The Get Your Writing Done podcast is hosted by Trevor Thrall, Ph.D., author of The 12 Week Year for Writers and the Weekly Writing Routine Workbook. We dive deep on strategies and tools to help writers be their most productive selves.
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Episodes
It happens to all of us: you make a beautiful plan, you’re pumped and ready to go. Then life happens, things go sideways, and you suddenly find yourself weeks behind. If you don’t do something drastic, you aren’t going to hit your goals.
What the heck do you do now?
For most of us, our plans need significant adjustment midstream more often than not. The problem is that most people don’t feel comfortable with what to do at that point. Do I give up? Do I pull some all nighters to make up ground?
Many folks either get a bit paralyzed or just do whatever occurs to them first. In both scenarios, people tell me that the result was not satisfying or comfortable - they didn’t feel like they made a sound decision. For many people, it’s a reason that they don’t use planning and execution systems at all.
To help combat this problem, the goals for today’s episode are to help you A) make a good decision about how to revise your plan when things break down and B) how to feel good about that decision.
We’re all getting the message every day. Generative AI is changing the world at warp speed. Every week reveals new possibilities for working more efficiently. Nothing will be the same. A robot is going to cook all your hamburgers and fries. No one will have a job within 10 years. And writers will go the way of the dodo.
To that I say: raspberry sound. Humans will always have a place in the loop.
In this episode I:
- Explain my human centric theory of AI
- Discuss the limits of AI and why writers should not fear losing their jobs
- Describe several strategies and provide examples for using AI today to write better, more quickly, all while amplifying your unique voice.
- Introduce you to Tr3v0r, my new custom GPT writing coach buddy
- End with a few tips for using AI safely.
Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?
- You know you need to do some research for your book, but you have no idea where to start
- You want to write a book about a new topic, or a novel that takes place in a new setting perhaps, but you are so worried that you won’t sound authoritative or convincing enough, so you spend months doing research, never sure whether you’ve done enough
- You’ve just created a great plan, and doing research is in the plan, but when you start doing the research you can’t figure out if it’s helping you get anywhere
- You’re in the middle of your book, but run into a topic that you want or need to know more about. Weeks later you realize you have fallen down a rabbit hole of research and haven’t started writing again.
If you’ve ever found yourself in one of these situations, you’ve fallen into the research trap.
I define the research trap as “The act of conducting unnecessary research or conducting research in an inefficient or ineffective manner.”
The research trap can lead to aggravation. It can make you miss deadlines. It can keep your work from being the best it can be. But maybe worst of all, it can add up to weeks, months, even years, of wasted time.
So, that’s the goal of this episode: understanding the research trap, why people fall into it, and discussing strategies to avoid it.
Is there a rock in your shoe keeping you from writing?
I don't just mean a garden variety obstacle, I'm talking about a major productivity or dream killer. Is there something that needs to change for you to reach your goals?
In today's episode, we discuss The Rock and the Response. We talk about how the obvious layer of the rock almost hides a more important inner layer of dangerous emotion. We consider how difficult it can be to recognize the real causes behind our rocks.
Then we talk about dealing with rocks. Embracing a strategic mindset is key, as is being honest with yourself and being willing to make necessary tradeoffs. Finally, we discuss finding the courage to confront the rocks in our shoes.
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
Everywhere I look I see workshops promising to help you get a fast start to 2024. And that’s great! But here’s the thing: how many times have you or someone you know got off to a quick start on a new writing project but never quite finished it? That’s why this episode is all about Starting to Finish. We'll talk about five common reasons people don't finish their writing and five concrete steps you can take to avoid them.
Do you ever hear yourself saying these sorts of things?
- I don’t have enough time to write
- I don’t have enough energy to keep going to the end
- I am so demoralized at how slow this is going
- I’m losing my enthusiasm for this writing project I’ve been at it so long
If you find yourself in one of these situations, you need to become a master of making slow progress. This idea of slow progress gets very little discussion these days, but I think it deserves a lot more. In today’s episode I define slow progress, talk about why slow progress can be challenging, and outline some strategies for mastering the art of moving slowly toward your goals.
Did you know that the average person spends just 47 seconds before switching from looking at one screen/window on their computer to looking at another? Or that it takes 25 minutes to regain focus after an interruption? Staying focused in the best of times is a brutal task. Staying focused when life gets crazy is that much harder.
