In this episode we’re digging into the topic of accountability with Accountability and Life Coach Claire O’Connor. We talk about habit stacking, developing the habit of writing, and how to support yourself in the formation of your creative habits. The power of layering in habits one at a time, some challenges that come up as we try to do motivate ourselves to write, and how to keep that motivation going over longer stretches of time. How does our language impact our feeling about what we’re doing and our motivation? The power of… BUT and how to flip your thoughts. Plus, the ever important whiskey-bacon donuts.

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Connect with our special guest Claire O’Connor

• Claire’s Website: www.Thefivepercent.net, where you’ll find a resource on 10 ways to drastically increase your chances of success

Visit our websites

• Crystal Hunt (Non-fiction)
• CJ Hunt (Romance)
• Michele Amitrani (Fiction)
• The Creative Academy for Writers (Community/Resources)

Transcript for Strategic Authorpreneur Episode 016: Accountability to Yourself and Your Writing with Claire O’Connor

Claire O’Connor: Hi, I’m Claire O’Connor and you’re listening to the strategic authorpreneur podcast.

Crystal: Hey there, strategic authorpreneurs, I’m Crystal Hunt,

Michele: and I’m Michele Amitrani, we’re here to help you save time, money and energy as you level up your writing carrier.

Crystal: Welcome to episode 16 of the strategic authorpreneur podcast. Try saying that three times fast. On today’s show. We’re going to talk with special guests, Claire O’Connor about accountability and developing your writing habits and things like that.

But first, a brief update of what we have been tackling this past week in our own writing lives. What have you been up to, sir?

What has happened since the last episode?

Michele: Believe it or not and I’m going to say that I’ve been writing a lot and reading, which is something we’re supposed to do as writers. But something that I want to share with you this week, it’s not going to be a book.

So I’m going to be doing things differently. I want to share with you something that really helped me a few years ago, it’s an article by Hugh Howey, the science fiction writer and the title of the article is So you want to be a writer… for the folks that are watching us from YouTube. I really hope you can see this.

This is a handsome guy. And this is an article that I basically suggest to every single person that wants to write. It’s very interesting because it’s basically Hugh’s perspective on why, why he was successful. He started as a self-publisher and now he’s doing basically hybrid kind of things.

And there are 10 points that he points out that really made me think a lot about what I was doing as a writer and why, if you are really serious about what you’re doing you can really level up. The core of the article is that you have to have a long term plan.

This is a marathon, as we all will always discuss that about writing. It’s not a sprint. And I really believe this article to be super, super interesting and useful for writers that are serious on the self publishing route, what also on the legacy route. And it can be really refreshing in the way he explaines things.

So Hugh can be particularly funny when he writes. So yeah, this will be my resource and for the rest, basically in these past few weeks I’ve been writing to keep up with my, 12 by 20 challenge. So I’m now on the process of writing the seventh story. Own it, Michele, own it.Seventh story. And I really hope that the people that are following me are going to enjoy it.

But again, it’s writing, writing, writing. Now. What have you been up to Crystal?

Crystal: Well, I am also transitioning back into the writing, writing, writing, so I have been digging back into my old fiction stories and things that I’ve written and just trying to reorient myself firmly in my story world, which has been interesting.

So on the creative side, generative side, that’s what I’ve been doing is just rereading the stories and organizing my cover files, organizing my character databases. As I reread the stories, I’m cross checking them against the databases that I had created, when I was working on them originally. And just making sure that did I miss any supplementary characters is everyone’s name in there?

Sometimes I merged characters or I switched them, or I give them a different role than I originally intended when I first sort of heard them talking in my head. And so then I have to make sure that my tracking stuff all matches up with what the reality of the published books are before I dive into the next book, because I don’t want to weave them in, in an incorrect way or introduce continuity errors.

So I’ve been working on a lot of that kind of cleanup and reprogramming my brain, to be ready for that. And then on the business side I’ve been working on kind of my next phase business plan for my fiction and how I want that reader journey to look, we’ve been talking a lot about reader journeys and the process of kind of bringing people into your story world with you.

And so I’ve been working on just, really getting into what is it that’s going to make people stay with me in my story world and stick on my newsletter list and keep coming back to my website. And there’s two books, that I have been reading both actually by the same authors. One is called The Power of Moments by Dan and chip Heath.

