Everything You Need to Know About Writing AMAZING Content

Marie Forleo:

Hey, it's Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, business and life advice that works. Today's question comes from Sisel. And Sisel writes, “Hi, Marie, I'm finding that it takes forever to write my newsletters. I know that I should be sharing content and connecting with my audience, but there's just so much else to do. Any advice you can share on how to write faster?” 

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Sisel, awesome question. Sisel, first let me say that everybody I know struggles with this very issue, especially when you're first starting out. When I started my business and I had to write a lot of content, sometimes it would take me two to three days to get out one good article. So I totally know how you feel. Even to this day, I'm still looking for ways to write faster.

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The truth is creating high-quality content does take some time, but the good news is I've got eight great strategies to help you create high-quality content even faster. Number one, flip your script. If you want to change anything in your life, you first have to take a look at your internal script. What are you saying to yourself? What's the story you're telling yourself about the thing you want to change? So for example, if you're telling yourself I'm a really slow writer and it takes me forever to write my newsletters, well, guess what? You will be a really slow writer and it will take you forever to write your newsletters. Your subconscious mind is a powerful little beotch. And let me tell you, you want her on your side.

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Devil Marie:

Too slow.

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Marie Forleo:

Baby, let's flip that script.

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Angel Marie:

Mama, you so fast.

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Marie Forleo:

Mmm-hmm.

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So before you do anything else, flip your internal script. Number two is begin with the end in mind. You want to think about your end result, what is the thing that you want your reader to walk away with? What action, if any, do you want them to take? Then you have to reverse engineer your content to get them there. For example, as I was creating the answer to this very question, I asked myself, what do I want you to walk away with after this video? And my answer, a highly actionable list of things that will help you write faster and a video that you'd want to share with your friends.

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Number three, keep a topic list. Now tell the truth, you waste a ton of time trying to figure out what you should write about in the first place. Here's the fix. Keep a running topic list of all your ideas. So for example, if you get inspired by magazine articles or interviews or anything you watched on TV, write it down, or something really good that really works for me is questions that people ask you all the time, great fodder for content. So you can use a notebook or you can use Google Docs, or you can use Evernote, which is amazing. Or you can even use your iPhone and get little miss Siri to help you out. Siri, remind me to write an article about Evernote.

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Siri:

Marie, you should be focused on making videos, not creating content.

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Marie Forleo:

Number four, make it short and sweet. Remember that high-quality content does not mean long a** content. Sometimes the best way to serve your audience is to make it short and sweet. Remember, nobody's not going to read your content because it's too short. So try just sharing one tip or one idea.

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Number five, plan it out. Create an editorial calendar for your content. So you want to spend about one to two hours planning out your content for the next three to six months. This takes the decision out of what you're going to write about each week, and it just plans everything out for you. So when it's time to write, you just go to your plan, you follow your plan and you're done. And as you're writing your content, you don't have to wonder, should I include this whole section here or should I save it for another post? You can just go to your editorial calendar and you'll say, "Oh, this idea is going to be great for July 5th."

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Number six, and this is a biggie, don't write and edit at the same time. Get everything out and don't edit as you go because it only slows you down. So for example, if you're writing and you think of a better way to say something, don't delete what you just wrote, just stop, write the sentence the new way and keep going. This frees you up from making it perfect the first time and allows you to just get everything out. Editing is usually a much faster process when you have a lot of content on the page.

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Number seven, remember Mr. P's law, that would be Mr. Parkinson. He says, “The amount of time one has to perform a task is the amount of time it will take to complete the task.” Another way to say it is work expands to the time allotted. So give yourself a time limit. Now, Mr. Tony Robbins kicked my ass on this topic and I wrote a whole article about it and you can check it out in the link below.

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Number eight, be the vessel and not the source. One of the most powerful things to remember is that you're the vessel and not the source. Maryanne Williamson said once that she is the faucet and God's the water. And Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, she has this great saying: she thinks that each of us have our own genius that comes to visit us and inspires our creations. Now I know this one may seem a little woo-woo, but it really works. It takes the pressure off, so you don't have to do everything by yourself. You're responsible to show up, be the vessel for the great work to come through you. So there you go, Sisel, eight great strategies to help you write faster. I hope it helps you. Please come back and let us know how it goes.

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I want to hear more about your actual process as you were creating these, this is a question that we get often because I have so many folks in our audience who whether they are running their own businesses right now, or they are working in a particular job and they have a dream of producing a book. What did it look like for you practically to produce some of this work while you were still simultaneously running your marketing business? Did you wake up early in the morning? Did you just fit it into nooks and crannies? I know it might seem like do people care? People care, they love hearing about this stuff. So I just wanted to make sure that I asked.

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Tina Wells:

Yes, so very practically, Mackenzie Blue became a client of my agency. I felt like we had to treat it that way, like our own internal project, but it had to get the same loving care as other marketing projects. What I honestly wasn't prepared for, and this doesn't happen anymore, but this just gives you a sense of where we were in 2007. The first time I get my pages delivered from my publishing company, in walks a package of 200 plus long old school copies with handwritten notes from my editor. Stick it, like Post-it Notes, where I had to go through every one, initial every one, answer everything.

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And so it's like, I had gotten ready for the process until that point. And then I was like, "Okay, this is a thing, this is a moment." I had had a process for everything before the pages came. And then how many times we go through those pages, but it really was. I had to treat her and this project, it was a project of the agency. I guess because of my business, I could make it make sense that way.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Tina Wells:

But it goes to carving out time and energy for the project the way we would any other project,

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Marie Forleo:

I feel like what you hit upon there, folks are going to... And I'm writing this down in my own head because it's such a question that we get all the time. It's like, how do I make time for that? Because we're so conditioned, most of us, it's so easy for us to deliver for other people. It's so easy for us to make that time for our clients or for other people in our lives when we have to. And then our "personal projects" tend to take the back burner. I think what's so genius about what you said, it's like, nope, it gets the same slotting in as any other client would. So it gets elevated to this position where there's deadlines, there's a project plan, there's all of the things to that we would do if we are delivering for a client or for somewhere else. I think that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that.

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I want to switch gears slightly because I want you to take me to the point, because I don't want to just skim past it, where you gave yourself that six months off. I cannot tell you how awesome that is. I have two different colleagues/friends that have recently taken sabbaticals and folks who are extremely prolific in what they do. I was so incredibly happy for them that they both gave themselves a significant break to go, you know what? I'm going to step away. So Tina, my question for you, was it scary to take that break? What was the thought process? Did you have all the things like, is it all going to fall apart? Am I going to lose momentum? Am I going to lose relevance? Or was your heart so craving a blank slate that you're like, "Whatever," even if the voices were there, you just knew you had to make that leap?

