Episode 11: What to do when you're wondering how to get started writing

In this podcast episode, Elizabeth shares her experience of starting a non-fiction book through a 30-day writing program. She initially had two ideas, one about financial coaching and the other about finding community after relocating. The prompts guided her in defining the target audience and key message. However, the book ended up with a blend of memoir and self-help, creating a challenge during the editing phase.

Stephanie agrees that quick writing programs might not be suitable for creating high-quality books. She emphasizes the importance of time in the writing process and discusses the struggle with the perception that books should be written quickly. Both hosts stress the significance of a writer's unique voice and the need for quality over speed.

They also share insights into outlining, suggesting structures for different genres like contemporary romance or memoir. Stephanie discusses her shift from non-fiction to contemporary romance and encourages writers to embrace the messy process, emphasizing the importance of consistent writing sessions.

They touch upon the use of mind maps to brainstorm ideas, privacy in the writing process, and the challenge of sharing early writing with others. The episode concludes with a reminder for writers to embrace their chosen identity and pursue their stories with dedication.

Connect with us! Schedule a coffee chat with Elizabeth or Stephanie!

Join our email list for first to know information about weekly podcast episodes, writing aids, and upcoming offers!

To get more information about joining our Inspired Writer Collective or Read Like A Writer book club, click here.

If you prefer video versions of the podcast or want to leave a comment on this specific episode, you can locate all of them here on our YouTube channel.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome fellow writers to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast, your go to hub for all things writing. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie. Whether you're a seasoned wordsmith or just dipping your quill into the ink well of creativity, we're absolutely thrilled to have you with us. Drawing from our experience in publishing diverse writing genres and the daily grind of showing up for yourself, we're here to be your writing companions. Expect insightful discussions, expert tips, and a dash of inspiration as we navigate the twists and turns of the writing journey together. So whether you're listening on your commute, during your writing session, or just relaxing at home, get ready for an immersive experience that celebrates the art and joy of writing. Hi,

Stephanie: 0:49

Hi Elizabeth. Hey

Elizabeth: 0:51

Stephanie. I want to take a minute at the top of this podcast recording to just give a shout out to our listeners out there. We notice, we look at the background analytics, so we see you over there in Germany downloading the episode. We see you, Virginia, showing up every week. We see you, Louisiana. Thank you, everyone, for your downloads, for your five star reviews. It, it means so much to us. I mean, we are not, you know, a big podcast by any means. We have, this will be the 11th episode that we're putting out there. So, Every single one of those downloads we recognize is connected to an actual human being and we absolutely love that you're listening and we'd love to see your comments. We'd love to know what you're enjoying, what you want to see more of.

Stephanie: 1:39

It's so exciting to see where everybody's tuning in from. So we definitely thank you for that. And our inspiration for today's episode comes from some, individuals we've been talking to who are really curious about our community and what we're doing and who said, you know, I really want to write a book. I have an idea for a book, but I just don't know where to start.

