alert. The answer is yes. That's fine. Right. That's kind of the point of this show. Um, but let's start with, , what the hell it even means to write to market. There are all kinds of misconceptions about what writing to market means, and we each bring a lot of connotation to the word market.

So it might be useful to look closer at what we're bringing to the conversation that doesn't necessarily exist in it organically. I want to be clear. First of all, Nobody really knows what the market is. Okay. There's never a clear definition. Just books that are selling? Like, what does that even mean? So let's take, for example, the genre of cozy mysteries and let's, , just absolutely tear this apart.

Okay. [00:02:00] So in the most general sense, cozy mysteries are clean mysteries with a sleuth solving some sort of crime. In the most general sense, you may look at what's selling and contemporary cozy mysteries and see that. Most of the books on the bestseller list have these things in common, female sleuths, small towns.

Maybe they're set in England. Does that mean that I've just defined the market? I don't think so. So commonalities between best selling books doesn't mean that the books with those commonalities will become best selling. Or that a book even needs to have those commonalities to be a best selling cozy mystery.

Classic red herring. That being said, if a reader loves cozy mysteries and has started to associate certain elements of them, then With books they enjoy reading, then the presence of those elements may subconsciously draw this particular reader in. And [00:03:00] yet, if you're an indie author, the market you want to look at is the indie market.

And if you're a trad published author, then you want to look at what's selling for trad publishers because that's probably what they'll pick up. And those two categories are almost always different. So let's go even more granular. We're going to deconstruct even more. Let's go even more granular here.

Not just cozy mysteries, but let's look at paranormal cozy mysteries. A sub genre of cozy mystery. So you've probably heard that witches Sell more books than psychics. And this is if you've done any, any research on what is selling in paranormal cozy mystery, which many, many people have, because the word really got around a few years ago that like, Oh, you can just publish one of these and make bank, um, which is not true.

You have to do other things and you may still not , make bank. But, , if you have done the research, you probably have heard that witches sell more books than psychics as you know, main characters. Does that mean That writing to market in a paranormal cozy space means [00:04:00] writing witches and not psychics?

I think that's the question to ask. We're trained to believe so, right? But what if you write psychics and make them a kind of witch? Ooh, now we're getting into some gray area. And that's what I did with my paranormal cozy, uh, series. And that series sells better than a lot of what you would call witch cozies.

And it's a psychic. I actually now have three series under that pen name that have psychic witches, sneaky sneaky, um, as the main characters. So what does that even mean? That it seems like that shouldn't be right. If we follow the logic of writing to market means writing main characters that are witches.

And if you don't write to market, you won't make money. I can tell you this series has. Done well. Okay, so meanwhile, there's also a historical cozy subgenre too. Historical when? The 1920s? The 1980s? Yeah, sorry, that's historical, y'all. [00:05:00] The 1860s? And historical where? The U. S., England, India. So you may look and see some commonalities around the bestsellers of female sleuths in the U.

S. in the 1920s, right? Maybe that's , what a lot of the top sellers in historical cozy have in common. But does that mean that you have to check those boxes to be writing to the market of historical cozies? I don't know. I don't know. And if paranormal cozies sell more on the whole than contemporary or historical cozies, let's just say, uh, does that mean that if you want to write to market in cozy mystery, you must write paranormal cozies about a female witch sleuth?

Okay. You get where I'm going. Am I destabilizing your ideas about what the market even means enough here? Can I, can I give it a rest? Actually, no, I can't. Let's keep going. So, all of that being said, I'm not saying that you should throw out the idea. Some tropes [00:06:00] and characters may help you sell books more easily than others in general.

For instance, I've only seen authors struggle to sell paranormal cozies that star mermaids. Right? So that doesn't mean that there will never be a breakout success with a mermaid sleuth. It just means that there's some appeal about mermaids isn't catching the subconscious attention of readers when they look for their next book.

At least not right now. I don't know what it is. Do we not like fins? Do we not like water? Is it just not something that we think about? Are a lot of people scared of swimming? I don't know. I don't know what it is. Is it just that it's not a witch? And people are looking for witches, and psychics, and witches.

To be honest though, we're only ever one major box office hit away from all the books that are a little like that box office hit suddenly selling. Right? It's only going to take one Mermaid sleuth hitting the box office and doing well [00:07:00] before all of the cozy authors who have written mermaids are going to be like, cha ching.

Um, so I mean, think about what Harry Potter and the Magicians did for the Magic Academy genre. Or what Fifty Shades did for the Grumpy Boss subgenre and like the alpha holes and that sort of thing. It sort of opened the public's mind to the fact that this thing exists and they kind of like it. So then they're going to go look for more.

So what we're really doing when we browse bestsellers in a genre we want to write in, and we find the commonalities between those books that are bestselling, what we're doing is to gather up a whole lot of correlations and hope that a few of them turn out to also be causations. Sometimes they do, most of the times they don't.

It's very uncomfortable for some people to hear what I just said. Writing to market often looks like a bad idea. Gathering up as many correlations as possible and just hoping to [00:08:00] God or whoever, the universe, Flying Spaghetti Monster, that a few of them are causations for the success of those books. So the main reason I see that authors and people subconsciously jump from correlations to causations without the logic actually following, um, and we know those two things aren't the same thing, right?

It's because assuming it's a causation creates a sense of control for us. When things are simply correlations, we don't feel the same power rush of thinking, then if I just do X, I can expect Y to happen. That same power rush, which is what we get when we believe we're working with a causation.

We don't get that with correlations. So we will very subtly assume or function upon the belief that the are causations because it gives us more sense of power over the world. So [00:09:00] this is why authors can write a book perfectly quote unquote to market and it doesn't sell. The things you thought were causations were actually just correlations that you were picking up on.

So maybe the top selling books all have three main features in common. But those are just correlations. And the reason why those particular books are selling us that they're published by Penguin Random House, and they have a massive marketing budget behind them, right? Maybe that's the actual causation.

Penguin maybe just happens to like to publish books with those three main features in them. And that got you thinking that the three main features were the reason for the rankings and not all that big publisher money. Are those books profitable just because they're bestsellers? We don't know.

Okay, I know I'm really taking away some people's toys with that deconstruction, but let's look at how the confusion between correlation and causation leads to some ideas about writing to market that aren't necessarily true. [00:10:00] So you may think if I write to market, I can't write what I want to write. You may think if I write to market, I'll make more money.

You may think the only way to make money is to write to market. You may say the reason I'm not making money is because I'm not writing to market. And you may say writing to market means blending in with every other book in the genre. So false down the list. If you've been feeling that resistance to writing to market or writing to market, And if you're not writing to it, then there you go.

Okay. Now there is something to be said for meeting reader expectations. Not many authors are particularly talented at sussing out what those expectations really are deep down though. And even fewer are aware that they're missing the target completely. Take for example, grumpy sunshine romances. So trope where one partner, usually the man in hetero [00:11:00] couples, is.

Grumpy. Then he meets the ray of sunshine, usually the woman in hetero couples. Okay. So let's say an author recognizes that there's a so called market for this term. , Grumpy Sunshine, meaning a lot of readers seem interested in books that have this as the central trope. As I mentioned before, it could be a matter of maybe one author who's very popular, writes a lot of these and is skewing the market because her readers would read anything she wrote.

But let's just say that Grumpy Sunshine is something a lot of readers are proven to be clamoring for. That doesn't mean that this author, this hypothetical author, really understands who Why? What is the psychology behind this appeal? If you jump into a space like this and you don't understand the underlying psychological appeal of the trope or the subgenre, it's entirely possible to write a grumpy sunshine pairing that does not, in fact, Satisfy the reader's desire.

So what is it that has these readers by the throat [00:12:00] metaphorically? I have to specify that with romance. Uh, what like, is it watching the grumpy man slowly start to soften? Is that the appeal? Is it the friction between the man and the sunshiny woman? Do readers like it when she annoys him? Do they like it when he falls for her instantly and is fighting it?

Is it both? What is at the heart of this? And of course you knew this was coming. Uh, what Enneagram types are they actually hungry to see in this dynamic? Is there a preference? Do they like more of the grumpy type 8 who is kind of a bully when he's grumpy? Or more of the one who has high standards for everyone and is grumpy because he's taken on too much responsibility for everyone?

Or maybe a grumpy 5 who thinks everyone is acting irrationally and just wants to be kind of left alone to do what he needs to do. Which flavor of appeal is there? And are we looking at a sunshiny Enneagram 7 who just wants to have [00:13:00] fun, or a 2 who always wants to care and nurture those around her? Or maybe even a 3 who can, you know, Never be held down and feels like there's always a good path forward.

I belabored this point to show you that you can quote, unquote, write to market and still fail to meet the reader expectations. And also like readers are notoriously bad at explaining the appeal of the thing to them. They have no reason to know the language to describe the appeal. They just know what they like, and that's fine.

That's their job to just know what they like. However, if you market something as a rom com, um, And the couple doesn't end up together at the end. You're really steppin in it. And if you write a cozy mystery and forget to add in a mystery, or fail to solve the mystery by the end of it, which I have seen happen, you're also steppin in it.