In this episode we'll talk about five strategies for finding focus that all happen before you sit down to write.
Ezra Klein, "Beyond the 'Matrix' Theory of the Mind,"
Gloria Mark, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity
Have you ever had one of those periods where you just couldn’t write consistently? Maybe your schedule was too chaotic. Maybe you got super busy at work. Or maybe you found yourself looking at the clock and seeing it was time to write but you wound up finding something else to do?
Maybe you were going great guns but then went on vacation and when you came back you found that your momentum was gone and you never got back on track? Or maybe you made plans to get to work early every morning and write for an hour before work but after a couple days you stopped and didn’t start again? If any of these sound familiar, do not feel bad!
We have all had trouble showing up. In fact, I think being consistent and building a writing routine that sticks is one of the single biggest challenges facing a lot of writers, especially a routine that can stand the challenges and turbulence of daily living. So today’s episode is all about showing up: why we don’t and what we can do about it. By the end of the show, you’ll have strategies for writing consistently.
Did you ever have a writing project where everything just clicked? I mean, from the beginning when you had the idea to the finished product, everything just went great, and quickly? And on the other hand, did you ever have a writing project that did nothing but give you trouble, from the day you started it until the day you finished it, or just dropped it?
I've had my share of both. And lately I've been reflecting on some of the things that determine how things go with my writing projects, and what's sticking out to me today is the importance of being in sync with your writer rhythms. That's a technical term I just made up, by the way: writer rhythms. According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, rhythm is "a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound." I submit that a writer rhythm is a strong, regular, repeated pattern of writing. Boom, new term created.
The argument I want to make in today's podcast is that when you are in sync with your writer rhythms, when you honor them, in a sense, your writing will flow much more easily. When you are out of sync, however, even the easy things will eventually start to become difficult. Today I'm going to explore the concept of writer rhythms and offer a few observations that might help if you're looking to get in better sync with them.
If you write fiction (and even if you don't), my guess is that you use, have used, or are thinking about using Scrivener, one of the most popular writing apps on the planet.
If you are thinking about it, or need some help making the most of Scrivener, this week's guest is the person to ask for help. Gwen Hernandez is an engineer turned author. She writes the popular Men of Steele series but she has another claim to fame as well. After a friend told her about this cool new writing app, Gwen discovered and fell in love with Scrivener, and wound up publishing blog posts about how to use it as she learned its ins and outs. Eventually, her widely acknowledged expertise led to a contract with Wiley to write Scrivener for Dummies. It also led to a booming business in providing Scrivener training both online and in person.
In this episode Gwen and I talk about why she thinks Scrivener is such a great writing app, how Twitter landed her a publishing deal, and she reveals a few power user moves that everyone who uses Scrivener should know.
Find Gwen Hernandez at gwenhernandez.com
Gwen's courses:
Welcome to the Get Your Writing Done podcast, I’m Trevor Thrall, author of The 12 Week Year for Writers. If you enjoy today’s episode, please submit a review wherever you get your podcasts. And for weekly updates on the podcast and other writing resources, you can subscribe to my newsletter at GYWD.com
Are you the kind of person who likes to hash out all the details before you start writing? Or are you the kind of person who likes to take an idea, start writing, and see where it goes?
Whether or not you’ve taken sides in the Plotter/Pantser wars, all fiction writers eventually have the same needs. They need to figure out their story’s timeline, they need to make sure their plots are coherent, they need to understand their characters’ arcs, and so on.
So today I’m excited to be chatting with Cameron Sutter and Ryan Zee, founders of the fantastic new app, Plottr. Plottr is a beautiful app with easy-to-use drag & drop visual timelines that let you construct outlines and plots more quickly than ever. And it has built-in plot templates based on time-tested structures like the Hero’s Journey, the 12 Chapter Mystery, and Romancing the Beat.
Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, the Plottr app is definitely worth checking out.
Check it out at Plottr.com
Are great writers born or made? Is your productivity level something fixed, or can you become a more productive person over time? If you haven’t written a book by age 30, will you ever? Do rejections mean you’re a failure?
In this podcast we take another look at the writer’s mindset. Our focus today is the importance of a growth mindset. Research shows that adopting a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, plays a huge role in how people live their lives. Thanks to its impact on learning, challenge seeking, and motivation, adopting a growth mindset leads to greater happiness and life satisfaction, as well as to greater achievement.