Elizabeth: 2:02

Right, so I started because my sister actually enrolled in one of those 30 day write a non fiction book courses. She was going to do hers related to some future coaching that she wanted to do and I had two ideas that I started out with. The beginning sort of inspiration or prompt was, you know, pick something that you know a good bit about that you think you could help others solve a problem with by writing this book. So I had some previous Financial coaching experience with helping people create a family budget and doing some aggressive debt repayment. So that was an idea for a book. And then also this idea, this concept of finding community after having to move and relocate. And I had done that so many times and with the pandemic. Only recently behind us at that point because this was a year ago, so January of 23. I felt like that was the topic that I resonated with the strongest had the most emotions around. So that's originally what I set out to right. So I followed these daily prompts that helped guide a little bit of who's the target audience. What message are you trying to relay? What are the key points of that message? And it walked you through a very basic outlining process, and then just essentially prompted you to write for the next, I guess, three out of the total of four weeks. And so there was just a little bit on the front end, and then a little bit of an editing sort of phase on the back end. But for the most part, the bulk of it was Pomodoro method of sitting down to write without editing, just going with the flow, following the outline that you had created in the first week. So what I ended up with at the end of that process was this Self help style book where I was giving instructions to the reader about different places they could go to find groups, you know, there's meetups and maybe your library has this or try some rec leagues and, and that sort of thing. But I also found myself because I'm very drawn to memoir, including a lot of my own personal stories, which good self help books. I don't know if I'm going to be able to include, but mine turned into this sort of like, almost awkward level of, is it memoir or is it self help? Because it was pretty heavy in the personal stories. And that's where I felt was the like richest material. And even when I ended up sending it off to an editor a few months later, because it did not just take me the one month to write. Even just to get through my outline, I think I was writing solidly, like, hours and hours each day through the end of at least February. And then I spent March editing it, and then I sent a little sample portion off to an editor that I was looking to hire. The end of March and early April and from the selections of the chapters that I had sent her. She had given me the same feedback that I already was sensing of, you know, this is a very difficult line to walk. It probably needs to go all self help or all memoir, or at least more strongly self help or all memoir. And that's what I was feeling, too, because I thought was even selecting what to send her. I really resonated strongly with the chapters that were full of my own personal experience and stories, and had the heart and the emotion in them. And I was really feeling uncertain and less confident about the writing that was more of the self help genre. So I ended up, essentially, fast forward, You know, scrapping all of the self help stuff, pulling it totally out, maybe I'll use it in some sort of handouts or something of, you know, the seven Fs for finding community or whatever I created, I forget the specifics. So maybe it'll show up in some other way, but I took it 100 percent memoir, and then so much of life happened after that point that changed the overall structure of the memoir. So, at this point, I would say. Less than 15 percent of that book is what I originally wrote in January and February through that 30 day, quote unquote writing process. While that may have a place, if you're just trying to crank out a book that is just the figurehead, the pass out material, To draw people to, you know, some sort of coaching or other business model. I do not recommend it for any sort of literary esque genre, whether that's memoir or even a good self help book that does more than just promotes, you know, your one on one coaching or something of that nature. And certainly not fiction. I can't imagine. I mean, literally the outline was created in one day. There's no way that you can create. An outline for your fiction novel that is engaging and well thought out in one day, unless you have spent a huge chunk of time ahead of time, letting it live in your head and percolate. Have you seen those, Stephanie? And what are your thoughts on those 30 day programs?

Stephanie: 7:36

Well, I'm definitely in total agreement with you. It's so funny, because we were talking about this the other day, I mean, I see it all the time, of course, with the algorithm in Facebook and so forth, because of all the searching I'm doing about writing and following writers, that all those ads are always popping up, and I just think, I can't even believe that anyone can really do this and do it well, because I know Even with my first book, which is nonfiction that I published myself, it actually took me four years to get that project out the door. And not that I was working on it every day for four years, but it just shows that sometimes things just have to take time because you're going back, you're editing, you're tweaking, things change. Even like you said in your memoir, you know, life changed and it changed the trajectory of what you were writing and so different things change over time. And I really struggle with all of those promotional pieces for programs that say, write your book in 30 days, write it in 60 days. And I think that that's why there's a struggle in the market between people's perceptions of, self publishing and traditional publishing, because unfortunately, With the self publishing, there is an element of saturation with people who just crank something out and publish it. And they're like, look, I published a book. And really, I mean, here in our community, we're here to support you and guide you. And we want you to have a high quality finished. product. We're not here to push you and make you write faster than you can imagine, or make you think that you have to have a timeline or a time limit on how long it takes you to write the book. We're here to guide you through a process where at the end, you have a book that is of quality. And that's of course why for our book club, we're reading high quality books by authors who are proven successful because that's how you learn. There really is a correlation between what you read will influence what you write. And so, if you're reading books that aren't as well edited, aren't as well thought out. It's going to transfer into your writing. And so we're really focused on making sure that it's high quality here. We're here. We have our own standard that we set ourselves. I feel, I mean, we, we definitely are, of course, even as writers, we're our own worst critics all the time, but certainly in our community, we. are very purposeful in surrounding ourselves with people who are, where this is what they've chosen to do. They want to write a book. They want it to be high quality. It's not about getting it out the door fast.