So there are some bendable rules, but pretty firm rules for each genre insofar as what makes it [00:14:00] that genre, and not some other genre. So undermine these rules. At your own risk. This is really where I start to put my foot down with authors I work with on story. If you want a lot of readers mad at you, like if you have an expensive and time consuming punishment kink, then by all means, write a romance without a happily ever after or a happily for now ending.

Go for it. If that's a story you absolutely must write though, a lot of romance, but they don't end up together, they decide it's better not to, uh, then maybe Maybe don't market it as romance. Unless you have that punishment kink, then go for it. But instead consider whether it would maybe fit into literary fiction or women's fiction instead.

And I'm not telling you to write a different story. I'm telling you once the story is written, Decide the best way to convey it to the readers so that you are meeting their expectations, so that what they expect to find when they [00:15:00] open the cover and look at that first page is what they get. So if you have a story that comes to you and doesn't quite fit into any of the genres you know about, that's okay.

No need to panic here. So there might be an established genre for it that you just don't know about yet. Or maybe you can create your own. So paranormal women's fiction authors did this very intentionally through a group effort, right? And then there's romanticy as a recently sort of branded genre that's entered the parlance.

Everyone knows romanticy now. Well, readers of romanticy know romanticy. Um, and who knew fairy smut would be this big 10 years ago, right? So new genres do occasionally occur. And sometimes if you really want to put the effort into it, you can, you can make it happen. So you can write the story how it wants to be written.

But you're gonna want to be extra savvy when it comes to marketing, if you just write the story exactly as it comes out, right? And you don't, you just let it flow and you don't think about any of these [00:16:00] marketing concerns. When it comes to marketing, you're going to have to be extra savvy.

So don't market your book as something it's not, and if you find that you can't put words to what it is that you wrote, not even like a clear genre mashup comparison, then you're just going to learn real quick why people say stick to a genre, right? You're going to learn the lesson.

They're trying to save you the frustration of trying to explain your book a million times over without having a clear shared definition to start with.

So there is the option. A little bit of compromise to be had here that will save you the frustration in the long run of trying to explain what your book is. Cause you have to explain it to people before they even will consider buying it. So you could draft the book the way you want to draft it, then try to describe it.

Try to describe it as if you're telling the person who's meant to read it, okay? If you can't really describe it or if that description goes on and on and on, then [00:17:00] maybe it's time. To add some more familiar genre markers that won't affect the underlying message and feeling of the story, but will make your life easier by helping convey to the right readers what they can expect between the covers.

And yes, this is a recommendation that I usually find myself making to type fours, the individualists. If you're a type four, I urge you to remember that the most creative people are those who can be creative within some constraints. That takes the most creativity. Now, if you're someone who's here just to make as much money as you can with each book, I want to warn you that you may run out of steam soon.

And that's because some books will never hit. They won't. Can you take that? Can you sit with not knowing why, instead of assigning made up reasons that lead you down the wrong path? So some books, some series, simply will not take off like others, and that goes back to the correlation [00:18:00] causation trap. What you thought was causation was actually correlation, and then sometimes there's just no clear explanation.

For why it didn't hit, why it didn't take off. There are usually too many factors at play in publishing to isolate a single one with any sort of warranted confidence.

So, if you're wondering, what if I don't write to market, and this is causing you some level of anxiety, some level of angst, actually, I heard it pronounced angst recently, and it sounds, that sounds nice in Germanic, angst, , whatever. I'm from Texas, angst, it's angst, ain't it? Anyway, I don't know how I got here.

If you're wondering, what if I don't write to market, my answer is this. What market? What market? What is your definition of a market based on? How can you be sure you're not mistaking correlation with causation when you are defining that market? So [00:19:00] writing to quote unquote market is also no guarantee of money anyway.

As long as you can clearly explain what your book delivers to the audience who will enjoy it, you're on a pretty smart path. So just keep doing that. And if you find that your book is too hard to explain to people through, like, the visual image of a cover or a short headline and sales page, then it might be time to get some help on those things, including possibly tweaking the book itself to hit more familiar, Character plot theme and genre signposts for readers so that they have something to hold on to as they dive into your unique story.

Just a little bit of familiarity can go a long way towards orienting the reader and letting them know what they're in for. So writing to market, whatever that means, doesn't guarantee sales. And writing what you want to write doesn't doom your career. So you might as well start by writing something true and build and adjust from [00:20:00] there, right? That's what revisions are for. That's what beta reads and editor feedback are for. Then do that over and over and over again. Until someday you have a catalog that you're really proud to call your own.

So that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. Um, I do offer story consulting services for authors. I don't talk about it much, uh, because I'm doing all this other career stuff, but if there's one thing I'm really good at in this life. It's that. It's the story consulting. Um, I was an editor for years.

I studied this stuff in college and I just kind of have a knack for assessing where things are falling apart in your plot and character development. So anyway, I call it the story alignment and if you want to read about it, You can go to storyalignment.com and read more or schedule some time with me. I would love to chat more about your story and help you kind of figure out what is the market, where am I trying to hit market, where, [00:21:00] what's causation correlation?

You know, I can help you guess on that. And then really, like, what genre is my story? What is this missing that readers will expect from a story that I market this way? All of those things we can talk about in a story alignment. So. I hope you'll come see me. Anyway, I'm Claire Taylor, and this has been another episode of the What If For Authors podcast.

Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Episode 14: What if I hate writing emails?

Episode Description:

In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire Taylor dives into a topic that many authors struggle with: email. Claire explores the underlying reasons why authors might feel dread about managing email lists and responding to reader messages, and she offers practical advice to make the process less stressful. Whether it's removing the "shoulds" around email, creating a schedule that works for your energy, or hiring an assistant to handle the influx of messages, Claire encourages listeners to find their own path to a healthier email relationship.

Key Takeaways:

• Removing the "Shoulds": Many authors feel weighed down by preconceived notions of how often they "should" email their readers. Claire emphasizes that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach and that it’s okay to do what works for you.

• Email as a Creative Outlet: Claire encourages authors to see email as just another form of writing, which can be fun and creative when the content feels right. There are no rules—whether it’s memes, stories, or personal anecdotes, email can reflect who you are as an author.

• Boundaries with Reader Emails: Responding to every reader email isn’t necessary, and it’s important to set boundaries that protect your time and energy. Claire explores how different Enneagram types might feel pressure to respond and offers advice on how to manage that.

• Consider Outsourcing: If email truly feels overwhelming, outsourcing to a virtual assistant can be a great option. Claire shares her own experience of hiring help to handle emotionally taxing emails and encourages others to do the same if needed.

• Email Lists as a Foundation: Building an email list is still one of the wisest things authors can do for long-term success, providing a direct line to readers that isn’t dependent on social media algorithms or platforms.

Why Listen? If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by managing your email list or responding to readers, this episode is for you. Claire offers both practical advice and mindset shifts to help you develop a healthier, more sustainable relationship with email. Whether you need to set new boundaries, rethink your email strategy, or hire help, this episode provides actionable steps to make email a tool that works for you, not against you.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or topic you’d like Claire to explore? Send an email to contact@ffs.media. Claire is always open to hearing from her listeners and offering support.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career by going to ffs. media forward slash sustain.

I've been thinking lately about how the popularity of the Enneagram has been increasing in the author world, and I love that. It's becoming a language that we all use together. But as with any language, it can be used to support and encourage or to cut down and diminish. I think people mostly mean well when they're using it.

Ah, but it can still come off as diminishing someone sometimes. So, just a reminder today, that we probably don't want to taint a person's experience with this tool by using it To excuse our maladaptive behavior. Like I probably don't want to be going around saying as a one, I see everything that's wrong with you and here's the list or whatever.

[00:01:00] That would sort of be weaponizing it. We probably don't want to roll our eyes at someone and say, Ugh, you're such a four. You know, that sort of thing. I have no problem with laughing together when our type becomes super apparent. That's one of the gifts of this work. You get to see how silly some of the patterns we develop are.

But laughing together on a foundation of mutual respect and trust is different from using someone's type as a diss, right? Okay. So that's just my little, little PSA today. I don't know. I felt compelled to speak on it. So we all need reminders and I'm not excluding myself from that, especially when we're dealing with an industry that conducts most of its networking online.

I see some lovely people say some pretty horrible things on social media. I noticed the impulse in myself too. And I've certainly said things over the years on social media that I didn't really think through. We all do, but the great thing is that we can do better as we gain more [00:02:00] awareness. So that's pretty cool.

Okay. So today's episode asks a very important question. What if I hate writing emails? Girl, same. Okay. So I don't hate it, but it does become overwhelming for me and it's absolutely not my favorite thing to write emails. I know a lot of authors feel conflicted about what to do if they dread everything related to their inbox.

Can they still have a successful author career? Do they have to build an email list of readers if they really, really, really don't want to? When are they supposed to respond to those draining reader emails that, you know,

The email relationships we create as authors are so weird and not normal. Um, for instance, I had to tell one of my fiction lists about my dog's death, which means that they got [00:03:00] one email in their inbox about something sad. And I kept it to the facts too. She was here. It's time to say goodbye. Now I'm behind on the timeline I told you about for this book.

