Category Archives: Book coaching

Allowing Process to Evolve

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What’s the difference between work you enjoy and work you do just to pay the bills? A discussion developed with my good friend, Douglas, over a few conversations, about autonomy, the freedom to do what you do in the way that suits you best. That means environment, and also timing and pace, determining for yourself when it’s the right time to tackle a task. 

We talked about looking at a problem, writing down what you already know, and leaving it in the background until answers spontaneously emerge, or at least next steps reveal themselves. This approach was always highly effective for my university assignments, unconscious mind operating unseen, allowing an essay to all but write itself when the time came.

Eckhart Tolle questions the purpose of deadlines. Shouldn’t a book be ready when it’s ready? What’s the value of an arbitrary deadline if it means something comes out not fully formed?

After a long gap, I recently completed another novel. I started writing long form when I was nine or ten years old, took a break and came back to it in my mid twenties, and then again another decade later. I used to plan the stories in detail, but then I would sit down and write something different, so I gave up planning. 

My process now is to simply start, see what comes, and turn up to the page every day until it’s finished, usually somewhere close to 60,000 words. Then I leave it a week and read it through, lightly editing as I go. It’s at that point that I understand what I’ve written, and by then it’s its own creation, not controlled by me in any meaningful way. I can’t change it, it is what it is.

I like this. It allows me to evade any internal critic. I turn up and words come. Many hours of experience help manage the structure but the words are fresh because they come from somewhere other than logic, or history, or preconception. I enjoy the process, and writing has become the best part of my day.

So what is it for you? In your work, do you get to do things in the way that is most enjoyable for you? If not, are there things you could change, adjustments you could make, conversations you could have to bring that closer?

Every creative person has their own process, often quite distinct from one another. Could your life feel more creative, more like your own, if you paid attention to the details? Or do you already have it, a tailored approach that you can take joy in, day to day? 

Jennifer Manson is an executive coach and author who also works with inspired experts to get their message into book form. Email jennifer at theflowwriter.com. Books at theflowwriter.com/books/ or your favourite bookshop or website.

Loving the Blank Page

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I was talking to a friend about the fact that I’ve recently started writing again – writing a novel, something I haven’t done for a while. She asked, “Why now?” and I answered that having let go a job I was no longer enjoying, and following my passion to coach full time, the freedom of that gives me headspace to turn up to the page every day, feeling fresh and alive. “I love the blank page,” I said. There was a pause on the end of the line.

“That’s quite unusual,” my friend commented. “You should write about that.”

So why it is that I turn up to write feeling relaxed and optimistic? It’s that I have absolute faith that something will come – not necessarily what I had planned, but all the better for that. It was the same with my ghost-writing clients. The best content was when something came out of them that neither of us were expecting. Those were the original ideas. There was the expansion into something new.

This is also the way I like to live. It’s a bit easier now that I don’t have the 9-5, and although once a coaching session is scheduled I need to turn up, focused and alert and present, there are longer stretches of time when there isn’t anything specific I have to do. Increasingly I can look around me with no expectation and wait till something pulls me to do it, or my body moves into action before I know exactly what I’m going to do.

When starting out, I’d say, let go any intention about what you’re going to produce, or concern about how good it is, whether anyone will read it, or what they’ll think. Just write. The only intention is words forming, whether that’s pen on paper, a document on your laptop or notes on your phone. Turn up and write. Often. 

Once the words are down there’s plenty of time to discern what it is, and who will want to read it. And it’s totally fine if the only one you want to read it is you.

Jennifer Manson is an executive coach and author who also works with inspired experts to get their message into book form. Email jennifer at theflowwriter.com.

A Book in Bite-Sized Pieces

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It can be daunting, thinking about putting everything you know into a book. There are a couple of things it can be useful to know to get you started. 

One, your first book doesn’t have to contain everything you know. There’s value in writing out the basics, the things a beginner would start with, rather than trying to encapsulate everything you’ve learned over a long and successful career. Your audience may prefer an introduction, a starting point, some first principles and insights, over an exhaustive treatise.

And two, you don’t have to write it all at once. You can break down your content into sections and headings, outline with bullet points to remind yourself what you want to say, then take them one by one by one, write a piece at a time until you’re done with that all-important first draft. You need to know your audience, how you want them to benefit, and then speak to them directly in tone and content as you go through the headings.

The first non-fiction book I wrote was based on my experience staging houses for sale. I was speaking to home-owners who were planning to sell. The book was to help them arrange their property so potential buyers felt good, could absorb what they needed to know, and would want to make an offer. 

I started with a list of chapters, broke that down into a list of headings, and then started to write. To keep track, I put all the headings in italics, and when I had twenty minutes or half an hour free, I looked through those italic headings and chose one, focusing on the small subject, writing what I knew. Once done, I replaced the heading with non-italic bold type, then next time I’d look through the headings still in italics, choose one I felt like addressing, and write that. When it came to it, I didn’t even realise I’d finished – when I came back to write another section, I realised everything was done. Piece by bite-sized piece.

There’s an enormous sense of accomplishment, getting that first draft completed. From there, a good next step is to engage an editor, someone who can do a pass for structure, then a second pass for the line edit. You’ll want someone you like and trust, who understands what you’re trying to achieve and who will be honest with you as you work together to get to that result.

If your book is for business development, self-publishing is a good route to take. You’ll need a cover designer, someone to do layout and a tutorial or two on print-on-demand. If your subject has wider appeal and a publisher might be interested, then a step back into proposal writing will be in order, before you go full-throttle into writing.

And if you’d like support at any stage of the process, from outline preparation to full ghost-writing engagement, book production or just coaching along the way, please get in touch. 

Jennifer Manson is an executive coach and author who also works with inspired experts to get their message into book form. Email jennifer at theflowwriter.com.