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Tina Wells:

Yeah. So it's funny. A few years before that I had gotten into this incredible program at the Aspen Institute, Henry Crown Fellowship, and they talked so much about personal inflection points. I remember naively thinking, well, I already had my business and things. So I think I'm good there. I don't know that I'm going to have that moment, but we're just going to ride this out. And, of course, after you spend two years digging into the deepest parts of who you are and how you can have the most impact, you will end up at an inflection point. And so for me it was, I really believe in the power of writing and reading and unlocking that for young readers. So my heart, I write for at risk readers, really young children who are at risk of not reading.

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And then the other part is representation. Less than 10% of middle grade fiction features girls on the cover who look like me. And so I wanted to increase that. And when I thought about it and thought about so many people coming up to me saying, when I saw you in 1996, when I saw you in 2000, a woman who looks like you who's in marketing. I didn't understand the statistics in my field that so few people looked like me. All of that compounded to me saying, I guess I'm at an inflection point and I just had this great event and I've just sold my books to Audible. I have the time and the resources to take a beat. Did I think it would turn into me closing the agency? No, I booked a trip with a friend to Yellowstone.

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I'm sitting in Yellowstone, literally looking at buffalo. I just had this moment of like, I can't go back to marketing. And it was so definitive and defining that, well, it's great I decided this while I'm on sabbaticals, now I can figure it out. But again, so many things for me are just, I get a gut instinct and it's like, this is a direction I have to go in. And that it was very clear that I have this calling to do this thing and to use everything I've learned as a marketer to propel the next phase of my career. But what I will say to anyone who's on the fence about this is if I hadn't given myself that stillness, if I hadn't provided that opportunity to be in a place, to hear, and to fully connect under what the next steps were, I don't think it ever would've come. I think I would've just kept going and going, but just stepping off that hamster wheel for a while and just sitting in that quiet of what's next allowed that to unfold, I think.

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Marie Forleo:

Did you have a time limit? Were you like, what I'm doing this for six months? Or did you say, you know what? I just need to step back for an indefinite period of time?

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Tina Wells:

I knew that I needed six months, but what I didn't know was going to happen was, first it was the agency. And then I had a job I just adored teaching at Wharton. I ran a program called Leadership in the Business World, and I decided to step away from that. And then certain boards. And at that point, my parents got a little concerned. They were like, "What's happening?" I'm like, "I decided it was time to just do a full cleaning." I'm like, "Well, if I want new things to come, I just have to open up space." At that point I did feel untethered because my identity was so tied to being this marketer.

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I knew I was going towards relevant media, but I didn't even open it or talk about it for a year. And so there's literally this time where I felt like I'm just a floating person who gets tied to a company or a job or a board. It's just, I'm here in consulting and doing things. And so it wouldn't be disingenuous to not say that there were moments where I really didn't know where I was going. I thought about a corporate job. I was like, "I'm just hanging out, but I knew it was right." If that makes sense. I just knew I was still going in the direction that was right.

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Marie Forleo:

I love everything that you're sharing because it takes such bravery, and it takes such courage to listen to our inner voices, which I think all of us have those instincts and all of us, our soul is speaking to us, and whether it's signs from the outside or these nudges from the inside. I just want to say how much I admire and appreciate you. Thank you for sharing this because I read the questions from our audience all the time. One of the biggest themes that's recurring is how do we navigate these transitions? Because people hear the calls from souls of, I want to begin creative writing, or I've done this for X amount of years and I think I'm ready for something new, but I don't know what that something new is. Just hearing your story, I think is going to be so incredibly motivating for so many people and inspiring because you don't need to know what that next step up is going to look like. In fact, it might not appear unless you give yourself the space for it to grow. Would you agree?

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Tina Wells:

I do. I think sometimes, again, full transparency. I don't love this, but I end up many times in my career being the one that's creating a path. I would say to so many of your viewers and listeners, maybe you have to create the path for other people to see how it's done. And that's scary. But then once it's done, you'll see your system replicated so many times and it gets easier, but it's okay to really be in that space of saying, I'm just trying this thing and I'm connecting these pieces and it seems to be working. Eventually you're going to realize you've made a process, and that process is going to make things easier for so many other people.

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Marie Forleo:

So back to writing for a moment, do you have any advice for writers? I mean, you've done six books in three years. Is that accurate?

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Tina Wells:

Yes. Now I have 12 that will come in the next three. Yeah, it's crazy.

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Marie Forleo:

I mean, any words of wisdom, Tin, in terms of writers who aspire to be prolific and consistent in their practice?

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Tina Wells:

So I think first and foremost, tools and prompts are really important. What I mean by that is you need to know what prompts you. For me, I am a writer who gets very inspired from traveling. So you can imagine I had to write, for three new series and four books during a pandemic for a person who could not do the thing that brings me the most inspiration. So that's where the discipline and the systems and processes come in. I would say, we all can improve as writers. I reached out to you during the pandemic and said, "I'm doing a different kind of writing and I need your course, can you help me?" Right?

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. I was like, "Come and do The Copy Cure, Tina."

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Tina Wells:

I was like, "No, this is different." So I think we also have to understand when we're doing different types of writing. I think how I wrote as a journalist on the school paper is different than how I wrote as a marketer. And it's different than how I write for middle grade. But what is a common theme is that they all have really important systems and processes that help you get better.

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Now for me, with my middle grade writing, I maybe have a different process from other writers. I make my characters first then I make the environment of where they are, what they do. And then I start to set narratives around books. But first and foremost it's, what's the overarching theme. So Honest June has now been dubbed Ella Enchanted meets Dork Diaries. When my intention was to find a clever way to talk about this anxiety, that tween girl's face, or that tween's in general face, which is my parents have an idea of who they want me to be. I have an idea of who I want to be, yet I want to make everyone in my life happy.

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And then we add the fun of, well, what happens if you're blessed with the ability to never lie? How do you do that as a tween girl? And so you make it fun, but that is my process. It's like starting with these bigger concepts. So I think whatever type of writing you're doing, you need a process and you need things that unlock that creativity for you.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. I will say, Tina’s been through The Copy Cure. We love The Copy Cure because we do our best to help writers make writing fun. I know one of the things that has stopped me in the past is just wanting to get it right and that editing happening at the same time as I'm trying to flow. It's like, that does not work. I've gotten myself in so much trouble. And so in The Copy Cure, we have lots of fun prompts to get people looser so that they can just start flowing.

Let's take it way back. You didn't go up in a household of writers.

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Cheryl Strayed:

No, I didn't.

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Marie Forleo:

How early did you know that you wanted to be a writer?