So they got one email in their inbox with this news, and I certainly didn't include a picture of her. I wasn't trying to make anyone sad. What did I get back? I got like dozens and dozens of email replies from readers who not only told me about their dog's passing, but sent a picture of the dog who had passed.

Oh, so it was coming from a good and pure place from them. I absolutely believe that. And I don't begrudge anyone wanting to share, right? I get that. But who boy, oh boy, that was a lot. It was too much actually for me at the time. I probably should have known better. Either way, that's not a normal dynamic that we encounter outside of public life.

Um, being a public figure, that's what you are when you're an [00:04:00] author. So I, like, I could totally sit with a friend and tell them about losing my dog. And then they tell me about losing their dog. And I would have plenty of compassion to be present in that conversation with them, right? But imagine you tell a group of people your story and then they line up in each one.

Tells you theirs over and over and over again. Jesus. Yeah. The dynamic of our relationships with readers is fuckin bonkers from the start. It's just a weird framing, so we might as well acknowledge that. And I get a person's objections to participating in this dynamic. That being said, do I think that building an email list is one of the wisest things an author can do for their career?

Yes, absolutely. I've never heard of a situation where I was like, you know what, the wisest thing you can do here is not start an email list. Definitely don't do that. The reason I say this isn't because an email list will necessarily be the key to you releasing [00:05:00] each book onto the bestseller list. The reason I say this is because having direct access to your readers turns down the volume on a bunch of other anxieties you may encounter.

Remember the episode on what if your account is banned? If you have your reader emails, this becomes much less catastrophic. How many times have the, you know, the goddamn social media algorithms changed in the last 10 years?

Oh, no one is seeing your posts anymore, unless you pay. Well, guess where you don't have to pay to play your email list. Seriously, those emails are the foundation upon which authors can build some psychological security. And we all need a little bit of that to be able to keep making, you know, wise decisions for our business.

That's why I don't give anyone an out on this. You are almost guaranteed to live in an elevated state of stress if access to your readers depends solely on the whims of big tech companies. Also, use this as your [00:06:00] reminder to go and download the CSV files of your email lists.

Download those, you know, just in case MailerLite or ActiveCampaign or whoever else you use has a catastrophic failure or is hacked or whatever other weird thing you can think up. Download those spreadsheets. And then, you know, maybe set a calendar reminder to do that regularly every month. If you aren't picking up on it, the answer to what if I hate email isn't going to be, that's fine, don't have a list, delete your email account.

Instead, I'm going to hopefully change the way you feel about email so that you can make the most of this exceptional tool that builds the solid foundation of a sustainable.

So our hatred for email usually breaks down into two kinds, hatred of maintaining an email list and hatred of responding to emails. Let's look at the email list first. More than likely, you've pulled in some shoulds [00:07:00] around this activity that don't align with your energy. I hear this a lot. How often should I email my list?

Once a week? Once every two weeks? Once a month? I can tell you absolutely there is no should around this. You get to decide. You don't even have to email them on a schedule. If you email your readers out of obligation without much to say or offer, then they might say yes. Stop opening your emails. So allowing a sense of obligation to determine this isn't necessarily the wisest or most strategic approach.

Now, I will say that if you go a year without emailing your lists and then you email them about a new book, you might be disappointed by how few people click the link and buy, but that's more matter of setting your expectations appropriately or not having expectations at all. Then it is a real problem.

Speaking from experience, I have four main email lists that I keep active, active ish. One is for FFS Media, [00:08:00] where I have a bunch of authors subscribed. You might be one of them. Another is for my paranormal cozy mysteries. Another is for my humor and satire. And the last one is for my crime fiction. I've tried all kinds of approaches for my email strategy and I think I've made literally every quote unquote mistake people warn about over the years.

And here's my takeaway from all that. It's fine. It's all an experiment anyway. There aren't hard and fast rules for anything related to email lists because each person's relationship with their readers will be different. An email is simply a relationship tool. I found that my cozy readers like the relationship I build with them on a weekly basis through email.

They respond well to it. I get sales each time I send an email because I have links to my books in the footer of the email. But if I miss a week, I don't see any negative consequences, except, you know, maybe a few sales that might have happened, but we'll never know what could have [00:09:00] been. And that's okay.

With my FFS media list, I try to send once a week. But if I really have nothing of interest for people, I'm not going to waste anyone's time. It's important for me to establish the trust with those folks that if I email them, there's something inside that email that they will want to either read or sign up for.

So some weeks I have no idea what I'm going to send. And then I come up with something awesome out of nowhere. And then some weeks I have no idea what I'm going to send. And I don't come up with anything. So I skip that week. I haven't seen any negative effects of this approach. And It just works really well with my energy levels.

Now, my humor list gets an email almost never at this point. And I'll be honest, I do lament that reality somewhat. But at the same time, I haven't felt especially funny lately. And my sci fi comedy series that I'm kind of in the middle of, it isn't selling like I hoped, no matter what I throw at [00:10:00] it. So my attention has shifted away from that pen name.

Until I have something else to write and publish for them. I don't think anyone on that list really minds, I mean, sure, they would take more emails from me, but what usually happens is I pop up every few months, like, Hey guys, wanna hear a batshit insane story that'll make you laugh? And of course they do.

So, in my mind, I perceive that all is forgiven when I do that. I actually have the closest relationships with my humor readers. Some of them have been emailing with me for years. So this approach is clearly working for them enough, and it's working for me and where my attention is flowing right now. So that's important to remember.

You only have a limited amount of attention factor that into your email strategy, rather than building some. You know, ideal schedule for an ideal form of you that has never existed or, you know, maybe existed when you were in your 20s and had the energy of a horny rabbit in spring. We want to be real with our energy and what we have to give.

We don't need to be [00:11:00] planning anything for some ideal version of ourselves. Okay, so lastly, my crime fiction list is getting super neglected lately, and that's because the books I have out didn't perform like I'd hoped and I was Getting a much better ROI on advertising other series. So I love writing crime fiction and I'll keep writing it at some point, but probably not until 2025.

So I'll probably just see if I can resurrect that existing list when the time comes. It'll work a little bit. I'm sure that's not worth forcing out emails to those folks. And I have no book news to speak of though. It's not worth it to me, at least. So that's my rationale with my lists. You can see that I don't take any standard approach here.

I treat each list the way that works for me and that my list seems to appreciate. So to some extent you can train your readers. On what to expect from you. I think sometimes authors forget that. They forget who's in charge. It's your list. You don't have to run it like a [00:12:00] tyrant, but you also don't have to provide it like free services to the people who subscribe, right?

You don't have to be their pro bono therapist or their individual customer service when they don't know how to click a link and you don't have to work on any one person's schedule. Right. Now, will people ask you to do all these things and more? Of course. And I'll talk a little bit more about that when I go into how to deal with emails from readers.

But what about what we put in our email newsletters? What are the shoulds we've picked up there? Again, there really are no hard shoulds on this. You can literally do whatever you want with your email list. Like you're a writer, get creative, be weird, be, be creative, be real, be whatever you want to be. They signed up to hear from you.

There are kind of no rules here. I mean, maybe don't give out like your home address, but that seems more like common sense than a rule. So there seems to be this idea that You, the author, have to share about [00:13:00] yourself in your emails to your readers. And that is not correct. If you feel comfortable sharing from the heart, great.

That can create a strong emotional connection with folks and engender lots of loyalty from readers. But if you're an Enneagram five, don't worry, you don't have to share about your feelings or personal life.

You can still maintain boundaries between you and your readers. So here's my suggestion. Share about your interests. Share about things you learned. Share your research that you've been doing for your work in progress. Or even share snippets of your work or short stories. Thanks. So these are going to be more comfortable things for a five to share who likes to have some separation from the energy suck that relationships with strangers can be.

I will repeat, you can share whatever feels nice to you with your readers. Memes that made you laugh, Wikipedia articles you browsed, pictures you've taken, reviews of books you really enjoyed reading, [00:14:00] on and on and on. There is no format you must follow to any of this. You don't even have to follow the same format, email after email.

Mix it up. Make the rules. And then at the bottom of your email, just below the signature, you can remind them that you have books they can buy. Include a picture of the covers in a link. They'll click it. So it really can be this simple, and you don't have to email regularly. You can tell people who sign up, I send emails when I have something to share.

You know, just communicate how things are going to be run around these parts, and people will adjust. Or, they won't adjust, and they'll show themselves out. And that's okay too. So much of the dislike I hear about email lists from authors is self imposed. You hate forcing yourself to think of things to send out.

Okay, then don't force yourself. You're a writer. You'll have ideas pop up. You'll run sales now and again, and you'll want to tell people about it. You'll have new releases to email to them. [00:15:00] Add in a little flair if you have the energy for it and don't add anything if you're tired. I've sent out emails that are little more than just, Hey, the new book is here.