And it’s, it’s really interesting. It’s exploring the stories of people who’ve created standout moments from the owners who transformed an utterly mediocre hotel into one of the best love destinations in LA to the scrappy team that turned around one of the worst elementary schools in America. It’s basically all these case studies about people who took something that wasn’t working and made it into something that was amazing and, and that people just fell in love with and keep coming back to. So I—I’ve read it before and I’m just kind of rereading it with the filter of how can I apply that in my author business and how can I create some of those really special moments for people?

As they’re going through the onboarding for my website and as they’re going through downloading freebies and me reaching out for the first time, and maybe even like, as they have a tech support problem with, you know, getting a free book and I have to follow up, how can I transform that into a really positive experience?

So that in combination with this one, which is called Made to Stick, and it’s the same authors, it’s Dan and Chip Heath again, but it’s, breaking down ideas into kind of component parts things like simplicity and unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotional engagement, and stories and how those can really work.

I mean we want to be sticky. I think there’s so much noise in the world right now. And there’s so much information coming at us and there are so many ideas and so many things happening that it’s really hard to really stand out in the crowd and if you can really rock the psychological principles behind that engagement, then you use the tools in a smarter way.

And you know, we’re talking about being strategic authorpreneurs. If you understand that people that are on the other side of your reaching out efforts and your connect with readers efforts in your marketing and your advertising, then your money is going to be better spent and your ads will be more effective and you will make actual, real connections with the people on the other side of that.

So I think both of those books are as are some of my favorites and I’m just going through and kind of re highlighting and making notes for myself of what inspirations comes from that that could be applied then to my newsletter overhaul that’s about to happen. And the kind of re-engaging re onboarding process.

About Claire O’Connor

As I do a little bit of a shift in my fiction stuff that I’m doing. Yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. So all of that is in advance of a pretty intense phase of writing that’s coming up. And so I think the timing is very good for both of us to talk, to Claire O’Connor, who is an accountability coach for writers and other business people who are, particularly creative businesses.

And we will have a chat with her and then regroup and talk about what she had to say.

Claire welcome to these strategic authorpreneur podcasts

Claire O’Connor:  Thank you. I’m really happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Crystal: We’re happy to have you here. I’m good. I’m excited to talk about accountability today.

Excellent. So maybe first, if you could tell us just a little bit about who you are and what you do that might be a starting place for folks who did not get to chat with you in person before as I have.

Claire O’Connor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So my name is Claire O’Connor, my businesses, or my company is called the 5% and basically I’m a qualified, trained professional life coach.

And I work specifically as an accountability coach. I generally work with creatives and entrepreneurs and new business owners. And basically what I do is an accountability coach. I basically have them make progress, like help them make progress consistently on a goal or project that they’re working on.

Because, I mean, I don’t know if you found the same thing. I know that you are an entrepreneur and you’ve had lots of successful kind of the company experience. But when you first start something as that excitement and you, and you’re gripped by it and you’re like, this is amazing. I love this and then as you carry on the dip can happen and you can start getting those anxieties and those doubts and things get a bit tougher and it can be really hard to keep going. And especially if you’re doing it on your own, like, especially as a writer or as an entrepreneur, you know, you’re generally working solo.

So as an accountability coach, I kind of joke that on like their personal cheerleader, you know, and I walk them through it. So we worked through the obstacles together. I check in with them each week saying, you know, what did you do last week? What do you plan to do the next week? So they have a clear plan for the week ahead of them.

It’s not like one of the things that I do as well is we make sure people aren’t working on like 300 tasks at once. You know, I need to get 300 tasks done by next week. That’s not realistic. So I have them narrow down, like what’s what are the three to five tasks that are going to maybe fuel the most.

You know, what can you realistically do? What’s pushing you a little bit? So I work with people like that. Yeah. I love it. It’s such a, I’m really grateful to have the experience of helping people pursue their goals.

Crystal: Yeah, that is fantastic. What was it brought you into doing this?

Claire O’Connor: Good question. Yeah. So I, um, I’m not sure how much detail you want me to give, like how far back you want me to go? Essentially,

When I was in my twenties, I had no idea what career I wanted to do was really lost. And I moved from job to job and I never really, you know, it felt like I’d found my passion. Whenever you want to call it. And then, so I decided at 30 to do some real digging into, I think, really to go deep and find a career for me.

