Five Values I Live and Work By

When I set out to become a full-time Book Midwife and to build the Book Alchemy framework, it wasn’t about profit or fame or a cool job title (though you have to admit, “book midwife” IS the coolest job title). It was about my passion and my gifts, as well as my sense of purpose in life.

This isn’t a job. It’s a calling.

Behind the calling is a vision, a vision for a world made more beautiful by brilliant people producing powerful books. 

And behind the vision is a set of values.

Many companies develop “values” they print up on a poster and hang in the break room. Some companies even have a general tendency to execute on those values.

For me, values are deeper. 

They aren’t something I came up with in a creative session one day.

Rather, values are what I live by because they are who I am. And when it comes to choosing team members to support the work, they’re the values I look for in others. They’re also values I look for in the clients I work with. If we’re not a good values fit, we’re not a good fit. And if we are: Magic.

So if you’re wondering what’s behind the vision and the mission of this work, here it is. The 5 core values of Fen’s Book Alchemy.

1. Full of Heart

I borrowed this phrase from the amazing team at Membrain, where I headed up Storytelling for a while. There’s a reason I have always said that of all the companies I’ve worked inside, Membrain was the best cultural fit for me. This is one of their core values, and it is absolutely one of mine.

Because at the heart of everything I do, is my heart.

To me, being full of heart means being passionate and committed, authentic, and compassionate. I care deeply, and I bring my full heart and soul to everything I do.

Full of heart encompasses related values of honesty, integrity, and authenticity. It means I don’t hide behind words or images or fake smiles. It means I strive always to represent myself as who I am, and it also means that I bring all my love and passion and the core of my being to the people I work with, including my colleagues and my clients.

2. Courageous

At Fen’s Book Alchemy, we are unafraid to challenge the world, to take strategic risks, and (when we’re confident of our direction - see core value #5) to charge forward fearlessly. 

This also means that we’re willing to have difficult conversations and make painful decisions when it’s for the best.

It means we’re not afraid to say “no” to client work that isn’t well aligned, or to tell a client when they’re making a mistake. It means we invest boldly in the things we believe in and that will move us forward, and that we don’t let ourselves get sidelined by fear.

This value is essential to our work because it takes courage to claim your voice and write a book, and if we’re not modeling that courage, then what are we even doing in this business?

3. Visionary

While we believe in getting things done, we believe even more in seeing what matters.

As a core value, vision means prioritizing the right and the duty to step back, take time, see the big picture.

It means being willing to be labeled a dreamer if that means we can picture something nobody’s ever pictured before.

We have to be visionary in order to help our clients bring their beautiful visions into being.

My personal visionary skill is both innate and highly trained and attuned. When I look at a manuscript, I can literally “see” everything the book can be, and I can see what it needs to get there. When I work with a client, I can “see” what they’re trying to accomplish, where their strengths are, and what’s in their way. I can see the path forward and help them get their feet firmly planted on it.

Additionally, importantly, we are visionaries who see the potential for a bright future for the world, fueled by the voices of those who are willing to put their ideas and their stories out there.

4. Creative

I have always been “a creative.” From my earliest toddler days wandering ten steps behind everyone else, dreaming about the world and telling myself stories about the ducks and the ladybugs and the imaginal dog walking by my side, to my entire adult career.

But “creative” doesn’t just mean writing stories and drawing pictures.

Creative is a mindset and a way of being.

Creative means happily, gleefully even, breaking down walls and busting out of boxes. It means innovating constantly. It means bringing big ideas to the table and being willing to take creative risks to see them through.

Creative means looking at the world and seeing problems, but also opportunities. It means taking things apart (objects, ideas, systems) and looking at the constituent parts to see what’s broken and what else can be made of them and how to make them whole again, better than ever before. Or when they need to be made into something else entirely.

When working with clients, it means refusing to issue edicts and orders, but rather exploring their way of working, their goals and ideals, and helping them creatively reframe and restructure to get more of what they want from themselves and their books.

It means helping them untangle old ideas about what their book could or should be and create a vision for themselves that is aligned with their own values and wants and mission and passions and drive.

Creative doesn’t mean unstructured. Creativity flourishes within effective structures. But it does mean being willing to deconstruct the structures when they’re no longer working, and rebuild them so they work better.

It means believing that things can always be “even better” and being willing to imagine how to make it so.