Click this link to buy it. And people bought it. I've also sent out emails that have the link to my new book and a little behind the scenes story about the creation of the book. People enjoyed that too. I have seen no noticeable difference in sales, depending on my approach there.

So if you don't like dealing with your email list. It's time to open up your skull and rustle around in there for whatever shoulds are making that process unpleasant. And then, you know, just get those out of there. Toss them out. Not only will you feel better, but as your resistance to the idea of email goes down, your ideas for what to send will increase.

Also, if you find that you prefer to have a schedule for your emails, Then create a damn schedule. If it works for you, then do it. If it doesn't work for you, [00:16:00] then don't do it. . That's my point. Okay, so let's talk about the second grievance. A lot of authors have about email, and that's responding to reader emails.

If you want your business to continue functioning, there are some emails that must be responded to, you know, feedback for cover designers, questions from clients about how to pay you and so forth. This doesn't mean that you have to be the one to answer with these emails though. Not all the time. If you really, really feel dread when you open your inbox, it might be worth your time to pay a virtual assistant.

One with a trustworthy reputation. Cause you're letting them in your inbox. Yes. To answer those emails for you as much as possible. Some of them you have to answer and that's life, right? We can't make our career completely without pain points. I have tried, trust me, but we can narrow the pain points down to a manageable amount so that they don't outweigh the parts of the job that give us a lot of energy.

So you can have someone else respond to your emails and clear out the clutter in your [00:17:00] inbox. So I had to do that when I got those dozens of dead pet emails. I just couldn't do it. There was no amount of forcing myself that would have worked. Because it was too much pain for me while I was also grieving my own pet loss.

So I paid my wonderful virtual assistant, Emily. Hi, Emily. She edits these episodes. I paid Emily to respond on my behalf, and I'm sure it wasn't easy for her either. But my hope was that it didn't feel as personal. So maybe it was slightly easier. Also getting paid for it might've made things better. Uh, whereas I would not have been getting paid to respond to those emails.

I would have been losing money and been completely drained. So you can bring someone on to handle your emails. And a lot of authors are long overdue for this, frankly. But here's another option. You can, hear me out, not respond to emails from readers. Seriously. Most of the emails you receive aren't urgent.

[00:18:00] Would the reader like a response? Sure. But are they entitled to one? Not at all. That is important to remember. Let's look at why each type might be afraid to not reply to the garden variety reader emails. Okay, so let's do this. 1. The reformers may feel a sense of personal obligation to respond to every reader email and may be afraid that if they don't, the reader will start criticizing them publicly.

2. The helpers 3s may be afraid that if they don't respond, the reader will be mad at them and stop loving them, and that's really painful for a 2 to think about. 3s, the achievers, may be afraid that if they don't respond to some of these emails, it'll make them look bad and the person will go out after their reputation.

And possibly even turn other people against them. Fours, the individualists may feel like not responding will make them seem aloof or like a sellout rather than an authentic down to earth, uh, artist or in person. Fives, [00:19:00] the investigators usually really, really don't feel like responding, uh, but they feel a sense of unmet reciprocation and that feeling of unmet reciprocation can be a drain on their energy.

Six is the loyalists may worry that if they don't respond, they'll lose all the support of their readers. And they won't have a safety net of fans anymore. 7s, the enthusiasts, may be afraid that they will lose their status as fun and friendly with the reader if they don't respond. And they're usually not as upset about the distraction of emails as other types, maybe.

8s, the challengers, and I really had to stretch for this one, but they may feel like the reader email is a demand on their time that they didn't ask for. In other words, the reader is trying to control them with the expectation of a response. That may feel like a challenge to the challenger and they may respond, but not necessarily in the most friendly way.

So this would be kind of a worst case scenario for [00:20:00] eights who are fed up with all this reader email. And then nines, the peacemakers. may fear that not responding will create conflict with that reader that they may have to deal with later. So does your type's fear resonate at all? I don't know, just noticing the fear at work is a great first step to recognizing that it's probably not as scary as we originally felt it might be.

to simply not respond to emails from readers that we just don't feel compelled to respond to. But it also makes sense of why some of us get so anxious about leaving emails unresponded to. So one easy thing you can do is to let your readers know that you do read almost all of your emails, but you can't possibly respond to them all and Write your books.

So you're choosing the books. That way, they feel heard, but they also understand that if you don't write back, it's not personal. And then if you do feel compelled to write back, they'll feel extra special. [00:21:00] I've never seen this approach not work. Sure, you might have a super entitled reader every now and then, but you can let them show themselves out.

It's really a gift, I promise. You're gonna encounter some Really, the only way I can describe it is unhinged people when you choose this career, right? There's no amount of caution you can take that would allow you to avoid encountering those people. The wisest approach is usually to not respond and let them move on.

Save the email if it's harassment. You need that evidence and a lot of the women listening probably already have a folder on their computer desktop for screenshots of online harassment and general creepiness, but keep those receipts. Weirdos who feel entitled to your attention are also one of those pain points of this job that you can't really get around, but you can certainly roast them privately with your trusted friends.

And I find that I feel a lot better after a session like that. I could tell you some stories about what men have offered, uh, in my [00:22:00] inbox, not even like spam, like an actual human being. So, yes, uh, some of the threats, some of the offers, um, to help me reproduce, all kinds of interesting things. So, it happens, yeah.

Your inbox doesn't have to be a huge source of stress for you though. If you don't feel comfortable deleting emails you don't plan on responding to, you can just like create a folder for them. Emails I haven't read and won't read, right? Name it something like that.

Uh, and just chuck those emails over there and get them out of sight. Clean the place up. Tidy up. So I'll be honest with all my pen names and author services that I provide and authors emailing me out of the blue and project based emails from cover designers, so forth. I basically take a triage approach to my inbox.

Emails that my career depends on get answered first, then the ones that could be beneficial to answer in a timely manner, those get answered, then the ones that are done out of the goodness of my heart [00:23:00] get a response, and then I delete the ones that are just obnoxious. So sorry to say it, but yeah, sometimes this includes emails from people I've never had a conversation with who are like, how do I publish a book?

If my response would essentially be, let me Google that for you. I don't respond for the sake of my own sanity. And you know what? It feels like a little treat to myself. Do people sometimes get weird and aggressive when I don't give them the attention they ask for from me for free? Sure, that's life. Some people are not super healthy.

And I've just kind of decided at this point that I'm not going to twist myself into a pretzel or waste my own time as a result of their unhealthiness. You're actually free to do the same. It's, it's wonderful. Highly recommend. So as your audience grows, the demands on your time and energy in your inbox will grow as well.

It's really important that we make some rules for ourselves on what we will and won't spend time on. Your rules will not be someone else's rules. But I hope that [00:24:00] each of us can stop pretending that we can do it all and accept that there are going to be trade offs that we make. Time and attention spent on emails is time and attention not spent on other things, period.

Do you want to spend your time apologizing to a reader who you owe nothing to just to make sure you don't run afoul of their sense of entitlement?

Or do you want to use those minutes of your precious life to, I don't know, prepare a healthy meal? Do you want to show a reader how to click a link that you sent, or do you want to take a break from the computer and go pet your cat? So really, where are your boundaries here? What is the line that you won't cross with your time and energy in your inbox?

The sooner you get those sorted out, the less stress you'll feel around email, I promise. So to answer the question of what if I hate writing emails, I'll say that you likely don't hate emails. You just hate the shoulds you've picked up about the process. So root out those shoulds, get creative, look at your fear about not [00:25:00] responding to readers head on, and then set some rules for yourself around email that feel right and kind of nice to you.

Sending emails is just writing. It's just writing. You're a writer. So writing is presumably an enjoyable activity if the content is right. If it's not fun, that's because your idea of what the content should be Is too narrow, broaden it to fit who you are, and then only respond to the emails you want to respond to and the ones that move your business along.

And if even that feels like too much, consider hiring an assistant to help out for a couple of hours a week. All right. I think that's enough for this episode. Don't you? Let's stop talking about email and go move on with our lives. All right. So thank you for listening. If you want to reach out, you can, of course, email me at contact at FFS dot media.

And if your email is compelling enough and doesn't make me want to go, let me Google that for you. I'll reply at my earliest [00:26:00] convenience. The world didn't end when I set that boundary. Anyway, I'm Claire Taylor and thanks for listening to another episode of the What If For Authors podcast.

Episode 13: What if my books take off?

Episode Description:

In this episode of "What If? For Authors," Claire Taylor explores the often-overlooked question: "What if my books do take off?" While many authors dream of their books hitting the big time, the reality of success can be disorienting, triggering, and even stressful. Claire delves into the psychological and emotional challenges that can arise when your books suddenly gain widespread attention and offers practical advice for managing the experience. Whether your books have already taken off or you’re still waiting for that moment, this episode provides valuable insights on how to prepare for success and stay grounded amidst the whirlwind.

Key Takeaways:

• The Double-Edged Sword of Success: Understanding that while having your books take off can be exciting, it can also bring unexpected challenges and stress.

