Keep Coming Back! Thoughts on Persistence
Hey there writer, you’ve reached the end of The Resilient Writers Radio Show Season 2!
Today I have a special closing episode for you, where I’ll discuss what you can expect to hear in the next Season, and I’ll also tell you a bit more about our upcoming Book Finishers Bootcamp!
Keep Coming Back! Thoughts on Persistence
Listen to learn:
- What’s coming in The Resilient Writers Radio Show Season 3
- All about the next Book Finishers Bootcamp
- How to tell me if there’s something specific you’d like to hear in Season 3
- Why persistence is key for us as resilient writers
Thank you for sticking with us to the end of two whole Seasons!
Here’s a sneak peek of today’s episode…
[2:14] To me, that's what it means to be a resilient writer, that despite all the ups and the downs and the emotional rollercoaster of this writing life, we're still doing it.
[5:21] And I think sometimes when we are watching other writers, be it on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, it seems like their book was easy and we don't understand why it doesn't work that way for us.
[6:27] To some extent, this is very much a journey where you just have to keep showing up.
[8:02] As literary writers, we are for the most part unaware of the exciting things that are happening in indie publishing and in book marketing as well.
[9:37] It's a chance for writers to connect with one another, and I do over a week's worth of training and support for writers who have started a book but haven't yet managed to finish it.
[11:03] That is part of why I'm here, is to help more writers, and particularly women writers, who I think have a series of additional issues that they face when it comes to finishing books and getting them out in the world.
Links from today’s episode:
Jane Baird Warren’s Podcast Episode
Sign up for the Book Finishers Bootcamp
Keep Coming Back! Thoughts on Persistence, with host Rhonda Douglas: The Resilient Writers Radio Show -- Full Episode Transcript
Intro:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas, and this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love.
Because—let's face it—the writing life has its ups and downs, and we wanna not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books, and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who wanna learn and grow in their craft, and improve their writing skills.
Writers who want to finish their books, and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them, writers who wanna spend more time in that flow state, writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community in this crazy roller coaster ride we call “the writing life.”
We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives, and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, writer, I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda Douglas:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome back to this final episode. It's a short little episode to close out Season two of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm so glad you're here with me, and thank you so much for listening to the episodes as they've been dropped in Season one and two.
We are closing out Season two with over 7,000 downloads. Actually it's 7,211 downloads as of today, and we're very excited about that. I'm very excited about that, and I hope that these episodes have provided inspiration and information, maybe one or two juicy nuggets you can use to improve your own writing life, because that's why I'm here.
That's why I do what I do. I want you to be able to create and sustain a writing life you absolutely love. To me, that's what it means to be a resilient writer, that despite all the ups and the downs and the emotional rollercoaster of this writing life, we're still doing it. And so, thank you so much for being here.
If you haven't yet had a chance to leave a review for the show, I would really appreciate that. You can do that in the app that you're currently using to listen to the show. Just a quick review, it takes 30 seconds to say what you got out of it and let me know. I read all the reviews and I really love hearing them. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that.
So, this has been a really interesting Season. We have talked about book marketing, and TikTok, and how to get feedback on your writing, and how to work collaboratively with other writers on a joint project that inspires you both. We've talked a bit about the MFA and whether or not you should get a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing and the pros and cons of that, and what some of your other options are.
We've talked a lot about memoir and how to do it in really interesting ways, in ways that kind of break convention, and I think I'm going to talk more about that in the next Season as well ‘cause I know it's a topic that people are fascinated by.
And throughout it all, I think there is this thread. There's always this thread of, “how do we keep going? How do we sustain ourselves?” If you remember the interview with Jane Baird Warren—if you haven't had a chance to listen to that interview yet, go back and have a listen—she had a lot to say about her experience with having early success and feeling like definitely this was the book that was going to take off, and she had an agent and then things didn't move and she had to double down and try something else. And now she's got a book that's been nominated for awards and people are absolutely loving it.
Sometimes it takes some time. Sometimes the first book that you work on, it's not the book that takes off, or it takes you a while to kind of get to the point where you are able to get your short stories published or your poems published. Sometimes it just takes a while. And that's the nature of it.
I think there's this overly romanticised experience in popular culture about what it means to be a writer. I was talking to someone yesterday, shoutout to Mari Ruddy, whose book Extreme Healing is coming out soon. She was a writer who joined my First Book Finish program and worked on her book, and it's so exciting. It's coming out, I think, November 9th. Again, it's called Extreme Healing by Mari Ruddy. And she was saying how surprised she was that once she had a finished book, how long it took to go through all of the rounds of editing, and then the cover and the interior design, and getting the book ready and then planning the launch.