5. Grounded

The fifth and final value is also the first value. You can picture this like a tree or like a circle. If it’s a tree, then “grounded” is the roots, full of heart is the trunk, courageous is the branches, visionary is the leaves, and creative is the flowers.

If it’s a circle, then it’s all a circle.

Now you can picture the tree like a world tree, with the branches arcing down, and the flowers touching the roots at the tips to create a circle.

So don’t think of “grounded” as “less than” just because it’s #5 in a list of 5. It’s both the ending and the beginning.

And what do I mean by grounded? I mean that we move purposefully. We don’t rush and play firefighter.

If you need a coach on speed dial to handle your crises, I’m not your guy. That’s just not who I am, nor who I want to be.

Instead, my team works from a grounded sense of Knowing, with a capital “K,” and we allow Knowing to grow at its own pace. You can’t rush the roots. That’s not how you grow a strong tree.

And by “tree” I mean business, I mean life, I mean your book.

At Fen’s Book Alchemy, if we’re ever in doubt, we go back to our roots. We go back to our core values. We go back to our mission and our vision. We listen deeply to our own internal compass and the core of our being.

And we wait. We wait for Knowing to develop.

Then and only then, we take action.

The remarkable thing about being grounded is that when you slow down to get truly tapped in and connected to the roots of your being, things often happen faster than you think they will.

When I work with clients, this can look like me taking time before I open your manuscript to get myself grounded. I first remind myself who I am. I breathe and center myself, and release any petty concerns that might be rattling around in my head.

Then I ground myself in your foundation statement, your who and your why and your what. Then and only then, I open your manuscript and get to work, secure and confident in the Knowing that I’m doing the next right thing for you.

Grounded also means not pretending to know things I don’t know, not giving immediate answers when I don’t have them, and not rushing to respond to a question at 2am. 

(I might respond at 2am but only because I’m an insomniac and sometimes that’s when my brain is turned on.)

On the team, this means that I don’t expect sudden and immediate answers from team members, either. If the answer isn’t obvious, I encourage them to go take the time they need to become confident in their Knowing.

Grounded means that when we take action, we Know it’s the next right action. We’re the turtle, not the hare. Once we know the direction we’re going, we go. And not before.

These five values guide everything we do at Book Alchemy, how we work, how we communicate, how we provide an inspiring experience to our authors. We look for values alignment in the people we work with as well.

If these values seem aligned for you, and you’re interested in working with us, I encourage you to take a look at our process, approach, and other details about how we work on the home page.

Then get in touch when the Knowing has grown inside you that reaching out is the next right thing for you.

Four Qualities That Define a Visionary

Recently, someone reached out and asked me why I call myself a “visionary.” It’s a great question.

It’s popular to claim the title “visionary,” especially when you’re positioning yourself as a leader. After all, vision seems like an important thing to have. But what does it even mean to be a visionary? And how dare I, a mere book midwife, call myself that?

I can’t tell you what other people mean by it, or how they come to call themselves that, but here are four keys to how I came to be a visionary, and why I claim the title.

1. Natural Inclination

I have always been a dreamer.

My mom used to joke that I marched to the beat of my own drummer, and my dad had a nickname for me based on the fact that I was always walking ten steps behind everyone else, lost in my own world.

Dreaming.

Some folks are naturally inclined to think big thoughts and dream big dreams. Some folks are more inclined to focus on details and process and execution. There’s nothing wrong with how your brain is wired. It’s what makes you, you.

Mine just happens to be wired for dreaming and seeing big pictures.

2. Attunement

It’s not enough to simply want to be a visionary, you have to attune to the visionary frequency.

For me, this means a lifelong journey of training, meditation, shadow work, and trauma clearing. It’s becoming the “hollow bone,” able to hear and see visions as they come through. You have to be able to see beyond yourself and all your little hangups to something bigger, wider, deeper, more important than the details of day to day life or the paradigm in which you live.

You need visionary skills.

I’ve studied with Indigenous teachers in ancient modalities, as well as teachers of more modern mystical and esoteric traditions. I’ve done my own shadow work (an ongoing process), and I’ve trained in shamanic journeying.

I read widely, watch the patterns of the world unfold, and think deeply about both current events and the broad sweeps of history. 