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Cheryl Strayed:

Very early. I mean, soon after I learned how to read. When I was about six I fell in love with books, but in particular I had one experience that I read this one book. It was a chapbook of little poems. There were watercolor pictures. It was the seventies, and so everyone was into these little sort of watercolor chapbooks. Each little poem described one aspect of the beauty of nature. I remember very distinctly, it was the first epiphany of my life, that I just was so struck, so pierced truly by the beauty that somebody could create simply by words on the page. I appreciated those pictures, but it was the words that transported me. It was one of those very early ideas. I certainly, at that point, didn't think this means I want to be a writer. But as I grew up and became a writer, I very much remember that as the moment that I became aware of these things that I can only describe as a calling.

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Marie Forleo:

Did you ever think to yourself, in your teenage years, oh, I could potentially do another career or was something in your heart, always writer?

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Cheryl Strayed:

What I thought is that I absolutely had to do another career. When I was growing up I didn't have any idea that I could actually make a living off of writing books. I don't know exactly how to explain that except to say that even though I loved literature, I felt that the people who made those books were people who were so distant from who I was. Many of those books that I was assigned in high school, just like, they were by dead white men, essentially. They were created somewhere in a land in a time far off. And so I never imagined that I would grow up and be able to make my living that way. It was always the thing I would do because I was called to do it because I was passionate about doing it. And then I would earn my living in some other way.

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I remember when I was in high school, I was always a feminist and I subscribed to Ms. Magazine. I remember at one point reading this story that was about Joyce Carol Oates and I was so struck by it, because I was like, "Wow, there's a woman, she's living among us and she's writing books." I'd never heard of Joyce Carol Oates, but I was fascinated by this profile of her. It was the first glimmer of an idea that maybe I could be a writer. And then when I went to college and started to take English class, and some of my professors were teachers and authors and really they opened that door for me of possibility.

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Marie Forleo:

Isn't that interesting, that I think for all of us and for so many women too, it's like, we need to see someone do it.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Absolutely. Modeling. I think that's why it was so powerful when Barack Obama was elected president. We suddenly all became aware of, not only the historic moment of that, but what that would mean to children of color all over the world to see him become the president. I think the same thing with Hillary Clinton, I think that those things are really powerful and big in small ways. I mean, I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I couldn't imagine what was possible until I could see that somebody else had done it.

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Marie Forleo:

Let's talk about the realities of making a living, writing. So many people in our audience are creatives, they're aspiring creatives, whether it is writing books or painting or starting their own business, take me back. How did you earn a living in the early days? What were you doing?

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Cheryl Strayed:

I did a bunch of different things. So really when I graduated from college, I was a double major in English and creative writing and women's studies. I knew that I wanted to dedicate myself to writing. I knew that this was going to be a years-long apprenticeship. It wasn't something... I never bought into this false notion that I'll just sit down and spend the next six months writing a book and then I'll be done. I knew that it was going to be a long slog. And so I decided to try to find work that would support me in my writing rather than contradict those goals. For me, that was becoming a waitress because it was a job that I could walk in, do the work and do honest work, but not take home with me.

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I knew that I feared that if I got a job that was in some ways fulfilling, like I'd also worked as a newspaper reporter for a brief time in college and I loved it and I was writing. So I was sort of filling that need, but I wasn't doing the real work that I wanted to do. So I avoided that work in my field, if you will, for the better part of a decade. And then I tired of waiting tables. It made me feel diminished and sad, but it was a great way to earn a living for a while. I would write when I wasn’t waiting tables and then I would go back to work.

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But then I thought I need to do some more meaningful work. I did a number of different things. I started teaching writing, because I had started to publish a little bit. I started also writing pieces for magazines because in some ways to begin to feel like I was a real writer to get published. One of the early decisions I made was to not focus on getting published, to rather focus on my craft, which I think was a very wise one. But there did come a time, that it was time to start reaching out.

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Marie Forleo:

I think that that's such an important distinction. So many people are in such a rush…

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yes.

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Marie Forleo:

…to monetize whatever the thing is that they are truly passionate about and that they feel is their art. I don't think I've ever heard anyone articulate. I deliberately held back and wanted to work on my craft. How did that feel for you? Was it exciting to be able to just say, I'm not going to pressure myself to get this out into the world?

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yes. Well, you know, so much of about creative work and certainly about writing, the way you survive is by running along at the speed of your own engine. It's not going to be because somebody from out here validated you, writing is very much generated from within. I think any kind of art making or any kind of creative work, you have to ultimately be doing it because you feel driven to do it, you feel passionate about doing it, you're engaged with something that feels important to you in your life. Certainly in the arts, what I can say is if what you're going to rely on is that exterior validation, you're not going to get it. You're not going to last long. And so that decision was about really learning how to keep faith with my vision or my dream or my work.

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And then once that became... Actually that inner strength is what I drew on to compel me every day forward through another day of trying to write something that meant something to someone else. Once I really developed that muscle within, then when I did go into the world and people said nice things about my work, it was thrilling. It was beautiful, but it wasn't the thing that made me keep writing. I think you're so right about this, I teach writing sometimes. I certainly talk to a lot of people on airplanes and so forth. How do I write a book? What's your advice? The advice is always kind of depressing to people because the absolute, only advice I really truly have for somebody who wants a life as a writer is write. Write. And keep writing and keep writing and see what happens.

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It's not about go to this party or go to this conference. Those things come up along the way. I do think at a certain point it's important to start to meet people, meet your tribe, meet people who are doing what you're doing, put yourself out there. I think the most important thing is to learn how to make a home with the work that you're doing, because then you have something to offer the world. A lot of people want to make that offering before they've created anything.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Let's talk about your rituals, because I'm always fascinated by people who create any kind of art, but especially writers. Do you, and had you, developed a practice of writing every day? I've also read you binge write.

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Cheryl Strayed:

I’m a binge writer.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Cheryl Strayed:

I'm not an everyday writer.

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Marie Forleo:

You're not an every... Okay. So this is also fascinating. There's a book that I love called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and several other books, and some people that I know and they're great writers, they do, they have this discipline, they write every day. So I'm curious. Tell me about your binge writing.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yeah. It's really interesting because for a long time I thought I'm a renegade. I'm a bad writer. I'm not a real writer because I'm not doing this thing that many times this is the advice that writers are given.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Cheryl Strayed:

If you don't write every day or most days, that means you're not a writer. If that's true, I'm not a writer then. What I can say to you is, what's, to me, really important is I use this phrase before keeping the faith, which to me is connected to discipline, to say what really is meaningful for me, the work that's meaningful for me is writing. And so I'm going to find a way to do it. For some people what works for them is every day. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Cheryl Strayed:

There are certain stretches of my life where that's what I did. There are many times for three months in a row I wrote every day, but there are also many times for three months in a row I didn't write a word. What I found is I make an appointment with myself and I don't look at each day, I look at the calendar ahead. It's been really helpful for me actually also to decide when not to write, because I can look sometimes at my calendar and say, "I'm going to be really busy for the next month, or I just gave birth to a child, or I have to work really hard at this other project because that's important to me too." And then I just put the writing aside and know that I'm not going to feel bad about it, I’m not going to get into some sort of shame loop about I haven't written.

