I hope you had a great Easter weekend and it was full of love and fun and chocolate!
I’ve just got back from my trip to a beautiful converted barn in West Sussex and I must say it was quite different than I imagined it to be. You may have seen my email last week full of timekeeping tips to stay focused when writing a book.
Well… it kinda didn’t pan out that way.
I’d been with my kids non-stop (through them both being poorly at different times) for a month and so when the barn doors closed behind me I sank into the chair and marinated in silence. The birds were tweeting, the horses were braying, the views were stunning and so I decided to just relax.
Friday night passed and Saturday came. I went for walks in bluebell woods. I saw old mills and deer. I marvelled at the expanse of the English countryside and not a soul in sight for miles around.
And still, the writing didn’t come.
I started to feel guilty. This was what I was here for! I should be writing! But I cooked myself some dinner and sat in the grass instead.
Then on Sunday morning at 6am I woke up with a PING! All of a sudden it had fallen into place. I knew what to do and got down to it. I worked for 11 hours, stopping when it felt natural to for something to eat or to go outside and breathe the air.
By the end of the weekend, I had completed 29,000 words. My goal for the book is 35,000.
I’ve learned so much from this experience I want to share with you, whether you are thinking about writing a book or not, hopefully, it might be useful.
You can’t force creativity
I was clearly in a bit of a stressed out state when I arrived. My mind felt like a bag of stoats, and it took some time for it to slow down and settle into a more peaceful and creative state. My goal to get writing on Friday night didn’t go to plan. But that was what was needed for my slower ‘tortoise mind’ to appear after getting out of ‘hare brain’ mode. It was after slowing down and taking some time to just be in nature that the ideas started flowing and I knew what to do.
Time blocks don’t have to be rigid
I had a timetable all mapped out on the time blocks for writing and breaks. The Pomodoro technique is something that was advised and I had it all scheduled out in my notebook. In reality, when I did start to write, I wrote in time blocks that felt more intuitive. Sometimes it was 45 minutes, sometimes it was an hour and a half. I think because I had relaxed beforehand I felt super focused when I actually did start to write. I still haven’t finished the book so it’ll be interesting to see how I can make it work fitting it in around daily life.
Use what you already have
I went into the weekend thinking I was going to write a book from scratch. But the more the ideas flowed, the more I realised I have it all already! I’ve spent 7 years building this business and was working in the niche of leadership and verbal comms for 15 before that. I’ve got a hell of a lot of material from my courses, workshops and programmes that I have trained and coached clients on over the years. It all feeds into the system I created, which is what the book is based around. It was like a beautiful jigsaw puzzle coming together, and enabled me to bring in writing that I already had in an ordered way. It’s a super practical book and I’m excited to share this stuff with people at an affordable and accessible level.
Be ready
I’ve been trying to write this book for a long time, but yet I wasn’t ready until now. Looking back over my work and the results my clients have achieved, creating a system for my clients and doing all the things I have in the past few years, has enabled me to be ready to write this book. It was great validation to reflect on all of this and say ‘yes, I know my stuff!’ If you feel like you have a book inside you waiting to come out, don’t rush until you are ready. I believe that waiting has enabled me to deliver something that people will really get a lot from.
There’s still a lot to do before it’s ready to be unleashed onto the world but I’m excited at what’s happened so far and what the end result will be.
If you have any questions please hit reply, always happy to chat about this type of stuff!
Much love
Helen
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