Human nature, biology, chemistry, brain science, business, systems, philosophy, literature, history, and psychology are among the many topics I constantly study and update my understanding of.

I invest in personal coaching, in training, and in a constant pursuit for what I might be missing that would make everything make more sense, work better, or lead to a more beautiful world.

I treat being a visionary like the profession and the calling that it is.

3. Time

Visions don’t come on demand.

They require time to unspool themselves.

You have to give yourself large blocks of unhurried time to allow your visions to unfold inside yourself.

This is why I charge my clients a premium. Because you can’t contain what I do inside an hour or two or ten. Nobody gets my hours.

What you get when you work with me is space inside my visionary brain.

My clients are never not on my mind, either consciously or unconsciously.

They’re on my mind while I’m writing this blog post. They’re on my mind while I’m doing routine maintenance on my fish tanks. They’re on my mind while I’m hiking to a hidden waterfall. They’re on my mind while I’m assembling dinner.

I give myself giant blocks of time each week in which to allow my vision to unfold and stretch its wings, time when I’m “busy” doing whatever I feel like while my brain does its visionary work.

Ever had the best idea of your life while taking a shower or driving to the beach or lying around in a hammock?

That. That’s vision. And that’s what it takes: Doing nothing.

4. Prioritization

My primary value to my clients (and myself) is my vision, so I prioritize my vision.

Every Monday morning, I sit down and focus on my vision for myself and my business. This is blocked in my calendar and it is absolutely the first thing I do. Then I meet with my team to share priorities & get our week going. Then I meet with clients and complete any tasks I’ve set out for myself.

On Tuesdays, I putter. I have absolutely nothing on my calendar on Tuesdays, because my brain needs time to unspool everything that happened on Monday.

Then Wednesday, I’m back in the fray. Meeting with clients, completing tasks, doing manuscript reviews.

Sometimes I work very late on Mondays and Wednesdays. 

The most expensive thing I do time-wise is developmental editing (manuscript reviews). These can take ten to twenty hours each. But I still fit them in on Mondays and Wednesdays, even when that makes for a late night.

Because Thursdays and Fridays belong to my visionary brain.

On those days, I get out of the fray again and give my visionary skills time and space to do their work. It’s hard to describe what this “work” is because it doesn’t look like the current paradigm of “work.” It looks a lot more like… listening. Writing. Meditating. Hiking. Shopping. Scrolling. It’s time spent tuned to the visionary frequency specifically.

During this time, I write stories, post essays, do research, and build my following (for me, that qualifies as “visionary” time because it’s something that is fun and easy and outside of the daily “grind” so it still provides scope for my visionary brain to be doing its thing). I take naps, gaze at my fish tanks, do a little pruning in the garden. 

I call it “putter time.”

Sometimes I dip into tasks that look like “work” but they don’t feel like work to me because I’m following my vision, not my to do list.

This pattern of work means that my visionary brain gets the best chunks of my week. It can work its (metaphorical) heart out on Mondays and Wednesdays, applying visionary ability to mundane tasks, because it knows it gets Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays to do what it does best: Dream.

The best value my clients can get is when they invest in multiple manuscript reviews, or the full program, because then they get the benefit of their ideas and their manuscript living in my brain between revisions.

Sometimes I panic and think I better get back on the wheel and run faster, but then I remember that it's not like paddling faster ever actually worked for me.... All my best ideas and most important work have always happened in the silence, never in the noise.

And that’s what it means to me to be a visionary.

And you, do you claim that title? What does it mean to you?

How to Write a Book (in Seven Steps)

How to Write a Book: In Seven Steps

It starts with a single, priceless treasure: Clarity.

It ends with a single, priceless outcome: Your book.

In the middle: Magic.

And by “magic” I mean: Proven Process + Expert Guidance.

There’s a reason I guarantee that all of my full program clients will produce a book they’re proud of. Because the magic works.

The spell that unlocks the magic? These seven steps.

Step One: Clarity

To avoid overwhelm, distractions, and wasted effort, ground yourself from the very beginning in the three W’s:

• Who you are writing for

• What you are writing

• Why you are writing it

In my Clarity workshop, I help authors craft a one-sentence statement (the foundation statement) that becomes the through line for the rest of the work. Having seen the power that clarity brings to the work, I recommend every author begin by establishing a foundation statement for themselves before beginning.