• Core Fears Triggered by Success: How different Enneagram types might react to sudden success, from the fear of being seen to feeling trapped or overwhelmed.

• Maintaining Self-Worth Independently of Sales: The importance of not tying your self-worth to fluctuating book sales and strategies for staying grounded and self-assured.

• Balancing Creative Desires and Financial Success: Tips for authors who may feel trapped in writing what sells rather than what they love, and how to navigate that tension.

• Practical Preparation: Advice on setting the table for success before it happens and how to manage the realities if it’s already occurred.

Why Listen? If you’ve ever wondered what life would be like if your books became bestsellers, or if you’re already dealing with the pressures of a successful series, this episode will help you navigate the emotional and psychological terrain of author success. Claire provides actionable strategies to ensure that your well-being and creative fulfillment stay intact, even as your books soar.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or topic you’d like Claire to explore? Send an email to contact@ffs.media. Claire is always open to hearing from her listeners and offering support.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If For Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer myself. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs. media forward slash sustain.

Also, you have five days from the release date of this episode to sign up for the last session of the Liberated Writer five week course of 2024. TBD on when in 2025 I'll run another session, so if you want to start planting and watering the seeds of success, Now's the best time to start. This deep work is great for taking care of your career and taking it to the next level and really making each project that you work on feel more satisfying, but it's also going to make the rest of this year much more manageable.

If you're, you know, not as easily triggered by, say, world [00:01:00] events. So registration closes this Friday, August 19th. And there are payment options available if anyone's interested in that. And I know that makes it sound like it's some super expensive course, but it's really not. So, especially with all the face time you get with me during it.

I just want to do what I can to make sure that folks who need it can access it, hence the payment option. Anyway, go to LiberatedWriter. com to read more and register before that closes on the 19th.

Let's jump right into today's topic. It's going to be an unusual one because it's not actually a question I hear often.

But it's a question we could all benefit from asking ourselves.

In the last episode, we asked the question of, what if my books never take off? So I thought it only appropriate to, Then in this episode, we ask the opposite question. What if my books take off? Like I said, authors don't usually ask this question with anything [00:02:00] resembling anxiety. It's more like a whisper or even silent hope inside of us early on in our career.

Or, you know, later on in our career if our books haven't taken off yet.

But I've worked with enough authors at this point who had this dream come true, their books took off, to know that dream is the right word here because the experience can be disorienting, unsettling, and even nightmarish. I don't know about y'all, but my brain almost never sees fit to give me nice, unstressful dreams.

Or if it does, I'd never remember them. Last night, for instance, I was in a competitive scavenger hunt and only learned towards the end of the time that there was actually a set list of items we were supposed to be looking for. I had just been scavenging everywhere, looking for something that looked like it belonged to the scavenger hunt.

Like, is this anything? Is this anything? I'll write it down. And then I found out everyone was working from a list that I didn't have. And only a couple of the things that I'd found so [00:03:00] far appeared on the list. Uh, go ahead and analyze that anyway. So I'm going to give you this anxiety. If you haven't already experienced your books taking off, and if you have experienced it already, I'm about to give voice to the thing that you probably don't want to talk about because no one wants to hear us complain about things when our books are selling really well, right?

No one wants to hear that complaint. So I had a series takeoff back in 2018 and I was surprised by how fast that happened. I definitely was not prepared for the sales. One of the things that happens is you go from having only a few eyes on your books to having a lot of eyes on your books. This means you suddenly get an influx of reader emails, mostly positive, but some not so positive and others just plain weird.

Any sudden life change can be psychologically disruptive, but there's something about it being the thing you dreamed up that will take a special kind of adjustment.

Suddenly having a bunch more eyes on your [00:04:00] books can really trigger your core fear, especially if you're say a nine, the peacemaker or a five, the investigator. Nines aren't usually comfortable being seen, though they do tend to crave being seen. That goes back to their core fear of being separated or cut off.

They hide parts of themselves that feel divisive or controversial to protect against conflict. Fives don't necessarily want to be seen, but the experience of being seen is necessary to a five self fives are afraid of being incompetent or incapable. I hear them phrase it as I don't want to look stupid.

Essentially knowledge and intelligence are big for this type and they want to make sure they have enough resources for themselves. So the sudden attention can feel like a demand on the five's time and energy. Also known as resources. When this happens, fives may feel themselves tugged between their desire to withdraw into their castle and slam the gates and the very human compulsion for reciprocation [00:05:00] to the people who are giving them that attention so that they don't owe anyone anything.

That push and pull alone can feel incredibly draining to a five.

Ones, the reformers, may also feel uncomfortable if their books take off. Those little mistakes that they didn't think much about seem much, much larger when it's getting that much new attention. And suddenly their books are facing a degree of criticism that they didn't before. The one's core fear is being bad, wrong, or corrupt. And so they're incredibly sensitive to criticism as a result.

When the one starts to take criticism of their books as a criticism of their goodness or integrity, then they're all exposed nerves all the time. A once book taking off is essentially predictive of an increase in their patterns around perfectionism over revising and so on as a result of that core fear being triggered.

The one may start working extra hard to make sure all of their books [00:06:00] are above reproach in the hopes that they can avoid criticism, but we can't, none of us can avoid criticism. Some people just like to criticize.

Now, Sixes, the Loyalists, may also feel unsettled and even unsafe if their books take off. It can feel to the Six, and they may not be entirely wrong, that they've just put a target on their back. The Six wants the security that an influx of cash can bring, but they might not have considered the cost to their sense of safety.

This can trigger the core fear of being unsupported that they have, which looks a lot like I'm all on my own and I don't know that anyone will come to defend me when I need it. That's a scary thought to a six and it can lead to a lot of behavioral patterns around testing relationships to see which ones are safe and which ones may harbor potential betrayal.

The other types may also have their core fear poked at when their books take off, but I would say that those types I just talked about are probably the ones most affected by the [00:07:00] sudden change. Actually, it can be a pretty freaky thing for Sevens, too. They're the enthusiasts. If a series takes off, it can make them feel trapped in that series.

Which is a surefire way for them to want to write any series but that one. They may start really struggling to focus on the next book in a highly successful series as a result. No one feels the golden handcuffs of success quite so acutely as a seven. People may call them ungrateful or more likely the seven will call themselves ungrateful, but this is a core fear territory, so it really has nothing to do with being grateful if you're feeling restless.

Feeling trapped in deprivation, in this case the deprivation of writing whatever they feel like writing in that moment. is going to trigger the seven's core fear. So yeah, this success can also terrify a seven.

Anyway, having your books take off isn't happily ever after by any means. It can also make a two let off on their [00:08:00] boundaries because they feel like they owe it to the readers to give more of themselves. It can accelerate the workaholism of a three who thinks if they work twice as hard, they'll make twice as much money.

It can put a four into a funk if they equate the success with being inauthentic enough for, you know, the masses to take their work and understand it. And it can make an eight feel like their readers are trying to control what they write next, which can activate some defiant patterns. It's not all sunshines and rainbows, this dream coming true of your books taking off.

So let's talk about a few things you can do before your books take off to help you set the table for success, and then what you can do if your books have already taken off and you're in a spot you didn't foresee and want to get out of. If your books haven't taken off yet, it's important to remember that you will not suddenly feel the way you expect yourself to feel when your dream comes true.

You may get like a pop from it and the sales, you know, as they increase day by day, they'll [00:09:00] definitely be some excitement there for sure. But when we see a sales chart trending upward, some unflattering patterns can emerge inside of us. We can start to feel greedy. We want the trend to continue indefinitely.

And when it flattens or starts to dip, we can panic. But think about that. Do you expect that curve to go up forever? That's kind of unrealistic. So we can get addicted to success and positive external feedback very easily because we think what's the harm in feeling good about ourselves and our business.

The harm is that you don't only get to become dependent on the positives. You also become tethered to the negatives. What lifted you up will someday drag you down. So be careful about giving control of your mood and self image to anything external. Even if it currently means that external thing is making you feel like hot shit.

That's a trap. And when sales start trending [00:10:00] down, you'll feel not great. And then you might come see me, which is fine. And what I'm here for, but I'm just going to tell you the same thing. You have to reconnect with your innate and infinite worth internally, instead of hinging it on something external.

Otherwise you'll be on this self worth rollercoaster your whole life. Even when you want to get off,

here's a practice you can take with you. If you find yourself checking your sales stats more than three times a day, Something curious is going on and you might want to get curious about it. Looking at the stats doesn't actually do anything. It doesn't make you more money. It doesn't make you less money.

It doesn't do anything. So if you're going back again and again, it's giving you a hit of something fleeting. And it's a sure sign that you're attaching your mood and sense of self to numbers. Numbers that fluctuate. Don't do that. It doesn't improve your wellbeing. So consider [00:11:00] making it off limits to yourself or use the impulse to check your sales dashboard or your rank multiple times a day as an indicator that it's time for you to close your eyes.

And remember that sales are no reflection of who you are. And if you feel bad about yourself, deep down, no amount of sales will change that. And if you feel good about yourself, deep down, no amount of sales or lack of sales needs to influence that. Use the impulse to check those stats as your cue to do that connection work with yourself.