In this episode I start by sharing a personal lesson about growth that took me over twenty years to talk about in public. Then I outline the differences between growth and fixed mindsets, talk about why the growth mindset is so crucial for writers, and walk through five strategies for growing your growth mindset.
Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Jennifer Smith, "Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset: How What You Think Affects What You Achieve,"
Ashley Cullins, "Fixed Mindset Vs. Growth Mindset Examples,"
It’s a new year and for many of us that means it’s time to launch ambitious new writing projects. And that’s great, because the world needs more of what you’re doing. But it turns out that the launch phase is fraught with perils and risks. How many of us have had a blinding epiphany strike while in the shower, only to realize later that the idea wasn’t so brilliant after all? Or have you ever spent a week enthusiastically pursuing a new project only to hit a brick wall and realize that it wasn’t something you actually wanted to do? Or even could do?
Being enthusiastic about your new project is awesome, but writers need to not let that enthusiasm cloud their vision of reality. Writers of all kinds need to be sure that their new idea is worth pursuing before they invest blood, sweat, tears, and years on it. Nor can exuberance substitute for good planning.
So today we’re going to talk about some of the most common challenges that come at launch time and I’ll outline a three-step approach to making sure your next launch is a success.
If you aren’t a 12 Week Year follower, you might be surprised to learn that a key element of the 12 Week Year system is, in fact, a 13th week. The 13th week is dedicated to assessing the previous 12 so that you can look at what went well, what didn’t go so well, and identify lessons learned to help you shape your next 12 Week plan.
If you’ve been listening to the podcast for any time, or read the book, you’ll know that I have a low opinion of New Year’s resolutions and annual planning. That said, the turning of the year is, without question, a fantastic, maybe even a necessary, time to take stock and to reflect on your writing life. Maybe we could think of it as a 13th month? Whatever you call it, today we’re going to talk about how to conduct an annual review and I’ll share some of my own reflections on 2021 that I’m going to carry with me into 2022.
Let me ask you a simple question: Why do you write?
This question - so simple and unassuming and yet so profound - is the starting point for our conversation about motivation. We all have good days and bad days. I’m sure we have all experienced some high highs and some low lows. But some people seem to have a higher baseline level of motivation than others. Some people pretty much always seem excited about their work in progress. And other people - don’t.
If you’re looking to find your motivation, or for ways to have more good days than bad days, this episode is for you. We know a lot these days about the fundamental sources of motivation. And better yet, we know that motivation is not a fixed asset. Today I’ll talk about why we write, what motivates us, and how you can increase your motivation by redesigning your motivational ecosystem.
Today I sit down with Susan Scott, counselor, leadership coach, author, and founder of Life Inspired, Inc., a company that provides life design and coaching for leaders and life coaches.
Our topic today is resilience. As I discuss in the 12WY for Writers, resilience is a critical element of the writer’s mindset. Every writer - no matter the type or genre, has to deal with rejections, criticism, false starts, and negative reviews that all writers. Without resilience - an ability to confront the tough parts and keep going - it’s hard to imagine making a go of things as a writer. But it’s far easier to tell folks to “be resilient” than to understand exactly what that means. In our conversation today, Susan explains what resilience really is and outlines a set of steps we can all use to build greater resilience.
Susan Scott, Life Inspired, Inc
Larry Crabb, Understanding People
Have you ever been thinking about a writing project but then said, I don’t know everything I need to know about that so I shouldn’t start that project right now, I should wait until I’m more confident about what I know. Or have you ever found yourself in the middle of a manuscript and asked, “Why did I ever think I could do this?” Have you ever sat around a table of your peers and thought, If these people really knew me they wouldn’t think I belong here.
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then welcome to the Imposter Syndrome Club. 70% of the public will confront imposter’s syndrome at some point, and I think almost all writers certainly do.
In today’s podcast I’ll talk about my own ordeals and offer some strategies for defusing imposter syndrome.
Valerie Young, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Imposter Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It
Ah the holidays, that time of year where everyone’s plans to get things done meet the hard cold reality of holiday parties, endless hours at the shopping mall, and car trips to Grandma’s house. For writers, it’s hard to navigate between the temptation to hole up in your office and keep writing until it’s all over and the temptation to abandon all pretense at writing between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
In this week’s episode I discuss the challenges of writing at the holidays and offer a five-step approach to finding the balance that works for you.