You know you’ve achieved clarity for your book when you feel a moment of “aha!”–a deep breath, chills, sometimes even tears.

Now print that statement and post it where you can see it every day when you sit down to work.

Step Two: The Outline

With your foundation statement firmly in hand, you can begin to know what belongs in your book and what doesn’t.

From that centerpoint, you can group related concepts and then organize them into an order that makes sense for your readers. 

This becomes your outline. It’s not a straitjacket. It will grow and shift in the course of writing. That’s okay.

A working outline is a priceless tool to guide you through the writing process. You’ll know you’ve gotten this right when you feel a sense of clear direction and motivation to get started.

Step Three: The Writing Plan

Notice that we are three steps in and you haven’t even written the first word of your book!

Grounded action is one of my core values, and the writing process I teach reflects that. When you slow down to plan your work, you make it easier on yourself and guarantee a better result.

So stick with me here.

Once you have your foundation statement and your working outline, time to figure out how you’re going to do the thing. That’s your writing plan. 

Ask yourself:

• How does your brain work? Do you work best in long sessions, short sessions, frequent sessions, infrequent sessions? Best in the morning, afternoon, evening, caffeine-fueled late nights? Take stock and plan to work WITH your flow, not against it.

• What does your schedule look like and where can you fit writing sessions in effectively? Authors in my program have worked with all kinds of plans–some find it easiest to do it first thing in the morning for one to two hours every weekday; some block out time every weekend in larger chunks; others find it best to take a whole week off and just knock it all out at once (maybe in Mexico–new places spark new ideas). One author asked me to text writing prompts every morning and they worked from those when the spirit hit them. The key here is how YOU work and when YOU can fit it in.

• How long is it going to take? Most of our authors punch out a first draft in about five weeks, working between five and ten hours a week. This is a pretty good average to aim for if you’ve got a good coach on board to help you clear blocks and stay on target. Otherwise, give yourself a little more time, but try to keep it under 90 days for a first draft, and under 5-10 hours per week to prevent burnout.

Based on the above, decide what blocks of time you’re going to work, and put them in your calendar. This is your writing plan.

You’ll know your writing plan is right when you feel confident in your readiness to take action, and you know exactly when, where, and how you’ll go about it.

Step Four: The First Draft

Ready? It’s time to put actual words in an actual document.

Scared? That’s okay. You’ve got this.

First job is to simply get what’s in your head out of your head. Don’t worry about perfection. That’ll come later. Check that foundation statement. Review your outline. Work the plan.

Remember these keys:

• Focus on getting that first draft down, not perfect.

• Use your working outline to guide your process.

• Each day, choose something to work on from your outline, and work on it. You do not have to work in order.

• Follow your joy. Don’t try to force yourself through the hard bits. Each session, work on the part of your book that sounds fun and enticing. Use your dopamine production center to motivate you forward!

• Leave yourself bread crumbs - notes within the draft or a separate location to remind you where you left off, and what you want to work on next.

• Don’t judge yourself. Just get the words down.

Hire a book coach to guide you through this process. A great book coach will help you clear blocks, avoid overwhelm, and stay in the flow to get that first draft complete.

You’ll know you’re done when you have a messy, magical, wonderful, awful first draft in your hand. Print it out, even though it’s a hot mess.

Step Five: Developmental Review, Revisions, Editing

You have GOT to get some expert eyes on your draft at this point. That’s where a  great developmental editor comes in.

You need someone to look at the hot mess you have dumped on the page and see the beautiful book that is trying to be born through you. This person, if they’re good and they’re doing their job, will provide visionary, structural, and storytelling insights and feedback to help you shape the mess into a gorgeous manuscript.

Expect to do at least two rounds of developmental editing, followed by additional editorial review at closer and closer magnification.

The end result will be a manuscript that claims your voice, and manifests your vision.

You’ll know you’ve done it when you feel an enormous sense of pride in your accomplishment.

Step Six: Publish that Baby

Oh, did you think the hard work was done? Not quite! Before you hold the book in your hands, you’ve got to get a copyeditor to tighten everything up, a proofreader to make sure every comma is in place, a cover artist, someone to format and design the interior, purchase your ISBNs, and … etc.

Or, if you’re going the traditional publishing route, your publisher will handle a lot of this. But you’ll pay for it in the form of lost artistic control and ownership. 