And I did lots and lots of research, lots of self-questioning, read lots of resources and I came across life coaching in this sort of, like a real lightening bolt moment where it’s like, Oh my goodness. Yes, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for, this is where I’m meant to be. So I trained to be a life coach.

It was still fantastic. I love to the training, you know, really felt like right for me as a person. But after you genuine the coach training, it’s similar to being a writer, actually, that you can’t just write about everything. Oh, sorry. You can. But sometimes, most people like to sort of niche down and work on one particular thing, or maybe you have an area that you love, like whether it’s fiction or non fiction or romance or thrillers, whatever it is. And it’s the same with coaching. It’s really important to, I just sort of niche. So you’re not just coaching for everyone everywhere. So you can be really clear on what you’re working on. So I was thinking about my niche and then I’d started just on the off chance, started working with an accountability coach of my own.

And as I was working with him, I thought. I love doing this. It feels very natural to me. And I thought I can do what he’s doing, you know? And not only that, but it makes me really excited. I was like, this is what I do with my friends already. You know, I’m always the person that’s like, go you, you can do this.

How can we make this happen? You know, like let’s just break it down and make it simple. So you can do this. So that was one reason. And then I also started doing a kind of an accountability texting with a friend of mine to help me get up earlier in the morning. And it worked really well until we stopped the accountability until I stopped texting her and basically my habits fell by the wayside. So it really pinpointed to me how important accountability is and how useful it is. Yeah. Getting you to where you want to be. So it was those two reasons that made me go: This is my thing. Yeah. Okay. I finally found it.

Crystal: Your lightning bulb moment. That’s great. I love that you had this lightning bulb moment where you realized, okay, this is my thing. This is what I want to do. That’s fantastic. Now, your website is called the 5%. Right? And so I’m curious about where that 5% comes from and what it means.

Claire’s 5%

Claire O’Connor: Yeah. Yeah, no for sure. And I’ve had that question quite a lot. So I, I do try and explain to people because I’ve had people say to me the 5%, is that around like the richest 5% in the world? I’m like, Oh no, no, no, no, no. it’s a much more like, I think they’re much more awesome story than that. And basically the name came about because I was seeing my massage therapist, who Fantastic and awesome. And I was chatting with her as you do. And I was telling her about some of the life changes I was making when I was looking for my new career or my new purpose you, I was saying, so this is what I want to do. And  these are actions I’ve taken so far. Like these are the steps I’ve taken. This is what I’m going to do in the future. And she said to me, it’s so refreshing to hear someone talking about their goals and dreams. And then talking about what they’ve done about it. Well, what they’re doing about it. And she said, so often people come in, especially for something I’ll get a massage, you know, where you’re relaxed and they talk about all the things they want to do.

And then like immediately give a reason why they can’t do that thing. And she said, and the funny thing is all the reasons is always the same. You know, it’s like I have a mortgage or I have a partner I Kids, pets, whatever it is. She said that people were, they love talking about their goals and dreams. And follow it up with the reasons why they can’t do it.

And she said, I would say that most people do that. You know, it’s probably only like 5% of people that actually talk about how they’re going to make their goals and dreams happen. And so that’s where it came from, whereas like, Oh, the 5%. And that obviously that figure is not, scientifically prove it or anything, you know, of course not.

But in my, you know, it’s a bit tongue in cheek as well. The idea is that let’s get away from that 5% of people. Kind of going off to their goals and dreams and take action. Well, let’s flip it to 95%. A hundred percent.

Crystal: Absolutely. I think that is a big thing that people really. Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t you’re right.

And you know, one of the big lessons I got from my mom, who’s smart lady was that everything, every single day, if you take one small step towards what you want to be true in your life, you get there, right. It’s that incremental small incremental changes. And you know, I, you know, you do a lot of work around habits and you’ve done a lot of work in changing your own habits, as well as helping other people change their, so I’m curious, can you talk about like a couple of the habits for yourself that you’ve switched over and kind of, how did you make that be a reality?

Switching habits

Claire O’Connor: Yeah, for sure. And two that I can think of one is quite well, it’s not necessarily random, but it’s an important one, but I remember starting the habit of flossing, which I’d been trying to do for probably years.

I’d say, you know, and I would always be like, Oh, it’s so, so boring, it takes so long. I mean, it really doesn’t, you know, so with that, I found it really helpful to partner out with something. So for example I always flow straight after I’ve done my teeth and I do it in the evening. The more you do that, it becomes like a, you don’t even think about it anymore, you know, and especially I’m the sort of person that works well in has, and I kind of associate things together very well.