Elizabeth: 10:27

Right. And these stories are important. I mean, for me, I'm writing memoir. This is my one chance. To tell these stories the way that I want to tell them and it would feel like a total disservice to Rush through that process and I think we're going to see as an industry more of that trend of the under edited quick idea You know, kind of style of book writing, especially in the nonfiction, but I know it's coming up in the fiction realm, too, especially with the proliferation of a I and just for so you listeners know, Stephanie and I are doing some like background research right now in order to provide some information and do a special podcast episode on AI and publishing and what we might see as far as those trends within this business, within writing and publishing industry. So that is forthcoming, but we want to make sure that we have a good understanding of it ourselves, that we get some outside sources and things so that we can do justice to that conversation. But I think that does fall in this realm as well, with all of these, you know, ads and things of, Oh, you can write this kind of book and make X amount by selling it on, you know, Amazon, Kindle Direct Publishing. And you can have AI write the whole thing and it's, it's just not going to be quality. And our stories are valuable. Our ideas are valuable. So why not put the effort and the work in to make it beautiful? You have one chance to tell this story, fiction or nonfiction. You have one chance to dream up these characters and give them the life and the plot line that you wish

Stephanie: 12:20

for them. Exactly. I think that that is such a good point about AI and one of the things that Like you said, your voice matters, and really, the human element is missing when you think about something from a computer. And so we really value your voice, and when you think about, if you're wanting to start a book, is to take a moment and think about what is the story that you want to tell. And I'm sure many of you Probably have a lot of different stories you want to tell and I know for me I Wrote a lot of nonfiction for a long time I taught writing at the middle school level and I did some at the college level as well and I've written academic papers. And so my voice There's a particular way in that style of writing. And now, after doing so much of that work and being part of a writing group where I kept listening to a lot of fiction and I thought, Oh, that's sounds really interesting. And because I was reading a lot of contemporary romance I thought this will be an interesting genre for me to try. And it's definitely true that as you're thinking about, well, what is the book that I'm meant to write? What's speaking to you most often? What is the story that won't leave you alone? And the romance piece kept coming back around to me, even though I was working, when I was working on my nonfiction, and it kept coming around and I had a lot of self doubt around it, because, of course, it's not what I'm used to writing. And so, Eventually, I thought, okay, I'm going to do this, and I just very simply started writing out ideas for, you know, what I thought the plot line, where I thought it should take place, maybe a theme and of course with romance, it's, you know, what level of steam, and I'm like, ah, I'm not going to go that. steamy, that's not really my style and thinking about the mentor authors whose books I've read and thinking about all of that. So there was a lot of just Thinking about it before I even sat down to write anything. And the first thing that I wrote was a Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 style outline where, okay, this is what's happening in the beginning, you know, Act 1, beginning, middle, and end. Act 2, beginning, middle, and end. Act 3, beginning, middle, and end. And thinking about Well, what's the meet cute? And, you know, how do they meet? And then, you know, what's the big crescendo that kind of pulls them apart and creates some tension and angst in the relationship? And then what pulls them back together? And in my process, it's been really interesting because I had one storyline going, and then Part way through I was like, oh, that's not really working for me and I kept finding myself getting stuck And so then I took a different turn and Pulled out a character that didn't fit and I put in another character And so it's really a constant ongoing process but the really cool thing that I was thinking about this morning as I was thinking about this podcast was Our time to write sessions in the community have been so pivotal for me in getting writing done. And I know that that's probably one of the pieces that might be making you hesitant to think that you can even start is you're thinking, I don't have the time. And what we've both found is that scheduling the time and making the time is what helps to get The process started