Either way, once you’ve got that manuscript complete, you’ve got to get it into the world.

Hiring someone to help guide you through this process can be a life saver.

You’ll know you’ve done it… well, when you’re holding that baby in your hand!

Step Seven: Reach Your People

Now that it’s complete (and, realistically, starting long before it actually hits bookshelves), you want to get your book to as many of the right people as you can.

Your foundation statement (remember step one?) is still your guiding star here. It tells you who you want to reach and why. And that’s the foundation of everything.

You’ll want to develop a plan for leveraging your existing network as well as expanding it via social media, email, and other means. You can do this yourself, or hire a book launch strategist to help you develop a 90-day (and beyond) attraction plan.

You’ll know you’re getting this right when the right people are finding you and connecting with your book and your work.

Did any of these steps surprise you? Inspire you? Is it finally time for you to finally turn your magic into a book?

Why Write Your Book Yourself?

Why write your book yourself?

You have a lot of options for getting a book out the door, and some of those are much easier than actually writing the darn thing yourself.

You could hire a ghostwriter to capture your voice and ideas. There are some truly astonishingly good ghostwriters out there (I used to be one).

You could ask a generative AI bot to do it for you. AI is cheap and fast.

So why bother with the trouble of doing it yourself?

There are two reasons I focus on helping authors who have decided to write the book themselves.

One: The process itself yields insights and clarity that authors can gain by no other means. The act of spelling it out, organizing it, and making it flow improves everything else about the way the author works, delivers their services, and how they communicate their ideas in their marketing, social media, and sales.

Two: Your voice is the competitive advantage.

Every year, between 500,000 and 1 million books are published. With AI producing content at lightning speed, that number is going up exponentially.

The market is flooded.

But in the entire world, in its entire history, there has only ever been, and only ever will be exactly ONE of you.

YOU are the differentiating value that makes your book worth reading.

Only one person in history has ever seen the world exactly like you have. Only one person in history thinks about the world exactly as you do. And only one person in the world has your voice.

And it’s your voice that your readers want.

Not mine. Not some bot’s. Not the other fifteen experts writing on this exact topic.

Yours.

I designed (and proved out) my process to make writing your own book achievable for almost anyone, even within the confines of a very busy schedule. The entire goal of my program is to help you claim what’s beautiful and powerful and different about your voice so that you can exponentially increase your impact.

Sure, you could "write" an AI-generated "book" tonight and publish it tomorrow.

But if your goal is to claim what's yours, leave a mark on the world, and/or make a difference: Choose your voice.

The world needs it.

I Used to Think There Were Good Writers and Bad Writers

“I used to think there were good writers and bad writers.”

I’m on a Zoom call with someone I worked with in the past. She’s telling me what she learned from working with me.

“Tell me what you mean by that,” I say.

“Well, working with you I see that actually the two types of writers are those with a good developmental editor, and those without.”

I laugh.

Yes.

That is true.

“It’s like this little hidden secret nobody knows unless they’re in the industry,” she says.

Yes, it’s that too.

A classic example of this in action is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird vs Go Set a Watchman. To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic that is read in every high school English curriculum. It’s one of the most beautifully rendered novels of Southern literature, in my opinion. 

Don’t come for me, literature majors, but Go Set a Watchman is a hot mess.

Same author. Different outcome.

Rumor has it (on good authority: Ie, a friend of mine who is a professor of American literature and who knew Lee and her family personally) that Lee had an astonishingly good editor for To Kill a Mockingbird. Go Set a Watchman, on the other hand, was published late in her life and with very, very little editorial oversight.

Here’s what sometimes happens with novel writers. Sometimes, they get a huge commercial success early on. And their editors run scared. Suddenly, the very people who helped them knock it out of the ballpart by telling them how to get better, are afraid to touch the work and help them make it better.

You probably know of book series where the first book was an absolute gem, and the second one was okay, and the last one was a hot steaming mess (Divergent, Hunger Games, Twilight… name your vice).

It’s not always the case, but very often this is because editors get scared. They don’t want to mess with the genius, and even they don’t realize that they are part of the genius.

So, why am I telling you all this?

Because I want you to understand that a phenomenal developmental editor make be the difference between your book being masterfully rendered and fully embodying your vision for it… and it being… well, a hot mess.