What if there were a tool that would simultaneously help you be more accountable, give you inspiration and support, give you feedback on your writing, and provide structure to your writing routine? What an amazing tool that would be. Whoever invented it would surely be a zillionaire. But it sounds way too good to be true. Or does it?
In fact, there is absolutely such a tool out there. It really does exist. And it’s called the Weekly Writing Group. Without question, this humble tool is responsible for more productivity, more companionship, and more great writing than any other thing I can think of. Unfortunately, many writers have yet to embrace the weekly writing group.
In today’s episode I’ll talk about the many reasons I love the weekly writing group and how you can start a group of your own.
Are you one of those people who uses a fancy watch or phone to track your blood pressure, heart rate, daily step count, laps swum, miles run, calories consumed, and all that?
On the flip side, have you ever decided not to get on the scale after Thanksgiving, or after vacation? Or did you ever do so badly on an exam in college that you didn’t bother going to pick it up from the professor?
Measuring things is a double-edged sword. It can be fun to use technology to gain insights into every nook and cranny of our lives. But on the other hand, measurement often comes with judgement, blame, and shame.
Scorekeeping can be a powerful tool for building and maintaining a productive writing routine. The trick is creating a healthy approach that combines objectivity with respect for your emotional landscape.
Writers are a particular bunch. We like to have things just right when we get down to business. Some of us have trouble getting anything done if things aren’t just right. For me, writing is easier when I love my set up and have my favorite tools close to hand.
I’ll admit it: I’m fussy. I have a favorite pen, a favorite journal, a favorite computer, and a favorite writing app, just for starters. If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent many hours experimenting with all the different tools out there looking for ways to make your writing even easier, even more enjoyable. If I haven’t tried a writing-related tool yet, it’s probably just because I haven’t heard of it.
Given my obsessions, one of my goals with this podcast is to talk with the folks who make the tools of the trade. Today I’m chatting with Max Seeleman, Executive Director of Ulysses, my favorite writing app. I used Ulysses to write my book, and I certainly recommend giving it a go if you’re not thrilled with your current writing app. In this episode we talk about how Ulysses was born, how it has evolved with input from writers, and the future of online writing.
Follow Max Seeleman on Twitter
A lot of folks struggle to write consistently. And there are plenty of reasons for that. But a common denominator of inconsistent writing, whatever the reason, is the fact that for many people writing is simply not a habit. The problem, sadly, is that if someone can’t make a habit of writing consistently, they are unlikely to be very productive and reaching their writing goals will be more difficult.
In this week’s episode I share some thoughts about building a writing habit, or as I like to call it, a weekly writing routine. With some strategic planning and a little experimentation, everyone can create a weekly writing routine that will help them be a more productive writer.
I’m a big sports fan. I’m also a news junkie. At the intersection of those two things is sports writing. Ever since I was a kid I’ve devoured the sports page before reading anything else in the news. Over time I’ve come to believe that sports is just another lens for understanding ourselves. And that means that we can learn a lot about the world from sports writers. We can also learn a lot from them about great writing.
Today, I’m excited to have a phenomenal sports writer join me on the pod to talk about writing. Brendan Quinn covers college basketball and golf for The Athletic. Originally from Philadelphia, Brendan has spent the last ten years or so covering Michigan and Michigan State basketball. And that means I have spent the same amount of time enjoying his work. He writes some of the best feature stories you will ever read and when you listen to our conversation, you’ll understand why.
Brendan Quinn @ The Athletic
Is there a writer alive who hasn’t wondered at some if they would ever be able to finish a book or some other writing project? Maybe it was your first book and you didn’t know if you had it in you. Maybe it was your tenth book that you wrote while raising three kids and wrangling wild mustangs for a living. Or maybe it’s the book you’re working on right now and you’re stuck, and you’re not sure how to get unstuck.
What is the secret to finishing those books? Writing takes all kinds of of talents, but probably the single best predictor of wether a person is going to finish a book - any book or project - is how gritty they are. Are you willing to keep your eyes on the prize long enough to see things through? Are you willing to keep going when the going gets tough?
Today we’re talking about grit, and most importantly, how to build your grit muscle so you can get your writing done.
Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Mason Currey, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
There are two kinds of people in the world. The first kind are those folks who are always working on exactly one project at a time, giving it their full and undivided attention. And then there are writers. I am not sure exactly what it is, but it seems like the overwhelming majority of writers - both fiction and nonfiction - tend to be juggling more than one project at a time. From an execution and productivity standpoint, this is not optimal.
But no matter how many times you tell a writer not to juggle, they just keep juggling. So today I want to remind you one last time to keep the juggling to a dull roar, but mostly to provide you with some tools to make things more manageable when you’re dealing with multiple projects at once.
Are you sitting on a work in progress that has been on your desk for a long time? Do you find yourself starting new writing projects before you’ve finished the current project? We all have trouble finishing our writing sometimes. Writing is hard, and it’s a lot easier to start things than to finish them. But there are a host of challenges specific to finishing a piece of writing. Today we’re going to talk about some of the most common finishing struggles, why they occur, and what you can do about them.
Have you ever thought about writing a book but weren’t sure you could? Or should? Today’s episode tells the story of what happened when two guys who don’t think of themselves as writers decide to write a book? Today I interview my good friend Michael Lennington, co-creator of The 12 Week Year system and co-author with Brian Moran of the New York Times bestselling book, The 12 Week Year.
You’ll hear Mike talk about how he and Brian came up with the idea to write The 12 Week Year and about what an amazing impact it had on their business. You’ll also hear the surprising story of how much harder it was for them to write their new book than they thought it would be. Along the way, Mike drops a lot of wisdom and insight about the many challenges writers face.
Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, The 12 Week Year
Today we’re going to tackle the question of how to find the right balance between work, life, writing, and whatever else it is you’re getting up to these days. This is an age old question and a lot of people have spilled a lot of ink on it.
There’s a very good reason for that: balance is something you never stop needing to think about. It is an omnipresent challenge of life, one that none of us can escape. You might even say that the key to living your best life requires having a good strategy for balancing all the many things you have to do, and want to do, before you depart this mortal coil.
And I think that for writers finding and managing that balance is trickier than it is for many. So that’s our challenge today, and when things get real, like all great philosophers I turn to board games for answers.
In last week’s podcast we talked about the importance of having a clear and compelling vision for your writing. But it can be difficult to craft that vision when you’re just starting out and maybe you haven’t written anything yet, or when you don’t feel like you can really call yourself a writer because it isn’t your day job. And when that’s the case, the journey to becoming comfortable thinking of yourself as a writer can take some serious effort - not only plenty of writing, but also efforts to organize your life in order to make the necessary room for your writing identity and vision to emerge and take shape.
Today I’m talking with Keely Thrall, romance writer and sister of the podcast. Keely shares with us how she got the writing bug and her evolution from self-identifying as what she calls a “writer who doesn’t write” to a writer who writes every morning and now teaches and mentor other writers.
https://washingtonromancewriters.com
Do you get up every day excited about what you’re doing? Are you learning and growing and moving toward your goals? Do you know who you want to be and what you want to be doing ten or fifteen years from now? Do you have a clear sense of where writing fits into your ideal life of the future? Or how writing will help you get wherever it is you’re trying to go?
This week’s podcast tackles the “vision thing.” As followers of the 12 Week Year know, the first step of implementing the system is to craft your vision. By the end of this episode, you will know why having a compelling vision is so powerful, and you’ll have a set of steps you can take to hone your writing vision.
Martha Beck, Finding Your Own North Star
Writers face all kinds of challenges trying to get their writing done. Have you ever felt overwhelmed at the start of a project? Suffered from an inability to motivate yourself? Felt like you just weren't using your writing time very efficiently?
The bad news is that these challenges will never go away. The good news, as productive writers have discovered, is that with a good writing system you can overcome these challenges.
In today's episode I provide an in-depth look at the 12 Week Year, the system that transformed my ability to get writing done on a consistent basis.
Trevor Thrall, The 12 Week Year for Writers: A Comprehensive Guide to Getting Your Writing Done (Wiley 2021)
The school year is right around the corner, and for many of us that means life is about to get crazier and there will be less time for writing. But it's not just the back to school crunch. No matter who you are or what you do, you have to cope with times when things just get really busy.
And that means that every writer has to have an answer to the question: How do you get your writing done when life gets busy? In this episode I share four strategies that have helped me navigate the busy times without losing my mind.
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