So for example, when I’ve had a shower, I put on my deodorant, but it’s like, those two things are coupled together. So for me, it was like, I do my teeth and then straight afterwards, I floss as well. And the other thing, which that’s been really helpful, is that my partner was also starting to floss as well.

So we had that accountability again, where it was you and you almost make it into it like a challenge or a competition, but like, Oh, he’s just, well, then I have to floss because I’m not going to be the one that didn’t floss, you know? So that’s one habit, that it hasn’t necessarily changed my life. Like know, I don’t feel necessarily different, but I think it’s one of those good life habits that it’s useful to have. Um, and I’m trying to think of another habit. It would be great to share with you. I think probably getting up early for me, or rather getting up at 7:00 AM because I am not a morning person. It takes me a while to get going in the morning.

And especially when, like we have a toddler. And if he’s been up in the night, you know, it can be quite a challenge to get out of bed, but that’s my best working time. So I knew I needed to get started on like getting up at a particular time. Like I said, this is when I started text accountability with my friend.

So I would get out of bed in the morning, shoot her a text right away and say, okay, I’m up and out of bed. And obviously the rule was no jumping back into bed, you know? And that, for me having that external accountability really helped. And then I’ve been working with a friend who, luckily, as a coach, you have lots of friends who are coaches.

So it was working with them friends and she was saying to me, okay, let’s take that further. Now. You’re not texting your friends anymore. How can we make that, you know, how can we keep that going? And so I’d put in now I have like an exciting thing to get up at four in the morning. So I jump out of bed, I grab a coffee and I go straight to my desk and I start working and I, for me, that’s writing and that’s when I have lots of creative ideas. And it’s normally when the baby’s asleep as well. So it’s like double, it’s a double with me time. I’ve got my coffee. I don’t need to think about what I’m doing in the morning.

So that’s been really important as well as it becoming not something you need to think about, you know, something that becomes. Instantly. And it’s the same as like, if you’re working out or if you’re trying to write. Take the soul out of it, you know, make it inviting. So I don’t know, go to the gym with a friend or have your favorite mug or a really inspiring place that you write.

I love it. I love it. I actually have a similar mug to that. Like the, I think it’s the right done ones. And mine says, one says, ‘Hello’, and that’s my morning one. And then I have a ‘Sunshine’ one as well. Yeah, no, it was two of my, my special mug.

Crystal: Yeah. It’s amazing how the small things can make such a big difference and add up over time.

And you know, I’ve done, I’m a health psychologist by background, so I’ve done a lot of, learning about sort of life hacks and how do you change behavior and all of those things. And, and it is those small consistencies. There’s so much research that supports that a hundred percent is easy. Like if there’s something that you just always do, then it’s no longer a thought or a decision. It just is, and it becomes an automated part of your routine. And that’s where you get really powerful results over time is when those things start stacking up. And so you then don’t try and change everything at once, right? It’s just adding in one habit at a time and then layering things in one at a time, as you talked about earlier, like not having too many things on the go is really, really important.

Crystal: So when we’re thinking about some of these other health habits and some other things that you can change in your life. It may not always be obvious how that relates to sort of building a career as a writer or as a person who is an entrepreneur. And for most writers, that’s a combination of both things where are both of those things. Maybe you could talk a little bit about like, what are some of the challenges that you see writers have in terms of moving things forward? Like what are some consistent issues that come up for you coaching clients?

Claire O’Connor: Oh my goodness. There’s many. And I also, the good thing is I share a lot of these struggles because I do writing as well, like kind of coach, but I have my own blog and writing has always been a passion of mine.

So I totally get so many of these struggles. And for me, I think a big one is going to be about motivation. You know, like getting to write, but also keeping that motivation going day after day or week after week, however, often you write, you know, sometimes you might have a creative spell of maybe a week or even a month and you think fantastic, you know, I’m on fire, I’m going.

And then when it dries up, that’s the really tough thing. The point is keeping it going consistently. So again, like we’ve talked about, to get through that and to keep going day by day, it’s like knowing that small things add up. So if you only have five minutes to work on your novel or whatever it is, that is better than nothing.

And if you keep doing those five-minute increments or, you know, even writing one paragraph or writing one line, it doesn’t sound like much. So those things all add up like, and that, and I joke with my clients and I say that is all a book is, you know, it’s a book has chapters, broken down into paragraphs, broken down into sentences, you know, like, that’s it.