A great developmental editor can see:

• What’s strong and needs to be highlighted

• What’s weak and should be taken out or improved

• Where your structure needs shoring up or reorganizing

• How your book needs to flow in order to keep the reader engaged

A world-class developmental editor will see and hear your voice through the mess of an early draft and help you refine, polish, and lift it up into the light.

They’ll know where to start and where to end. Which stories to expand on and which ones to take out. 

A great developmental editor creates clarity and can turn what feels to you like an info dump into a polished work of art that you can be proud of (and that readers will flock to).

This should be an iterative process, where you return the draft to your editor multiple times until you’re both satisfied that it fulfills your vision.

This all needs to happen BEFORE your copyeditor gets their hands on it. Copyediting is what most people think of when they think of editing–it’s making sure the draft is clean, free of grammatical errors, that the writing is nice and tight and consistent.

But you don’t want to involve the copyeditor before you have a manuscript you’re proud of. And you need a developmental editor for that.

This is as true for non-fiction as fiction.

I’m proud of the work I do, because I know it helps authors to create the work that they dreamed of, better than they dreamed of it.

Because I know a secret.

There may be people to whom writing comes more naturally, and others who have to work harder at it. People who study the craft of writing and get good at it.

But there is no binary of “good writers and bad writers.” 

What there is, is a binary (and a spectrum in the middle) of “people with great editors and people without them.”

Which one do you plan to be?

How Do I Make Myself Write?

Hey Fen,

I want to write a book, but every time I sit down to start, I get distracted. Or I write a little bit but then stop for a long time. How can I make myself be more disciplined to actually get it done? 

— Frustrated & Procrastinating

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Dear Frustrated & Procrastinating,

I hear you. Writing a book is a long slog, and it can be overwhelming to even begin, let alone to keep going!

When Kory & I work with our authors, we co-create a 90-day writing plan for them that is based in their lifestyle, work style, and goals. Here’s how we do it.

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1. Set the Foundation

It all begins with a solid foundation for the book, which we achieve in our Foundations Bookshop. This bookshop is similar to the impromptu workshop I did last week with an attendee at my Ask the Book Midwife event. Take a look to get a taste of how that works. In short, the foundation is your who, your what, and your why. With this firmly clarified, it becomes a lot easier to make yourself sit down and do the work.

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2. Create a Working Outline

Then we create a working outline, which essentially creates “buckets” for the author to drop content into. Finally, we develop a timeline with milestones and targets for the author to get the work done. This last part, along with coaching and support, is what really helps our authors get the work complete.

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3. Leverage the Brain’s Love for a 90-Day Framework

You don’t have to complete your whole book in 90 days, but the brain loves 90 day chunks. That’s about how long the average human can maintain focus. So work with it, instead of against it. It’s a convenient chunk of time that it’s easy to stay focused within, and allows your brain to feel like there’s a “finish line” it’s aiming for. This is important for motivation!

To help our authors actually complete a manuscript within the 90 days, we break it down into several very achievable “sprints”:

• 5 weeks of shitty first draft (just get those words down!). Most of our authors spend about five hours a week during this portion. Some like to do it in one big chunk on a weekend, others like to do it one hour a day during the week, one author does it all in one furious week while ensconced in a hotel in Mexico. Choose your adventure!

• 2 weeks of rest. Ideally, you really want your draft in the hands of a professional (like me!) during this time. You want someone with experience, expertise, vision, and a keen eye for story, narrative, and structure, to help you see how to fashion your words to match the vision you have for your book. Meanwhile, you need to give your brain a break. Go do something else!

• 2 weeks of revisions. Most people think that the 5-week initial sprint is the hard part. Most people are wrong! Our authors consistently report that this 2-week section is the hardest part of the whole thing. And I concur! Having visionary feedback from a professional can help smooth this process, but it’s still challenging. Most authors find that they prefer to do this portion in large chunks of time rather than smaller chunks, because you need to be able to hold the whole book in your head in order to move the structure around to fulfill your vision.

• 2 weeks of rest. Yes, again! And, again, try to get it into the hands of a professional. If you’re in our program, that’s me! You want someone who can really take what you’ve crafted so far and give it a thorough review through the lens of how it’s structured, how it flows, and how your voice emerges and accompanies the reader through it.