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I tell myself, you're not going to write now. And then you're going to write then. And then what I do is I make good on that promise. That's the other piece of it. This isn't about using lazy excuses. It's not using this methodology in order not to write. It's actually the opposite of saying, this is when I work best or when I can work best. One of the most moving experiences I had, I give so many talks about my books, usually about Wild or Tiny Beautiful Things and the Dear Sugar column, so often people, the response they have to that is about the stories they tell me about their own losses or their own struggles or how the book helped them in one way or another.

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But I will say one of the most moving comments I got after one of my talks is just during the Q&A afterwards, somebody had asked me what my writing process was. I said about this binge writing. I said, "I don't write every day. Sometimes I write once a month" And this woman came up to me afterwards and she was crying. She said, "Thank you so much." She said, "I have always felt like I wasn't a writer. I'm a single mom. I have four kids and I can write once a month the day my mom takes my kids. And thank you. You're the first person who told me that I can still say that I'm a writer, even though I only write once a month." I just grabbed her and I was like, "You are absolutely a writer because if you write once a month, guess what happens by the end of that year, you've written 12 days and I know you can do a lot of beauty in 12 days because I've done it too."

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Marie Forleo:

It's a relief for me. I'm one of those people, my audience knows this, I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself, and that is the writing every day thing. Can start to hear, I can hear the voices in my own head, you're not really a writer, or I've even beat myself up over this one. I wrote a book years ago, but I haven't written one in a while, but I write and produce this show. I can sometimes hear the voices in my head going, oh, I'm not a real writer because I'm not writing books like everyone else is. So I will echo that woman's thank you for that.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yes. Oh, thank you.

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Marie Forleo:

I know there are thousands of people watching this right now who are also thanking you for that.

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Cheryl Strayed:

It's interesting to me, this idea, what happens when we're gentle with ourselves? That voice that you just talked about in your own head, that's about shame. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Cheryl Strayed:

That's about, do you work well from a position of shame?

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Marie Forleo:

Absolutely not.

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Cheryl Strayed:

I don't think anyone does. But I think sometimes we've associated gentleness or tenderness with kind of slack or kind of letting you off the hook.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Actually what I found is only when I'm gentle with myself, can I actually really let go and do the work. You know, to say, okay, it's been hard to sit down with the computer. I'm going to forgive myself and move forward now. It's not about shame, it's about forgiveness, it's about gentleness. I think that's really important when you think about a creative endeavor.

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That goes back to this idea I said about, if you are the engine of your own dreams, if you are the only one who's really going to propel you forward down the path in those ways.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Because you are. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Nobody's going to come to you and say, "Please make a show, please write a book, please make a song or do a dance for us, or paint a painting for us." Especially at the beginning, nobody for years did that for either of us. Right?

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Marie Forleo:

Right.

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Cheryl Strayed:

And so you have to find that way to do it yourself. And so maybe in some ways, what I subconsciously did is how do I give myself the gift of that? One thing I realized early on is I have to let shame out of my life. I cannot make shame part of my writing life.

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Marie Forleo:

So powerful. So you've said, which is a perfect way to follow up with this conversation, writing is hard for every last one of us, straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.

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Cheryl Strayed:

That's right. So much of writing, I mean, the reason that metaphor came to me is that I think of writing… the word I use all the time is excavation. It feels like a literal excavating to me. We begin with the empty computer screen or the empty page and we are creating something out of absolutely nothing. Even if you're writing nonfiction, even if you writing about your life or something that happened or something you know or think, you're creating something out of nothing. Almost always that process entails then going beneath what you thought you were going to write, and then beneath it again. And then you show it to somebody to read and they say, "Well, what's this about?" And then you have to dig.

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When I teach writing, I put on this butcher paper in front of the room, what I call my literary lasagna. It's like, up here is the top layer, the lovely cheese. So you're looking at a lasagna sideways and you have to get all the way down to that bottom layer to really do your work.

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Marie Forleo:

So speaking of your teaching, I noticed there are two questions that you posed to all of your writing students. I think that these questions are incredibly important for all creatives. Would you like me to read them or?

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yes, you read them.

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Marie Forleo:

Okay, great. So what's the question at the core of your work and what question are you trying to answer for others?

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yeah, that's right. Because I think especially this is true in fiction too, but it's literally true when you're writing about your own life or your own experiences, is that I think we almost always begin out of that place, that thing that we're seeking for ourselves. When people talk about memoir in negative terms, it's almost always that they say it's the form of narcissist. Who would be interested in you, who would be interested in my childhood? The answer to that is kind of nobody. The artist's job is to make it interesting. The ways that we make that interesting is that you can read about my childhood and see your own in it, even if it's totally different. Even if you came from a different place or lived in a different time or inhabit a very different reality.

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I think that that's what I'm always striving for as a writer and a teacher when I say what is that personal question at the core of your work and how does that translate to the culture? Just an example I can give you, in Wild, for years, it's my memoir that's about my hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, but it's also very deeply about my grief. I went to hike that trail because I honestly didn't know how to live without my mother. I really felt I couldn't live without my mother. I think that all those years later when I wrote the book, I was still there. I was still wondering, how do I live without my mother? How do I live without my mother? Asking that over and over again.

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What I realized in the course of writing Wild and actually what compelled me to write Wild is by examining that question in my own life in a memoir. What I was really examining is how is it that we live with our losses? How do we bear the unbearable? How do we endure our suffering? Because one thing I know about that is we do, and also we all do. And so right there, that translation goes from me and my laws about my mom, which is a very particular and individual thing and I'm going to tell you a story about it, but what I hope to tell really in that telling of that story is that larger universal struggle that we all have about how we figure out how to bear our losses.

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Marie Forleo:

I'd also want to thank you for this because I still have my mom, I'm going to totally cry.

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Cheryl Strayed:

You're making me cry, looking at you.

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Marie Forleo:

Sorry. I just love her so much. Your work has given me an even deeper appreciation for the time I have with her. So thank you for that.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yeah. That's one of my favorite things, people telling me, people who have living parents say, "I finished your book and I called my mom and I said thank you." Let me tell you, there's also an entire tribe out there of people who don't have their moms. They either don't have them because they died or they don't have them because they lost them to drug addiction or mental illness or incarceration. Those people come to me and feel recognized in the work too. That has meant more to me than all of the glorious glamorous things that have happened in response to that book.

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Marie Forleo:

I think that's the beauty of art and that's the beauty of words. That's the beauty of vulnerability and sharing what is in your heart with others. So thank you for that.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Thank you. The power too.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Cheryl Strayed:

I mean, beauty and power. When we say that art has power, that's what we mean. We mean your tears right now.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah. I want to talk about something that you mentioned at your SuperSoul Session, which is the paralyzing pressure that we can often put on ourselves to do something great…

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Cheryl Strayed:

Right.