Elizabeth: 16:19

exactly like we had someone come into one of our time to write sessions. The, the other week and she's working on a memoir. And even though she doesn't have the stories outline that she needs to write for her memoir. Knowing that she's writing memoir, she was taking something that happened more recently and essentially writing it in her journal, which for memoirists is like a precursor to your Rapture Act. And so she wanted to capture those emotions, she wanted to capture her current state of being, and so she used that time to write to do that. And like you're saying, I mean, anytime you practice writing is working towards, you know, your book. I had a couple other thoughts too with the whole description of like the act one, act two, act three, I know that there are kind of standards for each genres and you can find those sorts of things online as far as this is kind of the ebb and flow of a contemporary romance. Here's how a murder mystery is going to be laid out because you're going to first figure out Who died and who your amateur sleuth is, right? And then at some point you might have a red herring, you're going to have some detours, you have to sprinkle in the various clues. So there are structures out there that if you just aren't sure about the framework You can utilize those generalized structures and then imprint your story onto that. It's the details and the nuance that's what's going to make your story stand out. There's no benefit really in reinventing the wheel, especially for like a first time author. If you're trying to write memoir, What I recommend is looking at things like the hero's journey, the heroine's journey, which is the more female twist on it, and seeing if by reading the descriptions of the call and the return and the I forget all the different terms but as you read what those descriptions are, this is joseph campbell's sort of outline of the hero's journey You may find that certain portions of your life resonate With those descriptions and that could help you Go from your timeline. Maybe you write out a timeline of your life, key moments and times that might help you hone in on a particular theme and area of your life to focus on because most memoir is not the entirety of your life. That would be more of an autobiography and most people aren't interested in reading an autobiography about someone who isn't. Famous in some form. So a memoir is going to be a more condensed timeline generally than your entire life, and it's going to have some sort of, you know, greater theme running through it. We've talked before, especially when you were talking about that technically yours book that you read, that even fiction is going to have an underlying theme. We had another writer in our community recently published her fiction, her cozy mystery, and the underlying theme or kind of broader message and conversation was about the indigenous communities and the adoption of indigenous children outside of the indigenous culture and communities and to typically white families, so that was an underlying message to the reader within that story. So find the message again that resonates with you. What is the bigger conversation that you're attempting to have by painting either this fictional story or by sharing part of your lived experience. And so those can be great places to. Figure out what sort of content you want to include, even if you don't know if this is going to come in the beginning or the middle or the end yet, sometimes it helps just to get the ideas out. So having a good brainstorming session or using what's called a mind map, which basically looks like a wheel. With a central idea in the middle and then a bunch of spokes that go out to sub ideas and then you break those down even further. That's a great way to take a very complex topic, for example, like loneliness, which is what my memoir addresses. And then I could break it down to my high school days and here's some examples of how I experienced it here. Or finding community was easy in college. Why was that? Oh, because there was all this structure and you had kind of built in, you know, friends between your roommate and your classmates in your same major. And so you can take a singular concept and just brainstorm out the ideas, and that's going to help you come with At least some structure for the outline, but at the end of the day, as Stephanie, just you said, you've already changed what the beginning of your story is like. I've shared that my memoir has gone through a massive transition, so we can also let go of that writer mindset that we have to have it all figured out in the beginning. And I