• 2 weeks of edits. Most authors find this to be the least difficult part of the writing and editing process. If your reviewer has done a good job, you’ll have a draft that’s chock full of suggested edits for you to review and accept or address or reject, plus feedback that helps you to keep refining and honing your voice, your message, and your story. The hardest part is done, and this is the part that really starts to make your draft shine.

Not everyone completes this process in these exact stages, but having a structure can help you stay focused and on target. And if you overrun your 90 days, don’t stress! Assess, regroup, and set new targets–within the next 90 days.

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4. Use Time-Based, not Word-Count Based Targets

While some authors do like a word-count based daily or weekly target, I almost always recommend time-based. Why? Because if you’re straining to reach a word count goal, there will be days when it takes you three hours to get there and days when it only takes you 30 minutes. And those 3-hour days are going to be a significant demotivator.

Plus, your brain is working even when your keys aren’t on the keyboard. Your brain needs to know that it’s okay to just sit there and think. Thinking is working! As long as you are in front of your work for the dedicated time, then you have done your job for the day and can move on. Congrats, you’re doing it!

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5. Plan for Plans to Go Awry

Finally, even the best laid plans can go awry. It helps a lot to have a coach along with you to help you clear blocks as they arise, stay in the flow, and overcome the many, many challenges that can arise. Or, to give you grace & help you accept when life just simply gets in the way for a while.

Writing a book is hard. There’s no two ways about it. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

But I have faith in you. If your book is burning inside you, you can do this. It’s far more achievable than most people realize.

And, if you want professional help… well, you know where to find me.

Warmly,

Fen

I Have So Many Ideas! Where Do I Even Start?

Hey Fen,

I have so many ideas for a book, and I keep getting stuck with even starting. How do I know which idea to focus on?

Sincerely,

Seeking Clarity

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Dear Seeking Clarity,

Oh, my friend, join the “thousand book ideas” club! I’m right there with you! Informational, instructional, memoir, essays, short stories, novels, poetry… I have ten thousand books I want to write, and only, alas, 24 hours in a day.

For years, I started and stopped, started and stopped, and never quite got done with any one project. It’s the Eternal Work In Progress problem! Once I learned how to get really clear with my focus, it changed everything.

Now I have four complete manuscripts, two published, two to be published, and several more in the process of being written (with every expectation of ACTUALLY FINISHING). And what made the difference was CLARITY.

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Start With Your Why

Why are you writing a book? How do you want your life to change as a result of writing this book? How do you want the world to change as a result of writing this book.

Get really clear about the outcome you’re hoping for. If you have a business, whether you’re a CEO, a consultant, a keynote speaker, or a coach, you may want the book to support your business. If this is the case, then ask yourself what will change in your business as a result of writing the book. Also, ask what will change in your industry and for your customers as a result of writing the book.

If you are more mission-, vision-, or legacy-driven, then ask yourself what will change in the world as a result of your book. Then ask what will change in your life.

Know Who You’re Writing For

When we start the Foundation Bookshop, most authors have several audiences in mind for their book - multiple “who”s. We encourage them to narrow it down. By focusing on one audience, you won’t exclude the other audiences, necessarily. But what you will do is get very specific for the audience you most want to reach, and thereby reach them more effectively.

When we’re working with an author whose book will form the foundation for a business, or will support an existing business, we ask them to tell us about their intended audiences. Then we ask them to tell us which of those audiences they most WANT to work with. Then we ask them to tell us about a SPECIFIC PERSON who represents this audience.

Then we tell them to write for THAT PERSON. This creates incredible clarity in regard to tone and voice, as well as helping to answer the final question: What to write.

Here’s What To Write

Once you know the who and the why, the “what” almost writes itself. What does your “who” need to know in order for you to achieve your “why”? Write it down. This is your “what”.

If you can, condense these three elements into one succinct sentence. This is hard, but it will give you incredible clarity. If you like, come do the Foundations Bookshop with me & Kory and we’ll get you there. This is your Foundation Statement.

This is the clarity you need to get started and actually make progress. 

Print out your Foundation Statement. Frame it. Pin it to your bulletin board. Post it where you will see it every day. I like to post mine next to my bed so I see it when I wake up every morning. Other people put it by their desk, or on their fridge, or all of the above!

Keeping it in front of you will help you maintain focus and stick with the project so you can actually complete it.

Try that, and let me know how it works for you.

Warmly,

Fen