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Marie Forleo:

…especially when it comes to writing or art or our businesses and how, there was that time when you were in Massachusetts, where it was almost, you couldn't do it. You had set across…

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yeah. I was paralyzed by my own dream.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. Can you talk to that?

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Cheryl Strayed:

Yeah. I mean, so much of the interesting stuff in life, I think there's so much contradiction inherent. On one hand, I want to say dream big, aim high. I'm an incredibly ambitious person and I always have been. I was the person I sat in that talk like, I was the kid at five who was like, "No, I'm going to be the first woman president." I'm going to just always go for... I'm going to reach really hard and really high, which I think is wonderful. I mean, it is in part what brought me here, it's how I got here with you today. That ambition.

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It also was the thing that I had to turn away from for a time in my life, and what I've learned, periodically turn away from it. I'm in a different moment in my life that I'll explain it a moment, that I also have to turn away from this ambitious side. That is to say, when I was sitting there in my little cottage in Massachusetts, trying to write my first book, I suddenly felt like I can't do this. What that was about is realizing I can't sit here and make greatness. What I can sit here and do is write one page and then another page and then another page. I don't really know what those pages are going to be in the world beyond me. Maybe there'll be nothing.

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For me to have to surrender this vision of me being the great American novelist was painful, but it's the thing that allowed me to actually write my book. I realized I had to a certain set aside those big dreams and those ambitions and all of those things I'd internalized and be humble. And to just say, I'm going to do my best. I don't know if one will like it, and it's absolutely none of my business if they do. I mean, it's just like, I'll do my best. I'm just going to say, here's my best, world, take it or not. That's what we always are doing. I mean, we like to think otherwise. That's about thinking that we can always control the outcome of everything, but we don't really know.

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When I was writing Wild, I had no idea that it was going to become a bestseller. I wouldn't have written it any differently. I wrote the same book I would've written if it were still in my drawer right now at home. Okay. And so I think that's a really important thing to remember. When I said earlier about how I'm in this moment now in my life, here I am for the first time writing a book that people are like, waiting for. When I wrote Wild I had published a novel, I had a nice little fan base, but it wasn't like there was some great clamor like, when's your next book?

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Cheryl Strayed:

Now I do have that feeling of people being present in my mind as I write. I've had to just let it go. I've had to say, "I don't know if this next book is going to be as good as Wild. I don't know if people are going to love it." But the only thing I can do is write page after page after page. There's one of my favorite quotes by Margaret Atwood, who's writing I love. She says, “A word after a word after a word after a word is power.” I always try to remember that, that my work, my job in trying to create power, is just putting one word after another word after another word.

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Marie Forleo:

If you want even more strategies to creating high converting content, then you need to get your butts in The Copy Cure. It’s my flagship writing program. The doors just opened, but only for a limited time. So, to get started, go to GetTheCopyCure.com. Now, let’s get back into it. 

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Now, if you're looking for some small tweaks that you can make to help you connect more powerfully with your customers, this is the episode for you. Today's question comes from Dr. Cheryl, a clinical psychologist and couple's therapist, who's also a member of B-School and The Copy Cure. Now I was cruising through the member comments when I found Dr. Cheryl's question and I thought it was the perfect opportunity for some copywriting before and after. Dr. Cheryl wrote, “Hi, everyone. I created my site 15 months ago without the benefit of this program. I love the design of my site. I wanted it uncluttered, welcoming and not overwhelming, but I know I need some changes, any constructive thoughts?”

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Now you guys know me. Of course, I had some thoughts, which I'm going to share with you in a moment, but here's what's really great for you. These ideas are applicable to virtually anyone who uses words for their job or their business. They're all based on a subtle but important shift that instantly helps you connect better with your audience and likely increase business. It's called the spotlight method, and it's based on one simple idea.

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In business, the spotlight can either be on you or your customers. Meaning if the spotlight's on you, the focus of your words is likely on your passion, your cleverness and your goals. However, when you shift that spotlight over to your customer, the focus of your words is on the people you serve, their problems, their aspirations and their goals.

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Now, unfortunately, most of us get this wrong, especially when it comes to our writing. Generally speaking, we all shine way too much of that spotlight on ourselves and not enough spotlight on our customers, but in business we know our customers want to feel seen and heard and acknowledged. So an easy way to do that is to make sure you're putting them in the spotlight. That's what I'm going to show you how to do.

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So we're going to walk through a few specific changes we can make on Dr. Cheryl's site so you can see what I mean. So as you can see, Dr. Cheryl was right. She has a beautiful, clean, modern, uncluttered website, which is great. She has a big, bold header when you first land on her site. This headline reads, Dr. Cheryl is the go-to modern day guru of mindful loving. Now, from a spotlight perspective, here's the problem. This headline is about Dr. Cheryl, but it doesn't really contain a benefit or a hook for her visitor who's likely on the site because they need some serious relationship help.

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I mean, maybe they're on the brink of divorce, maybe they're feeling shameful or broken or embarrassed or at the end of their rope. The point is, if they're coming to this website, they're probably saying I need help with my relationship. They're probably not saying I need a mindful loving guru. I told Dr. Cheryl this, I don't even know what a mindful loving guru is. Of course, I can guess, but the fact that we as a visitor have to decode that makes us work just a little bit too hard. And that tells us the copy is about Dr. Cheryl, not about her customer.

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So you might be asking what's the fix? Well, using the spotlight method, we can write some new headlines that are more customer-focused. Now these aren't perfect, but they get us moving in the right direction. First up, need relationship help, let me help you get your love back on track. Or we can try this one, get the passionate playful relationship you want, I'll show you how. Or how about this one, relationship and trouble, let's get your love life back on track. Instantly we see how these headlines are more customer-focused than Dr. Cheryl focused. I mean, if we have relationship trouble and we land on this page, we're much more likely to feel like Dr. Cheryl understands us. She empathizes with where we're at right now and she wants to help.

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Okay. So let's move on. Another place we can make some customer-focused spotlight method improvements is the navigation. So let's look at our current navigation. We see About Mindful Loving, About Cheryl, What I Have To Share, Blog, News/Events, and Connect. So while About Mindful Loving and About Cheryl aren't so bad, this What I Have To Share is really about her. So what would happen if we rethought this navigation from our customer's point of view, if we really shifted that spotlight? So think about it. What is your customer looking for? How can we help her find what exactly she wants to find using words that are simple and clear and customer-focused?

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I took a stab at a simpler navigation inspired by the spotlight method, and here's what I came up with. Simpler, right? So first up, I'm starting with About, since that's something we all understand and look for. And under About if we want, we can put a dropdown that talks About Dr. Cheryl, then maybe About The Methodology. And if she has them, perhaps Testimonials from couples she's helped. Next, I put the word Services, which is also customer-focused. It's something people who want to hire a therapist are probably looking for.