Stephanie: 21:21

love that thinking you're so right that writers sit down and there's this idea out there in the world that somehow when you sit down to write, you're supposed to get it right the first time. You know it can be messy. You just need to get it out, get it done. And it's important to think about how you don't have to have it perfect the first time you sit down. We've all made it messy. And that's what it's going to look like when it's on the page. And that's okay. And the best thing is when you set up your space for writing and whatever that looks like for you. For some people, they need a quiet space. Others, they can sit in coffee shops and the white noise of everything going on around them, they can block it out and they can focus on writing that way. It's really important that you figure out what works for you because it's that showing up and being consistent. And nobody is reading over your shoulder unless you're letting them, and nobody is seeing what you're putting on the page unless you're letting them see it. And so really, there's an element of privacy to the process as you're figuring it out, and Going back to what I was saying earlier, I mean, for me, it really came down to saying to myself, I can do this, I can be a contemporary romance writer, I can put it on my vision board, I can follow the authors that have written it. I know in an earlier podcast, I talked about how some of the authors that I follow, they're often posting on social media about being at an airport bookstore and signing their books. And I'm thinking, That's what I want to do. And so making those identity pieces for yourself and owning them in a way makes you feel closer to taking on the identity and being able to say, I am a writer. And I think too often, I know in my own family growing up that I was not always the one that was told that I could be a writer. And so, I carried that for a while. And then. It really wasn't until I was in college, actually grad school, that I found a lot of success with my writing. And I started to say, wow, I can do this. Even though I think back to when I was in middle school and I wanted to write romance at that time, and I had ideas about it, but I just pushed those to the side because I was being told that wasn't what I should be doing. And so Listener, I encourage you, if you are sitting in a place where you're wondering if you should write the book, if there is a story, if there is an idea that is pulling at you, I encourage you to sit down and, like Elizabeth said, make that mind map. Even if that's where you start, sometimes that's the easiest place to start because it doesn't require you to write full sentences or anything, it's just letting words explode on the page of what's in your heart and what's on your mind and seeing what comes from that. And another strategy that comes to mind that I know a friend of mine shared with me is what are the Books that you're drawn to what do you just absolutely love to read because if you're feeling stuck sometimes starting with What do you love to read can help you figure out what you're gonna love to write,

Elizabeth: 24:55

that's the whole philosophy behind the read like a writer book club, right? That's how we started in January was each of us reading a book again that we loved to read and then finding things that we could take from each of those books to model within our own writing. I think the part you shared too about how difficult it is to share your early writing with other people is significant. I definitely didn't feel comfortable sharing my writing, even with people who already knew the stories, even with those who lived the stories with me. It wasn't until I found a writing community where I knew that everyone would understand the struggle of putting either the ideas in your head or the story you lived into words. That I started to feel even. remotely willing to share my stories with anybody because there is that, that fear of the criticism but it definitely is hard to share with non writers, there's so much comfort I get personally in knowing that the person I'm sharing my writing with understands the actual struggle of writing because unless you've tried to take an experience or an idea and distill it down into words, you know, it, On the outside, looking in, it seems so simple, and it is not. It is very tricky in order to capture it to the level that allows someone to read it and feel like they're there with you.

Stephanie: 26:41

That just made me think about what you were saying before about finding a theme or an idea that you can weave through what you're writing and that helps to pull what you're writing together. Because I think that when you're feeling stuck, when you have something like that to go back to, it can really ground you in what you're writing. And I think about that with my contemporary romance and thinking about, well, what do I want to have be a grounding point for my characters and a theme? And I haven't landed on it yet, which is probably different than maybe how others approach it. Right now, I'm really just trying to just get the words on the page and allowing myself not to be a perfectionist as I go, because that's definitely something that trips me up. And Elizabeth mentioned that earlier in the podcast about the Pomodoro method, about setting a timer and just allowing yourself to write. And it is powerful. To do that approach, because you all of a sudden find that you're in your story and the flow happens. And I've definitely resisted that in the past, but I can tell you, listener, that it has been really transformative in allowing me to just write. And that's when I show up for our time to write sessions. That's what I'm doing, is I'm just writing and I'm not allowing myself to edit. And I know there was one session recently where I spent some time going back to my outline, because at first I thought I could just write it all and just let it keep flowing. But then I realized I had to go back and give myself some structure for it. But I really think grounding in some type of theme and going back to, you mentioned the book, Technically Yours and the theme in that was tying together representing youth in technology and particularly underrepresented youth. And. Underrepresented communities in the tech world and providing mentorship and guidance through a non profit. And so that was a grounding point for both of the main characters, having that common connection of that place in the book for their relationship. And so those can be really key elements to integrate and also to connect with your readers because readers have their interests and they're drawn to books and topics and for different reasons and if You know, if they identify as a character in the book, they're more drawn to it