It all takes time. And I think sometimes when we are watching other writers, be it on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, it seems like their book was easy and we don't understand why it doesn't work that way for us. But sometimes people don't show the behind the scenes stuff of where they're pulling their hair out, trying to figure out how they're going to make act two more engaging, and increase the stakes. They don't show the backend and the struggle. All they show is, “woohoo, I got an agent,” and not like, “oh, it took me 75 tries over eight months.”
So, take everything with a little bit of a grain of salt, and always assume that it's going to take more effort than you think it is. And I think that way we kind of lessen some of the disappointment when we send something in for a contest and we don't get shortlisted, or we are submitting our work and it doesn't get published right away.
To some extent, this is very much a journey where you just have to keep showing up. And the truth of it is that all of the joy and the pleasure is in the showing up. It's in those days where the writing is working and you're really enjoying it and it's going smoothly, and you have to show up for those bad days, too, in order to get the good days. So yeah, so keep that in mind and keep showing up. That's what it's about. Keep showing up.
So, for next Season—we are going to take a break right now. We'll be back in November with Season three of The Resilient Writers Radio Show for you, and I'm really excited for what we have planned there. We've got a lot of really interesting writers lined up for interviews, and I'd love to hear from you if you have thoughts of someone that you'd like to see on the podcast.
I'm particularly interested in speaking to people who have published a book or published a few books, but their story is not the standard romantic, wonderful story of, “I got an agent and then I was a bestseller” kind of story. I'm going to talk to some more folks who went the indie publishing route. I think that's really exciting now. There’s so much more control there for writers and there's so much happening.
And I think those of us that work as literary writers, that work in the field of literary fiction or poetry, we are for the most part unaware of the exciting things that are happening in indie publishing and in book marketing, as well. So, if you've been in the traditional publishing space, there's a lot to think about.
But I want to talk to some traditionally published writers as well, because I think that we've all got a lot to learn from each other. And at the end of the day, sitting down and getting words on paper, or on a computer screen, on pixel, as it were, is what it's all about. We share that in common regardless of the publishing path that we take.
I'm really looking forward to the next Season. As I say, it'll be back in November. If you've got ideas for something you've struggled with in your writing life that you'd like me to address on the podcast and do an episode about, or a writer you're really excited about and you'd love to see if they could come on the podcast, send me an email. I'm at [email protected], and always love to hear from you. And yeah, just let me know what you'd like to hear. We have most of a schedule put together, I think, but there's still a few openings, so it would be great to hear from you.
And if you haven't yet signed up for my Book Finish Bootcamp, you can. We are doing it in early October, October 4th to the 13th. It is an incredible experience. This lights me up so much. I love doing these bootcamps. It's a chance for writers to connect with one another, and I do over a week's worth of training and support for writers who have started a book but haven't yet managed to finish it.
And we talk about all of the issues that might come up. I do a lot of work on mindset and overcoming a lot of the stuff that's in our head that stands between you and your book. We also get into, what are the basics that you've got to have in place in order to have a book that works at the end, because it's one thing to finish a draft and yay, we love a finished draft, but don't we also want to be writing a book that really fundamentally works in the end?
That'll also help us reduce some of our time in revision. If you are revising, I also spend a lot of time there talking about revision as well, so if you haven't yet heard all about it, go to book-finish-bootcamp.com/signup. That's book-finish-bootcamp.com/signup, and you'll get an outline of everything that we go over in the bootcamp so that you can see if it's right for you and where you are in your process with your book right now. If it's the kind of thing you need, it's just $27 for over a week's worth of training and support.
I'd love to see you there. I love, love, love talking to writers about finishing books. That is part of why I'm here, is to help more writers, and particularly women writers, who I think have a series of additional issues that they face when it comes to finishing books and getting them out in the world. And that's why I'm here to help you do that. So, I would love to see you in Book Finishers bootcamp, go to book-finish-bootcamp.com/signup.
Okay, that's it for me in this Season, and thank you so much again for being here. Hit me up, [email protected] if you have ideas for what you'd like to see in the next Season, or hear, I guess, in the next Season of the podcast. And I will see you again in November for our next Season. Thanks so much. I'll talk to you soon.
Outro:
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes.
Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that “yes, this is a great show. Definitely recommend it to other writers.” And that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it, and I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.