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Again, we can easily add a dropdown for In-Person Therapy or Virtual Therapy if she offers multiple services. Next up, you'll see I put Couples Workshops. Once again, customer-focused language. Then I thought about a word like Resources, which is simple and clear-copy that speaks to what her customer might be looking for. Now there, we also might want to consider a dropdown and simple subcategories like Blog, or that's where she can put Upcoming Events, Books, DVDs, and Audio programs if she has them.

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And then finally we're ending with Contact, which is much more clear and customer-focused than connect. I want you to remember this, when it comes to effective copywriting, especially for your navigation, clear and customer-focused beats clever or cute every day of the week. So, those are just a few simple shifts inspired by the spotlight method that can help put more of the focus on Cheryl's customer instead of her. Hopefully you can see how this one subtle shift in your focus can help you write better, more customer-centric copy, thereby allowing you to create a stronger connection with your audience.

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You know, the MarieTV audience has been growing. It's not just the ladies that love us. I love my ladies, but there's also some fellas out there I know you won't admit it, but you love us too. And more exciting than that, there's a lot of moms who are starting to watch MarieTV with their kids. So I've been hearing about that a lot. And then I got this email. “Hi, I'm Olivia, I'm 12 years old and I live in New Zealand…”

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Olivia Lee:

And I'm just beginning to create my own digital publishing company as an author and illustrator. I've just signed up for your B-School free videos. I don't need to have a Facebook page, so I can't post that way yet. I may start one when I know what to do with it. I think your videos are very inspiring. I've started to learn marketing now. Your videos are very helpful in this area. Also, how to get the right audience to notice and buy my products. I would love my books to touch people's hearts and really inspire them, like these videos inspired me a few seconds ago. Thank you, Olivia. Smiley face.

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Marie Forleo:

When that email came in, it absolutely filled my heart and I knew I needed to know more about who this amazing young viewer was. Turns out she made a video for us. Take a look.

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Olivia Lee:

Hi, I'm Olivia Lee. It is blowing a gale outside, but you know what rainy days are good for? Drawing. My other favorite thing about a windy and rainy day is that it's perfect for writing. Welcome to my room. This is my office. That's my bed. And if you ask me, every single office should have a bed. All right. That was so hard. After hard days typing, the best thing is grabbing a good book and flopping back on your office bed and reading it. Now, if you will excuse me. I have stuff to catch up on.

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Marie Forleo:

So Miss Olivia has quite a few things to say about creativity, about writing and about following your dreams. So we're going to talk with her right now via Skype.

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All right, everyone. So I am here with the amazing Olivia and I am so grateful. It's afternoon here in New York City. Olivia, I know it's the morning for you, right?

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Olivia Lee:

Yeah, it is actually, about 8:30.

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Marie Forleo:

8:30. Awesome. So tell us a little bit more about your inspiration to create books and to write stories and to just start your own business.

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Olivia Lee:

Well, ever since I was little, ever since I could hold a pen, I've been drawing out my own stories. I get a piece of paper and a pen and I'd have an idea for a story. Instead of writing it with words, I draw the pictures for it, each scene. Sometimes I'd have entire chapters with just drawings and then with little speech bubbles. A little later I was encouraged to maybe write down the words and then put the pictures with it. So it grew from that in a way.

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And then once I figured out how to get past the where is the letters on the keyboard stage, it got a lot easier to type and I was able to do stories a little bit more properly and add the pictures with them. And it grew from there. So that's pretty much how it happened.

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Marie Forleo:

That's awesome. And so did you start drawing just on pencil and paper or were you drawing on the computer?

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Olivia Lee:

Well, I do like to draw on computer programs, but when I started, I always had a pencil on paper and I found it really difficult to draw with a pen, but now I really like drawing with pens. It's just stuff like that. But I did a lot of pencil drawings and I would just draw and draw and draw. Eventually I had huge piles of just paper with lots of drawings on them. So you can still find boxes in our house with just these big boxes, full of paper with drawings on them from however old I was.

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Marie Forleo:

That's awesome. I actually started, that was one of the first things that I learned how to do when I was little and it was one of my favorite activities. And for a while I thought I was going to be a fine artist. So I loved drawing just as much it sounds like as you do. So curious, do any of your friends have their own business? What do they think about you starting your own publishing company?

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Olivia Lee:

Well, none of my friends my age currently have their own businesses, but they are really supportive when I tell them about it. I'll tell them that I did something new on my website or that I've done up a new set of tweets or something like that. They are so supportive. They'll go, "Oh, wow. I can't wait to see it." Or something like that. They're really encouraging, really supportive. They're great friends.

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Marie Forleo:

That's awesome.

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Olivia Lee:

I do have some adult friends though, who do run their own businesses. The ones I've told are also really supportive. So everyone rocks, supportive.

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Marie Forleo:

I love it. And so have you met your adult friends through your parents or through friends of your parents? Is that how you got in touch?

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Olivia Lee:

Well, pretty much. I mean, we're around the same area and so we know them from around here and we meet them. We catch up quite a lot. So we spend a lot of time around each other, so we do get to talk about that sort of stuff actually quite a lot.

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Marie Forleo:

That's so great. I love hearing that. So next thing I want to ask you, because I think it's true for any entrepreneur when you run into challenges, whether it's creative challenges and you're working on a story, or it comes more to the technical side of your business, how do you handle those challenges? Who do you go to ask for, for help?

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Olivia Lee:

Well, there's definitely mom and dad. They are really helpful with lots of stuff. My dad might help me with the techs and things, because that's always fun, but there's auntie Google and cousin YouTube.

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Marie Forleo:

My favorites. My favorites.

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Olivia Lee:

They're really helpful. With Google because I might be needing to do some research on a time period and a book I'm working on. I'll go to Google and I had a really weird thing I needed to look up, and actually it's surprisingly helpful. With YouTube, I might have a book that needs a certain style of drawing.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Olivia Lee:

It's really hard to do that particular style or maybe I just don't know it, or I've never even heard of it or something like that. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Olivia Lee:

So I'll look it up on YouTube or I'll get help to find it. I'll just watch an artist who knows how to do it and practice, and it's really, really helpful.

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Marie Forleo:

Isn't it just amazing the time that we live in that you can just go online and whether you want information, education or inspiration, it's just all at your fingertips. The thing I love about you, Olivia, is that you get this on such a level. It's like, this is just how you think. I can't tell you how excited I am for you because at 12 years old, and you're almost 13, what you're going to be able to create in your life is just so miraculous. You're such an inspiration to me, the fact that you're getting started this young, I just think it's fantastic. So thanks for sharing with us a little bit of how you overcome your challenges with, what do you call them? Is it uncle Google and auntie YouTube or did I get that switched up?

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Olivia Lee:

It's auntie Google and cousin YouTube.