Elizabeth: 29:18

you know, I was just struck and feel free to cut this if you want, but I was just struck by this idea that maybe you don't see it yet, but I almost see your underlying story to be about grief. If you end up keeping the part about your main character's father, and I know that from your own life experience, you have a lot to reflect on in that realm. I wonder if there's some aspect of grief, whether it's just non linear or, you know, some characteristic of grief that is already present in your story and could be expanded upon and used as like a backbone.

Stephanie: 30:01

I think that's a great point. And it also brings up the fact that you can draw from your own life, whether you're writing memoir or fiction Stories from your own experience are not just meant for memoir and, you know, a short story here or there, but they can be woven into your fiction stories. So I'll definitely Think about that, because I think that, I think you've mentioned that to me, to me before, and maybe it's my own sort of resistance

Elizabeth: 30:34

to Maybe you're not ready. Maybe

Stephanie: 30:35

that's the next book. Maybe that's the next one. You raise a great point though, because I think that that's really relevant to the, this idea of Well, how do I get started? Well, there are things in our own lives that whether they're trigger points or not, they help to catapult us into our creative ways of being. And I think that that's important to think about.

Elizabeth: 30:57

Yeah, I have, you know, since I can't write memoir forever, I only have so much life I can write about. I have already started to dream up, you know, my ideas for some future fiction. And I do think the theme will be around. Allowing room for people to change. And what that looks like, how much of a struggle that is to watch the people that you're close to go through these various changes and shifts, but how you have to make room and hold space for their personal growth and. You have to accept when they have changed and you have to believe that they can change and not hold a past version of them against them currently. And that just comes from my own experience of seeing how much I've made changes to my own life that not just my career or these things like around me, affect how I show up in the world and who I am as a person and, and how I engage in relationship with others because of past hurts or the healing I've done or any of that. So that's another example of how you can take. Sort of a deeper underlying message and then turn it into a whole plot line. So I could take that concept and then decide, okay, what kind of changes do I want this character go through? Okay, how is that change gonna get rejected or pushed away? Or denied. Okay, and that's going to create my tension and my conflict or maybe because change is also not linear. Maybe this person tries to change but has a backslide. And then I can kind of speak to that aspect of growth and how it doesn't all, you know, happen and stay permanent. Sometimes it takes a couple times to learn the lessons, so then you could build out a whole storyline and then plug in characters for that. So maybe if you're not attached to a particular character that you want to expand and build a life for, maybe it's finding the underlying theme or message and then building around

Stephanie: 33:01

that. I have a feeling you're going to have some listeners who are going to start telling you you need to start writing your fiction series because we all experience change and growth in different ways. And I'm not sure that we all know how to always navigate it, and so it's always great when there are books especially fiction, when we can find ourselves in someone else's life for a little bit to help us through some of those. So I think that sounds like an exciting direction for you, but I know that the, the memoir and possibly subsequent memoirs are still in the works for you. So, but It's definitely exciting for you to think about. I'm imagining,

Elizabeth: 33:41

based off of the fact that I think I just wrote the last chapter of this memoir, based off of the events of three weeks ago, that I'm gonna need to live some more life before the next memoir can be written. So while I journal the things that I think might appear in the next memoir I think I'll have some downtime, but it'll be one of those fiction books that is highly borrowed from my real life, but just fictionalized for, you know, added drama and fun and so I can be more lighthearted about it and not so in my head all the time with my writing. I am excited for a break or divergence from, you know, real life. Some