And then you'll be on your way to feeling grounded in a sense of genuine wellbeing, no matter what happens. So, doesn't that sound like a much better option?

The second half of this what if is for those folks who have had a book or series take off and now feel like they're being forced down a path that they don't enjoy. I see this happen when the, say, 3's desire to hit as much success as possible supersedes all other values, including valuing their creative desires.[00:12:00]

It's not only threes, the achievers that find themselves in this position, but I do see it a lot with threes. So the desire to have worth and value and the fear of lacking it is this jet fuel for threes to home in on an opportunity and go full force into it.

They aren't always successful in this, by the way, there's an idea that threes always end up making a lot of money and being very successful. And that idea exists because it's the only one that threes allow themselves to perpetuate. Okay. Okay. Threes feel most comfortable showing their successes, and they either hide away their perceived failures, or if that's not an option, if failures are out there for everyone to see, they'll spin the failure into something motivational, as like a step along the way to their success.

So being a three or not being a three isn't actually a sign of potential success in this industry, but it does mean that someone is likely to be perceived as a success in this industry. And I'm not saying that to diminish the hard [00:13:00] work of the threes, but I'm saying that for everyone who's not a three, who says, man, I wish I was just a three so that I could make money.

You can make money, some money, decent money, right? Whatever type you are. Um, and just being a three alone isn't enough to guarantee, you know, six, seven figure, uh, income. So I just wanted to dispel that a little bit and kind of show why. That perception is there anyway, threes are the most likely type to prioritize earning potential above other considerations, and therefore they do up the odds of a book taking off.

And you might be thinking, I wish I was a three, but hold on because I've worked with my fair share of threes who have a six or seven figure yearly revenue rank high on the chart. So that root release and. Don't make much profit. Revenue and profit are not the same thing. But to be quite honest, some of these threes do make a lot of profit, but they're [00:14:00] writing in a genre they hate because their desires didn't get to make much of an appearance in the strategy process.

Now the type three author has a situation where they want to keep making good money, but they also hate what they write. Whoops. Right? I think we can all empathize with the situation. The books that took off were ones that maybe the three didn't care about, in other words. Maybe they think the books are fine, right?

That's fine. I don't dislike these books. Uh, but it's hard to stay interested in a series that you just think is fine when you're ten books in or whatever. Fine can stop being enough. And now what? Now their living expenses might have grown to fit the income.

And so they won't be able to afford their current lifestyle, or so the fear goes, if they start choosing to write books they care more about. Of course, this doesn't only happen to threes. I've seen it happen to eights, fives, twos, sixes. It can happen to anyone who gets too laser focused on making decisions around [00:15:00] what will sell at the cost of their own personal creative preferences.

The problem is that you might be right about what sells. And then suddenly it's selling. And if you didn't incorporate what you want to write into that, that's just going to be a tough situation. As much as we may want to be able to just say, fuck it, let's go for broke from time to time and write whatever fits this so called formula for success at the time, maybe a hot sub genre with the hot tropes and so forth, we must remember that the outcome of pushing our personal creative desires aside is that we either put a lot of time into books that don't ever take off, because remember that luck is a necessary component here, Or we put a lot of effort into building a catalog that makes us enough money that it may not feel responsible or even feasible to start writing what we would rather be writing.

I can speak from experience here that it feels much more fulfilling when we write books we care about [00:16:00] that sell solidly over time than when we write books we only kind of care about and those sell solidly over time. And it can happen. I've seen it. You can write what you want to write and have it sell.

You can also steer an existing series towards more of what you like to write a few books in, and most readers will follow along for the writing. It's a risk that you'll lose a few readers, sure, but it might be worth the risk if the other option is that you start to really hate what your career has become, or you start to feel contempt for your readers for liking something you hate writing.

So if you're asking the question, what if my books take off, which again, you probably aren't worrying about too frequently. My answer is that books taking off will not solve all of your problems. It might not even solve your financial problems. And in fact, it could stir up some anxieties that have been lying dormant near your core fear for a long time.

What you can do, [00:17:00] however, to avoid this becoming a problem is to be mindful of where you're giving yourself a pass to attach how you feel about yourself. To your book sales when those sales are good. I'm not saying you shouldn't celebrate successes. And in fact, feeling gratitude for the money coming in is fantastic.

What I'm saying is be careful of what other hidden meanings you're letting increased book sales carry with that, that comment specifically on your character. Remember that a superiority complex is just an inferiority complex with slightly better situational factors. If the way you feel about yourself is fluctuating with your sales, that is a warning sign.

You don't get to feel good from those external factors without eventually feeling bad from those external factors. And if your books have already taken off but you want to write something else, yeah, that's, that's going to be a moment for courage.

Might have to consider cutting back [00:18:00] on your living and business expenses to give yourself the financial wiggle room to value what you want to write in this one life you have, you might need to make a slight pivot, but you don't actually know that it won't work out for you financially as well.

Maybe the quoi of your creative impulses is exactly what readers have been waiting for to go absolutely bonkers over your books. You don't know. You may think you know, but you'll never know until you try. Until you run the experiment. And maybe, just maybe, there's something more important than making the most possible money anyway.

Are you brave enough to bring that part of yourself to your readers? That's the question.

That's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. If you feel compelled to reach out, you can send me an email at contact at FFS. media or scope out me and my services at FFS. [00:19:00] media. I'm Claire Taylor, and this has been another episode of the What If for Authors podcast.

Episode 12: What if my books never take off?

Episode Description:

In this episode of "What If? For Authors," Claire Taylor addresses a common anxiety among authors: "What if my books never take off?" Drawing from her experience as an Enneagram Certified Coach and her own author journey, Claire explores the balance between preparation and luck in achieving success, the importance of feedback, and how to find deeper purpose and enjoyment in writing regardless of external success. This episode offers a compassionate and realistic approach to managing expectations and sustaining an author career over the long term.

Key Takeaways:

• Preparation vs. Luck: Understanding the role of luck in author success and how to stay in the game long enough for luck to find you.

• Feedback and Improvement: The importance of seeking and accepting feedback to improve your books without taking it as a personal indictment.

• Dealing with Uncertainty: How to tolerate the uncertainty of whether your books will take off and finding ways to balance the pain of uncertainty with the joy of writing.

• Purpose and Enjoyment: Connecting to a deeper reason for writing that provides immediate fulfillment and sustains you through the ups and downs of an author career.

• Self-Compassion: Practicing kindness and compassion towards yourself and deconstructing the lies that link your self-worth to external success.

Why Listen? If you find yourself questioning whether your books will ever take off or struggling with the uncertainty and pressure of author life, this episode offers valuable insights and strategies to help you stay motivated and find deeper meaning in your writing journey. Claire's empathetic guidance will help you navigate the challenges and uncertainties of being an author with resilience and hope.

Join the Conversation: Have a question or fear you'd like me to explore? Reach out to me at contact@ffs.media.

Happy Writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain.

Just as a reminder for anyone who is interested but hasn't yet gotten around to signing up, registration for the last session of the Liberated Writer five week course available this year closes on August 19th. So if you've given up on searching for that silver bullet and are ready to do the deep work that actually sustains author careers for the long run, then this is your chance ahead of the, I don't know, chaos of the rest of the year to get started.

So the course runs for five weeks, but it's really kind of a launch period for the long term for you and your career. So just like success doesn't happen overnight, [00:01:00] neither do the underlying patterns of your author career change overnight. So if you're hoping for something better in 2025, which, who wouldn't, right?

Now's the time to start planting and watering those seeds. Now. Or August, I guess. Uh, so the course runs from August 26th through September 26th, and it includes an IEQ 9 Enneagram type assessment and three hours of group calls with me each week to really dig in and get to know other authors who can support you moving forward.

So if you are interested, go to LiberatedWriter. com to August 19th.

If you're listening to this on the Monday when it releases, I hope you had a solid weekend.

I hope you did some things that made you feel rested and sturdy coming into the work week. Whether that was sleeping a lot, knocking out your home to do list, spending time with friends, or whatever else. I had a [00:02:00] good weekend. I've been in a big fiction reading slump lately. And by lately, I mean the last year and a half or so.

I've only found a few fiction books that could hold my attention and not immediately irritate me. So that's what the slump feels like. And I, I think that that says more about me than the state of fiction, by the way. But it has been starting to feel pretty worrisome. Like, I'm a fiction writer, for fuck's sake.

I should be reading fiction, right?

I've kept myself from losing sleep over this concern by reminding myself that it's not like I never have read fiction before. Who knows how many thousands of fiction books I've read in my lifetime. But I also think it had something to do with the stakes. So, for me, like, fiction didn't feel real enough, essentially, for what I've been feeling the last year and a half or so.

I could read, watch, and listen to true crime just fine, for instance, but when I switched to crime [00:03:00] fiction, it just felt goofy and unimportant. Meanwhile, I was still writing crime fiction during this time. I don't know. Anyway, I talked to a couple of author friends about it, and while they tried to be conciliatory, it definitely came off as, yeah, that's weird and a problem.