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Marie Forleo:

Oh, love it. Love it, love it, love it. So next thing I want to ask you as we're wrapping this up, one of the reasons I wanted to interview you was because I so admire your ambition and the fact that you had dreams and you had dreams around creating stories and creating books and just take action. As I always say, everything is figureoutable. So I know so many people in our audience of all ages have a dream of having their own book and putting their ideas out into the world. So what would you say to someone who's just starting out? Any tips for them?

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Olivia Lee:

Well, I do have a few tips that I would definitely give to a person like that. I've got seven, no, five, actually five tips.

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Marie Forleo:

Love it. Love it.

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Olivia Lee:

My first one is that you should just start and write regularly, because if you have a schedule and you just continue to chunk through it.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Olivia Lee:

Then you'll get through it. You'll finish it. If you don't then you won't.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. Let me ask you, before you go onto your next tip, do you have a regular writing schedule for yourself?

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Olivia Lee:

Well, I do try. I had a little period where I was writing and writing and writing, it was going really well. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Olivia Lee:

Then I finished the first draft of the book and I took a break and I found that now I've got a great drawing spirit, so I'm going for that.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Olivia Lee:

So sometimes I'm taking trends with it. I'm writing, drawing, writing, drawing. So that's how it works personally for me.

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Marie Forleo:

I love that. I actually find that to be very true as well. Like, when you get those creative bursts, as long as you're consistent with whatever it is that you want to create, it works well. So let's go on to your second tip.

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Olivia Lee:

Well, my second one is, it's really easy to publish your own book online in today's world. I mean, because on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and all of the other ones have free guides that you can just follow the instructions off, and you'll find it really easy to just get it up there. It's really great.

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My third one is that make sure your cover, it looks really cool. Make sure it looks really good. And that your title is importantly really easy to read when it's the size of the thumbnail online. It's really small.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. So this is big. Olivia, I think that this is such a huge tip and I'm so glad that you brought it up. So the idea of not only having your cover be really good, but having your title be really good. And most importantly, that when it's that tiny as a thumbnail, that it's still attractive and it still connects.

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I was reading this article about a woman in, I believe it was Forbes. She started selling vintage clothing online using eBay. One of the things that she discovered, by the way, she started off doing this just in her house and now her company I think is doing about 129 million a year in revenue. All from one of her biggest things was making sure that the pictures look really good when they're tiny. She said, "That's one of the tips that most people don't get." So I just love how wicked smart you are that you got that already. So that's huge. Thanks for that.

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Olivia Lee:

Thank you very much. My fourth one is that publishing is really easy, but you still need a really good book. Because if you skip on the quality, what happens is someone picks up that book and goes, "Oh, interesting.” Reads it. And they go, "Uh." They don't really like it if it's really bad. Well, then any other books that your name is associated with that you've written, they'll probably assume that they're really bad as well. So you shouldn't really skimp on the quality of the book, give it your best and the cover and everything. Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

I'll tell you, you're talking about something that we talk about in our B-School program. It's this strategy I talk about. I call it the Happy Meal mistake, where people will put out crap stuff on their website and then expect people to want to pay them really good money for some of their other training or their programs. It's like, if someone took you on a date to McDonald's and got you a happy meal, would you ever really expect them to go flying you off to Paris or some romantic weekend? Probably not. So it's like, you're talking about in the book world not wanting to make the Happy Meal mistake. Do you like this tip?

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Olivia Lee:

I really like it.

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Marie Forleo:

So what you're saying is with your book, it's like, you don't want to put out a Happy Meal book. That's kind of low quality. And no one's going to want to go back for gourmet dinner.

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Olivia Lee:

Oh, that's really funny. My fifth tip is that you should celebrate every milestone. When you finish your first draft, because that's a really big accomplishment. I mean, you've gotten to the end of something relatively. So you should celebrate. Whatever tickles your fancy, just celebrate in a way. When you finish your edit, you should celebrate that. When you finally publish it, you should also celebrate. My family, when we finish the first edit of a book, we'll often go to a beach and we have this little... We recently made tradition that we have where we go to a beach, we just get something yummy to eat and then we do a dance. For some reason, we do a dance. I don't know why. It's fun.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. Because it's fun. Yes. That's right. Because it makes you feel alive. That's like, what better way to hang out and celebrate with your family than dance around and be goofy and enjoy each other's company. I think that's awesome.

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Olivia Lee:

Yeah. It's a lot of fun.

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Marie Forleo:

That's really cool. Olivia, I just think you are fantastic. I want to, first of all, thank you for writing us that email months ago, letting us know what a difference our videos make. I just adore you. I think you're fantastic. Your parents are great. So please send them my best.

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“Greetings from Dubai. If there was one tip you could give me to improve my writing besides practicing, what would you suggest? Smooches. Dr. Nasrin.” I love that she wrote smooches. Thank you so much. Smooches right back to you. So I never can give just one tip because I'm the kind of girl that likes to give a lot of tips. I just like to talk a lot if you haven't figured that out yet, but I've got two tips for you today. The first one is one that has improved my writing dramatically. And I love when I do this. Josh gets very happy when I do this. It's all about reading fiction.

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Most of us, especially for in any kind of academic setting or we're very driven and we're always wanted to do self-improvement stuff, we kind of forget about the whole world of fiction. When you read fiction, it proves your writing dramatically. Why? Because fiction is all about storytelling. And the best writing of every type tells stories. It's how we humans learn best. We love to get hooked into a really good story and we just love it. You probably can't hear that, but I got a little distracted because Pancho the dog... Pancho, do you want to come over here? Hi, you want to say hi to everybody? Pancho. Hi, Pancho. Hi, cutie. So you can see why I got distracted, because he is really sweet and he likes it. Right? Yeah.

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Okay. So back to fiction. So last summer it was really funny. Josh was telling me about, he's like, "You read so much as far as business development and self development." He's like, "You just need to get a good fiction novel." I said, "You know what? You're right." So I pulled out my Kindle and I was just looking around, there's samples on Kindle. I really wasn't paying attention to what I hit the sample of. It was called Knight of Pleasure. K-N-I-G-H-T. I didn't realize it, but I got myself hooked into some kind of trashy erotica.

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It was awesome. It was so freaking good. I tell you, I was like, "Whoo, should I be reading this?" It was just amazing. And then that same summer, I got myself hooked into the whole Twilight series. I don't care if you think it's cheesy. I absolutely loved it. I watched the movies and then I read and then watched the movies and then I read, but I'll tell you it absolutely improved my writing ability. It's just, new words were coming into my vocabulary and I just started making pictures in my mind. I found that, that absolutely translated to everything that I write.