Stephanie: 34:17

escapism. Oh, well, absolutely. No, I agree with you because I find that it's been so much more fun for me to have a break from my non fiction work that related to my previous business and just even my academic work and everything because I feel like it's freed up space for me to have more fun with my writing, which I hadn't always thought of having fun with it. And, I think not being so critical of myself. And that's hard. I don't always like to be in the spotlight. I don't always like to feel like everybody's eyes are on me, especially even when I've shared in writing group, there's always a little bit of anxiety, even though I know I'm in a group of. People I trust and value feedback and everything. But these are all real things all these emotions and feelings around writing that we all experience and, you know, we're here to normalize that for you listeners and writers and even if you're listening to us and you're not sure you want to write, we encourage you to maybe give it a go, even if it's a short story or just something you haven't tried before because, interestingly enough, one of our listeners and Someone in our community who's a yoga teacher, she shared in one of her yoga classes about how when the mind is allowed to expand, that it doesn't ever go back to its original way of being. And so when you allow yourself to have a different way of thinking about something or a new experience, that you've already changed yourself in some way. And I just really held on to that. thought because it made me stop and think about, when I've had resistance. But then when I've crossed over that resistance in some way, I've learned something, I've gained something. And I think as writers, I think we can take that with us to heart of, if you just start. One word at a time, and even if it doesn't make sense, or if it's the mind map, or whatever it is, or if you want to start with journaling, maybe you haven't ever cracked open a journal but, journaling is powerful for just getting words out. I know that I use it just to get the cobwebs out of my head so that I can do my other writing, is just getting the words out. So, I say just start.

Elizabeth: 36:54

Well, and, You're so great, Stephanie, because of your prior work in helping people write their personal statements and distilling down in what, like a page or two, whatever the limitations are, the essence of who they are and why that makes them a qualified applicant for this college or this grad school. That is why you are positioned so well as a book coach. For helping people distill down that core essence of their plot line of their story of their memoir Because that's what you have experience doing granted This is all more like memoir esque because that's what a personal statement's like these are real people's lives, but you can use those same principles that same skill set that you've mastered over the course of that portion of your career To help anyone who has some ideas but maybe feels like they're not really targeted or honed in or they have multiple ideas and they're trying to figure out which one is going to resonate the strongest. That's where your one on one book coaching really shines because you can help someone get to a point where they do know where to start. Because, I mean, as we've talked through So, that's clearly the hardest part of just knowing, okay, I want to write something, what do I write?

Stephanie: 38:20

Absolutely. Yes. And listeners, if you're interested in one on one coaching, reach out to us and I'm happy to have a chat with you to see if it's the right fit and to see if it would work for you. I'm offering some free one on one sessions right now. And so this is a special here as we're launching the community. And I'd love to invite you to connect with me and I'd love to help you get started if that's something where you're feeling stuck and want to dive right in. I'm happy to walk alongside you and help you in the journey.

Elizabeth: 38:56

And if any of you are hoping to write memoir this year, I am working in the background on a memoir masterclass that will be available within the community, but there will also be a portion or an option to just purchase the masterclass and that will be basically more detailed information on how to start walking you through the hero's journey and mapping out your own timeline and identifying what and then we're going to talk about the actual theme of your life. You're going to focus on within your memoir and how to get started with that. So if you are wanting to get started, just know we have some resources available now and also coming your way, and we want to hear your ideas. Please comment, please let us know what it is you're working on or that you'd like to work on. We get inspired by your stories, too, just as we hope that you get inspired by our ideas or our current projects.

39:56

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. We hope you found inspiration, insights, and connection to yourself as a writer. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe, and leave us a 5 star review. Remember, the power of storytelling lies within each of us, and by supporting one another, we can make a difference. We can amplify our voices and craft narratives that resonate with the world. We're not just about words on a page. We're passionate about the craft, the process, and building a supportive community. Become a part of our community by connecting with us on social media. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at inspired writer collective on Tik TOK at inspired writer LLC by joining our writing community online at inspired dash writer. Dash collective.mn.co and let's continue this writing journey Together, you can find links in the show notes. Until next time, fellow writers may your pens be mighty and your stories captivating. Happy writing.