At least that's how their reactions filtered through to me. But then I talked to John, and he was like, It's not like you don't know story, Claire. Right. That. I mentioned my fiction slump to a couple other non author friends, and they sort of gave me a, huh. And that was that. I think it goes to show how important it is to have friends who don't share some of the same shoulds as you.

My author friends have internalized a lot of the same shoulds around reading and writing as I have. So they pretty much reflected back to me my anxiety about it. Meanwhile, my non author friends tend to be like, I usually only read one fiction book a year, if that. Right? The perspective is so, so important.

The [00:04:00] world will not end if I don't read fiction. And what's the real problem? I was still able to write a bunch of fiction during my reading drought. I certainly wasn't out of ideas. I haven't heard anyone complaining about how my narrative structure, writing style is slipping. So maybe it just wasn't a problem after all.

Maybe it was all in my head, so to speak. I always figured I'd get back into reading fiction. And this week, Great news. It was the week that it happened. John and I went to a local bookstore that was offering 20 percent off for a bottle of wine when you bought a book. Yes. Incentive. It worked. It was his birthday.

So we went there before dinner. I had the hardest time picking out a book, but I ended up picking, , none of this is true by Lisa Jewel because it seemed just twisted enough to keep my attention. But then like we settled in to start reading and I was really struggling to focus and I started having this anxiety of like, oh no, this is happening again.

I'm still not through my reading slump. And [00:05:00] then John, who apparently listens to me a lot more than I thought he did, suggested that I set a 15 minute timer to read without stopping. Which is for sure advice I've given him before. Um, but I did it. And suddenly I was in. Oh, the relief. The book was so dark and creepy.

I loved every page of it. And I finished it yesterday, which made the weekend feel like a success for me. And now I'm, like, through that, you know, initial block and I'm into a stack of horror novels written by women for, uh, research on a novel I'll be working on in the fall. All this to say that sometimes we get anxiety as authors that we can know isn't useful or based on anything particularly sound, but it still comes in.

Not to sound overly confident, but I know how to write a fiction novel. And yet, even I get in my head about it sometimes. But so much of life works in cycles, and I'm taking my returned ability to focus on reading fiction as [00:06:00] a sign that some of the ongoing stress in my life that was making it hard for me to get into something fictional is sort of being integrated into my world.

So I don't need the, you know, raw realness to hold my attention like I did before. So that's really, really lovely. What a relief, right? I get to return to the peaceful life of reading horror. I'm quite excited. Anyway. In today's episode, we're going to ask the question that I hear from authors a lot, which is, What if my books never take off?

There is so much to deconstruct in this single question, so let's jump right into it. Part of author success requires preparation, and part of it requires luck. That's really important to remember for the sake of the discussion. Let's pretend that 50 percent of it is preparation and 50 percent of it is luck.

It may be more 80, 20, one way or the other. [00:07:00] Nobody really knows, right? But you, we do know that it's not all preparation and it's not all luck. So it's a mix of both. And I think that just for the sake of this discussion, let's just say it's 50 50. So that means that no matter how much and how well you prepare for success in writing your books, you can only get to, you know, roughly 50 percent of the way to your book taking off.

Then it's about sitting around and waiting until luck strikes, some of this is creating opportunities for luck, but still, you just have to wait. And sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes luck strikes, sometimes it doesn't. The longer you can stay in the game. The greater your odds of luck striking though, which is why I encourage sustainability practices.

Authors will sometimes forget that 50 percent of it is luck, and they'll burn themselves out by thinking the faster I write 20 books, the sooner I'll be rich and famous. Or any number of books we might pull. That one just popped into my [00:08:00] head for some reason. So we burn ourselves out in some race to a finish line that isn't actually a finish line.

And then, you know what? We're done. Nothing happens. There's no ribbon to run through, no friends and family draping medals around our neck. If you give up here, then the luck hasn't had a chance to find you. And now it won't. I want to point out that a bias belief that's perpetuated in this industry that can convince us that it's actually a hundred percent hard work and dedication, , that creates success and no luck is required. That belief is what is espoused by people who have hit it big.

It's really unflattering to the ego to admit that your success is. That's a result in part, sometimes in great part to luck, lucky timing, the right person happening to see your book, having a catalog already created in a genre that just suddenly takes off that sort of thing. The ego really wants to take credit for the success.

So that the person [00:09:00] can feel a little pop of being worthy, special, or just generally better than. It's not super socially acceptable to say those things aloud. Well, I'm famous, so I'm better than you. Or I'm selling all these books, so I'm clearly a worthier person than you. So instead, the successful folks will sometimes take on the role of Inspirational speaker.

This looks like, if I did it, so can you. This is a really sneaky way of denying that luck is involved. And it's a way of sort of reinforcing the ego. It was all hard work. So if they worked hard, so can you. Implied here is that if you don't have success, you're lazy, untalented, so forth. If you ever see me at an author event where someone says this on stage and my eye starts twitching noticeably, this is why.

That person is perpetuating a lie in a very sneaky way using false humility. But make no mistake, it is still an ego driven claim. But [00:10:00] it's, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. People who have success claiming they did it through hard work and know how, and that anyone who is as smart and dedicated as they are can make it happen.

So That's not true. All right. It's not. If it were true, there would be a hell of a lot more wildly successful authors because I see how savvy and hardworking most authors are. So if that were the formula, we would have a whole lot more people being bestsellers. It's counterproductive to see that your books haven't taken off yet and assume that it's because of some personal character defect of yours.

It's not. Frankly, I've seen people who make it big and sell a lot who have some of the Smallest amount of character I've ever encountered. So yeah, there's my type's judgment coming through, but I'm not taking it back. I mean it. I can't tell you the number of established men, for instance, in this industry who are where they are not because of their own hard work, but because of luck.

[00:11:00] Plus, the hard work of a bunch of underpaid and overworked women who have been raised to believe that their labor Isn't as valuable as every, you know, precious male geniuses. Barf. Okay, so if you let the fact that your books haven't taken off be a reflection of your character, which many of us do, then you're taking yourself out at the ankles.

Now, that's not to say that there isn't something you can do to make your books more desirable to the right readers, because there usually is, but the quality of your books isn't a reflection of your character in any way. That may sound obvious to some of you, but not to all of you. And it's important to ask yourself if you've subconsciously been functioning this way.

If you have, looking honestly and clearly at the quality of your books, your blurb, your cover, and so forth, might be too emotionally painful for you to do. If you've linked character to the quality of your books, you will not be able to [00:12:00] look at your books through clear eyes, and you will not be able to give them the best chance they have.

So then feedback of your covers look amateurish from someone about the cover you designed yourself may feel like someone saying you are sloppy or you are a failure when in fact you are none of those things, but the cover simply looks like an amateur made it, which is. True. It's just truth. If you're not a professional cover designer, then you are an amateur.

So, see how something as benign as over attribution of book sales to a person's character can quickly stifle your ability to give your books the best shot they have of taking off? If you're thinking that what I'm describing here is a stretch and that nobody does this, think again. I see it all the time.

I've even felt it at points?

So maybe your covers aren't the sore spot, right? What about your opening chapter? What about your skills [00:13:00] writing compelling dialogue? What about your book's ending? Would someone offering feedback on those hurt a little bit more than feedback on the cover? Would it strike more deeply at your idea of who you are as a writer?

So noticing these touchy spots allows us to untangle ourselves from them, decide that we want to give our books the best shot at success that we can, and listen to the advice from experienced and studied authors and editors, rather than getting defensive.

You certainly don't have to take all the advice you're given, but you lower your odds of your books taking off when you have areas of your books where you can't even hear the advice to begin with. So if your books haven't taken off yet, this is an area where you have some control. Go ask for feedback from people who already know and like your work, and who you feel don't actively hate you.

If you know someone who does covers, ask them if they have five minutes to offer feedback on yours, maybe. [00:14:00] If you know someone who's great at blurbs, ask if you can send them yours, already have something written, and maybe just get some notes. If these folks are close friends, they'll probably do it in a heartbeat and ask for nothing in return.

I do this for my close friends all the time. Personally, I like when my skills can support the people that I love. But if this person is not a close friend, And they maybe do this thing that you're asking them to do for a living, you'll want to pay them. And even if they're your close friend and offer to do it for free, there's no harm in sending them a gift card or even just a thank you note in the mail.

The point is though, start asking for feedback and start asking it. And I'm going to be talking about how to get feedback from specific people. What I see a lot is someone will drop a picture of their cover or their blurb into a, say, Facebook group of 20, 000 people, or even just a Facebook group of 500 people.

And they get so much feedback that they don't actually know where to begin. And some of the people giving feedback. Some of the [00:15:00] people giving feedback should not be giving feedback, and some of the people giving feedback are kind of assholes. And so this really will put your defenses up right away and make it hard for you to sort through the feedback and do so without your defenses getting in the way of you hearing the valid points.