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Now the second tip, and this is one that requires a little bit of courage. What I would suggest, if you're really committed to improving your writing, is to gather some of your friends together, friends that are smart and ideally are writers as well and have a little bit of a writing feedback party. Now, the way I would do this is I would send out my friends pieces of my writing beforehand. So send them some articles, maybe half a chapter of a book, depends on what you're working on and have them really give you their honest feedback. Tell them to be compassionate. You got to be gentle, but you do want the truth. Find out where they're getting lost, find out if they just feel like your sentences are just a little bit awkward. Maybe you're not being very clear in how you describe things.

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And if you don't have friends that you can do this with, I would highly recommend you hire someone to give you feedback. I've gotten feedback on my copy. Best thing in the world. People point out, you know what? I got lost here. This headline isn't working. It's fantastic. So those are two really good tips to improve your writing that you have nothing to do with practice. Wasn't that good? I thought it was good. Smooches back to you.

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“Hi Marie, I'm working on writing a book which will fill a serious void in the market. However, I find myself spending my days doing more immediate things, social networking, answering emails, taking on new clients, et cetera. The half finished book keeps getting pushed to the back burner, even though I know it's a thing that's going to have the biggest impact on my career and be the most helpful for my audience. Any suggestions for putting the other stuff aside and getting the book done without losing momentum with my audience in the process?” Great question, Crystal. Very, very important one. I know millions of people are in your situation right now. In fact, I was talking to a young lady this morning, someone here.

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Michelle:

Hello.

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Marie Forleo:

Hello, who completely relates to this question. Here's what I mean. Most people have a book either in their head or it's half finished or it's done and it's sitting in a draw collecting dust. So we're going to handle this once and for all right now. Here are three easy strategies to help you get that sucker done without losing any momentum in your business. Strategy number one, schedule it, girl. You may have heard me say this before and I will say it again. If it's not scheduled, it's not real. You need to schedule clear writing chunks in your calendar and treat it like a meeting where you don't answer emails or take any phone calls. You also need to be super hardcore about eliminating any distractions that could interrupt your writing time. So quit out of any applications that ding or beep, like Skype and TweetDeck and Facebook and beep beep beep beep beep beep. Like that.

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Now if I were you, I would work on writing first thing in the morning. This way the rest of your work day is free to be with your clients and also continue building your audience. Strategy number two is to use a site called 750words.com. This site is awesome because it's a free online tool that helps you continue writing without stopping each and every day. You can even set it up to send you email reminders, which is awesome to guilt you into finishing your book.

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Number three is my favorite strategy of all. You need to pony up and pay somebody. Here's what I mean. If you find it hard to discipline yourself, you may need to actually outsource your discipline. Here's what I did: when I was in the middle of writing, Make Every Man Want You, I was also teaching about five hip hop classes a week. I was choreographing fitness DVDs, and I was also keeping my coaching practice going. So I had a lot going on. So I completely relate to what you're going through.

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I knew that the only way I was going to actually get the book done was to hire a book coach. I needed someone whose only job was to ride my ass every single week to get her chapters, to review things that I was working on, and to make sure that the thing actually got done. Trust me, if you're serious about getting your book done, it's the most powerful and fastest way to ensure it actually happens. Before we wrap this up, I want to share a great quote with you from Mr. David Campbell, who is the founder of Saks Fifth Avenue. By the way, it's a tweetable. “Discipline is remembering what you want.” Ooh, doesn't that one get you in the gut? It got me in the gut. Did it get you in the gut?

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Michelle:

Yes.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. If you find yourself distracted or checking email or doing client work when you should be writing, ask yourself is what I'm doing right now getting me any closer to getting what I really want? If not, you better stop and get back on track.

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“Hi, Marie and team. Each week I turn on MarieTV and I must say every episode is an eye-opener. Thanks for all the inspiration.” You're welcome. “Here's my Q. I've recently discovered how much I love writing. It's a way to share my knowledge with other people, but as a designer, I've never had any education in writing. So often when I'm writing an article, I'll start thinking, who am I to share this knowledge? Who am I to pretend I know it all? And who am I to write this article? These thoughts can make me feel tired, take away my enthusiasm and turn it into fear. Is there anything I can do to make these thoughts go away? Do you have tips that I can practice the next time I write an article? Thank you so much. Lots of love from the Netherlands, Alene.”

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Great question. Whether you're a beginner or you're a more seasoned pro, I think all of us can have that thought. You know what? Who am I to write this? That's called resistance, and it's probably why Ernest Hemingway drank so much. You know what? He probably needed this MarieTV.

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Ernest Hemingway:

Maybe you need this MarieTV.

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Marie Forleo:

I see three things in your question, and yes, I have a tip for each. First, let's cover the insecurity that you have because you're not a trained writer. We got to know something, neither am I. I am a writer because I write. I've never actually had any formal training, I've just been doing it for years. When I first started, I got to tell you I was pretty darn bad, but there was one thought that really helped me out that I want to share with you right now. Writing is just talking in text form. Most of us don't ever get talkers block, when we got something to say, we just say it. So that's tip number one. I want you to think about writing as just talking in text form and write how you talk.

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Second thing I want to address is this destructive association that you have between writing an article and that meaning you are a know-it-all. That's the worst idea ever if you want to create anything and share it with the world. Look, the people that we trust the most are people that are just honest about their learnings and their experiences. They give us research and statistics when it matters. And of course, they cite their resources. So when you share something in the form of, hey, look, here's something great I learned and I think you'd love to know it too, just say that. It's awesome. Don't ever pretend to know-it-all because you don't. None of us do. Instead, use tip number two, which is the LSC method. It stands for learn, share, and credit.

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So when you learn something, if you want to share about it, that's awesome. If it was based on your own experience, that's all you got to do. But if you learn something from somewhere else, maybe another author, a website, a research study, just cite your sources. It's all you got to do. So this way you're not like, "Hey, look, I invented this, these are all my ideas." You are like, "Hey, look, I found something cool for you and I really think you'd appreciate it, and here's why."

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Finally, let us address the real heart of this. You said that you love writing. When you love doing something and it brings you energy and you want to do it more, you should do it more. That means it's one of your gifts. It's one of your strengths. You never know. It may be one of the reasons that you're here on earth.

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Ernest Hemingway:

No, I think you’re here on earth.

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Marie Forleo:

Think about it this way, if you don't share all of these ideas in your writing, you're actually keeping your gifts from all of us. Another way that I like to say it is you are stealing from those who really need you most. So remember this last tip and yes, it's a tweetable.

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“When you are afraid to write, do not think who am I to say this, but who am I not to say this?”

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Question for you. Are you afraid that your big idea has already been just done to death. Like the thing that you want to talk about or speak about or write about has already been covered by everyone else? Then do yourself a favor, you’ve got to watch this episode: What To Do When You're Feeling Unoriginal. Click it and watch it now. 

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No matter how many times an idea has been expressed or it’s been shared in the world, sometimes it just takes that one person expressing it in their voice for it to actually get through. 

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