So when I say ask for feedback, don't mean these big groups. That can be so counterproductive. Go ask an individual, or if you have a small group of maybe six people that you talk with regularly who are authors, maybe go ask for some feedback there.

Again, even if your books are incredible with nearly flawless packaging, that's not enough on its own for your books to take off. Luck is still in play.

Another point here is that books don't all take off at once generally. Some series just kind of never pick up steam. The series could be your favorite of yours. It could be your diehard fan's [00:16:00] favorites. And yet, it never really reaches that critical mass to make a chart on whatever chart you care about, right?

So let me be clear. Nobody knows why this happens. Nobody knows why one series will take off and another series that seems bad. It's almost guaranteed to take off, just doesn't. Now people have theories, and I'm as happy as an ex gal to guess about what's going on. But it's all just a guessing game. No one will ever know with certainty.

This is why it's sometimes the best thing for your odds and for your mental and emotional to Move on to writing the next book. If you try to reach a conclusion on why a book or series isn't selling no matter what you do, you may keep searching so long that you eventually settle on the problem being, surprise, a character defect in yourself. They must not like me or whatever it is.

It's not that [00:17:00] it's not that the skill of shrugging, having a good chuckle at the mystery of the universe we all live in and moving on is an invaluable author skill.

So far, I've told you that sometimes what needs to happen is that you level up your books. And sometimes what needs to happen is nothing because it's a mystery that will never be solved or luck hasn't hit yet. So how do you know which one is at play? So you can either let it go. Or take a little more time updating your books.

How do you know if it's worth your time and energy to pay for a new cover? Or to update book one of your series to make the, you know, starting tighter and more appealing to readers? How do you know when you've done all you can on a book and it's time to let it go and just write the next? This is the uncertainty that all authors will sit in.

And there is no definite answer to it. The more you [00:18:00] practice sitting in this particular form of uncertainty, the more sustainable you become as an author. The authors who simply cannot tolerate that there is no definite answer to the question of is it the book or is it luck, are the ones that become obsessive, fixated, envious, and entitled.

This unanswerable question will drive some authors mad. And you can see it almost anywhere you look in the author community. People would rather draw a conclusion that makes them feel like shit about themselves, than sit in the uncertainty. So this often looks like someone posting somewhere, I'm just a terrible writer and no one wants my book so I'm gonna give up.

There is certainty in giving up. You know your books will never take off if you do that. Every day authors choose this certainty. over the uncomfortable and painful uncertainty [00:19:00] of whether or not the books will take off. That's what giving up is. It's choosing certainty because the uncertainty has become too painful.

So the real question we need to examine is how long can you tolerate the uncertainty? Can you tolerate it the rest of your life? If so, then you're in the best position for that luck to come along. Maybe not anytime soon, but maybe eventually. If you can stand the pain of hoping. How do we withstand the pain of hoping, the pain of waiting, the pain of uncertainty, the best way I've found.

is creating a counterbalance to the pain. You need to make the pain worth it. And you can't make that contingent on whether the book takes off or not. There has to be something more, something in your control. This is where purpose often comes in. Why do you write? What does it do for [00:20:00] you every time you sit down and sink into the story?

How does it help you? How is it a defiant act of self love and how does it help others? Who might be waiting for your book to come along without even realizing it? How might your story provide comfort, courage, compassion, or even hope for a reader? If you knew that each book would save a single person's life, would it be worth the effort to write?

I think so. That's just me. I mean, what nobler cause is there? But also, I think about the book I just finished reading. It didn't give me hope, it was dark, it was twisted, but it gave me something incredibly valuable nonetheless. It gave me relief from my anxiety about being in a fiction slump.

It gave me ideas for books I'd like to write someday. It gave me motivation to get through errands quicker yesterday so I could sit and read. Those are all [00:21:00] things that make life easier and more enjoyable for me. I'm so grateful. to Lisa Jewell for putting in the time and love and pain to write that book so that I could experience this fiction renaissance in my life.

The point is that if the only thing keeping you writing every day, or the only thing you're aware of as the thing keeping you writing every day, is the promise of your book taking off, then you're going to run out of steam. You will.

You want to find an immediate payoff, like purpose or enjoyment, then Or improved mental health for many of us, that will counteract the pain you're feeling of sitting in the uncertainty I've described, of not knowing when the book will take off, or if it's a matter of luck, or something about the book that you have control over.

All of that uncertainty needs to be counterbalanced. The pain of uncertainty can become insurmountable. extreme. So you need to find something outweighs it. And if you already know what that is, if that's a sense of purpose that you're [00:22:00] already aware of, strengthen your connection to that. Remind yourself daily of it and lean into the feelings of that sense of purpose.

Focus your attention on it and give it purposeful attention.

And if you start to notice that you are having thoughts about giving up, Guess what those thoughts are a convenient clue that the uncertainty is getting to be too much for you. It's just the uncertainty is too much. That's why I think of giving up. So consider taking a break for a bit when that happens, and then reconnect to whatever is the counterbalance to that.

Whatever is the payoff day by day for the process of writing. Maybe imagine the people who will benefit from your book. Something like that. Also, remember you can still have a strong and fruitful author career over the long term without a single book ever making the New York Times [00:23:00] bestseller list or anything like that.

Which also brings me to this point. What does it even mean for a book to take off? Right? What do we even mean? Hit number one in the Amazon store, make a bestseller list, win a prestigious award. How many copies sold exactly constitutes taking off? So I ask these questions to direct our attention to the question of why we feel the need for a book to take off.

Is it recognition we're after? Money? A promise of relief from the grind? Generally, the answer is that we think we'll finally be allowed to feel about ourselves some way when that day comes. I'll finally feel like I'm a real writer, or I'll finally feel like I'm successful. Or I'll finally be allowed to take a vacation without feeling like a slacker. So again, we are attaching our character to this result.

Now I've seen people hit [00:24:00] this sort of nebulous level of success where the book hits the bestseller list. They're selling more copies out of, you know, just boom, it takes off. , and they don't suddenly feel different about themselves. They try, sure. They may get a pop of it and they're trying to hold onto that, but it doesn't last.

Yeah. And that's because our relationship to ourselves is one that is cultivated with kind and loving thoughts, feelings, and actions over time, day by day, watering those seeds day by day, and pulling the weeds so they don't overtake it. That is how we start to feel differently about ourselves. And those practices are things you can start practicing right now, regardless of how your books are doing.

And I recommend you do. So, if you practice those things, like speaking to yourself with kindness and compassion, and really coaxing parts of yourself that once felt like they had to hide, coaxing them to the forefront, you'll be [00:25:00] enjoying yourself so much that you'll lose track of time. The uncertainty of whether your books will hit, you'll If you're not, it won't feel so big and scary because it won't mean that much to you either way.

You'll stop attaching how you feel about yourself to your success in that way. So if a book takes off, fabulous. What a great week you'll have. And if it doesn't, well you can still wake up each day and ask, Do I want to work on a new project today or do I want to get some feedback on an old one and see if I could update it?

You can just do it. Ask that, depending on how you feel each day.

I should say that yes, having a book or series take off is often a nice little treat for our finances. Um, it may be like a, you know, drink of water after we've been wandering in the desert. So I'm not going to deny that it is financially beneficial, right? But it's also not a guarantee of future success in our industry.

So you hit it once with one book or one series. Great. You may never hit it again like that. [00:26:00] Do you really want your life and the way you feel about yourself to be contingent on something so fickle? It sounds like a great way to stay in a constant state of anxiety and low self esteem, frankly. So if you've never had a book or series take off, or you had it happen once and then you haven't had it happen again since, I hope you'll practice being okay if it never happens again.

This looks like connecting to a deeper reason to write that can be satisfied or nearly satisfied each time you sit down and write. And also bringing your awareness to the discomfort of uncertainty that we must necessarily sit in as authors. Be mindful of the pain associated with that and check in with yourself to see when it's getting to be too much or you need to take a break or add in something to counterbalance it.

And then you'll have a pretty good answer for, what if my books never take off? You can still love writing, change the lives of readers, and keep creating regardless. Just because your [00:27:00] book or books haven't taken off yet doesn't mean that they never will. So ask for feedback, accept the sound advice without getting defensive, and continue bravely for as long as you can, keeping an eye out for luck so you don't miss it if it comes your way.

That's all you can do. And, it can be enough, but it will also be painful at times. Lean into the pain and look at it. Deconstruct it. It won't kill you. But until you look at it directly, which many authors don't, ever do, and until you call bullshit on some of its lies, it'll haunt you. It may even overwhelm you.

The only thing that can stop you from writing is you. And if you stop writing and stop marketing, your books don't stand a chance of hitting it. That's the only certainty you can have here. So is it worth it? Is it worth just giving up so that you can have [00:28:00] some certainty there? Or would you like to keep building muscles that allow you to stay in that uncertainty?

Because uncertainty is the place where hope lives.

That's it for this episode. Thanks for joining me as we unpack this anxiety today. If something in this resonated for you, feel free to drop me a line at contact@ffs.media. I'm Claire Taylor, and I hope you'll join me for the next episode of What If for Authors.