And so you can write a sentence. And then if you can do a few sentences, you’ve done the paragraph. We’ve done a few paragraphs, you’ve done a chapter and building up that way, like we said, and I think. Another one, which I’m sure people would struggle with. And I do too, is like actually having those ideas.

And sometimes you might, you know, create the best space. Like you have your inspiring places that you write and you’ve dedicated some time or you got up early and you have this block of time. And then you have a block or what to actually write about, like, you know, you’re sitting there with a cursor flashing and thinking something will come to me.

Something must come to me. And then it’s, that’s really scary feeling, but what if it doesn’t, I’m wasting my time and you know, I have this time blocked off and you can really get in your head about it. So for me, space has been a huge factor for that. And I mean like the space in terms of physical space, like, disconnecting from the world being outside, being out in nature, whatever it is, being away from people. If that’s your thing and also rest in terms of letting your head, giving your head some space, you know, giving your brain some space and physically making sure that you take time off as well as having time on.

And that’s when I’ve had my most creative ideas when them nothing or I’ve been out for a walk and I come home and I’m like, Oh, I have three blog ideas that are just pouring out of me. So yeah. I’d say those are the two of the biggest ones. Okay. And I know as well that it’s. It doesn’t need to be a site of activity, it accountability and support from wherever you can, like whether that’s joining it you know, there’s tons of apps now for accountability, whether it’s joining a forum like advices for and what you support each other and you post every week or every day,  you know, getting any external accountability you can. And actually there’s a great, website or tool called focus, mate. Have you heard of that’s that one of you to focusmate?

Crystal: Focusmate? No.

Claire O’Connor: Yeah, essentially you do it sign in and you team up with somebody that you don’t know somewhere in the world and you basically have a block of time. I think it’s an hour and you have 50 minutes to work on your thing and you both, you meet each other at the start on video, you say, hi, you share what you’re going to work on.

And then you don’t talk to each other anymore. You do a block of work for 50 minutes, and then you both check in at the end and see how you got on. And it’s fantastic because it’s no chit-chat, you keep the video one so that you’re still accountable, you know, so that the person can see like, Hey,  I see you playing games or I just, I see you taking a nap.

And some people that won’t work for, because we will have, different preferences, but some of my clients have found that so great. And then they go to scheduled in their calendar, you know, like I have three focusmate blocks this week. I know I’m going to get things done and yeah. And going on from that point, make me think as well, for me, a big part is knowing what works for you and trying things out, you know, and being okay with failing.

And because there are lots of accountability, lots of tools we can use, and they might not all work for you. And that’s okay. It’s taken me a while to find out what works for me and I’m still learning and I’m still enjoying it. So it’s a big part of like allowing yourself to fail and then picking yourself back up again. Yeah.

Crystal: And I think it is, that’s a really important part of the process is it’s easy. It’s, it’s actually called the, ‘what the hell effect’ in psychology is when you. You’ve broken a promise to yourself, and then you basically say, well, what the hell?

And then I’ll just that you don’t want to go and bother, and you sort of, you give up because you’ve had what you consider a failure. And instead, if you hit the reset button, then give yourself that fresh start, then you can start your new chain or how it is you’re tracking things and just kind of look to challenge your personal best. That’s always my personal goal is okay. well, the last I own, I made it through five days or whatever it was of writing in a row. Well hit the reset button. My goal is now to beat five days. So it’s not that you’re focused on every day and you’re just focused on making the next string longer than the string before it.

That just lets you build from wherever you actually are, as opposed to trying to build on some ideal of what a perfect you would be doing. Which of course we know the perfect us is our, alas, a little bit lacking in this current world.

Claire O’Connor: You touched so many good points there and I love the, the what the hell, because it happens so many times like you, you know, you’re on a diet or you’re eating really healthily and then you have one evening where you eat terribly, you know, you’re eating junk food or you stuff your face with cookies, anything. Well, there’s no point in continuing, but that’s so is because you already have done all that work and you can build on it. So you’re exactly right. Like looking at okay, if I did five days, what can I do, what can I do that would improve on that. And again, I love that because you’re comparing yourself to your past and not to someone else, which is such a big thing as well. You know, like hearing, if someone else’s just had their first novel published, or if someone else has managed to write three chapters, you’ve only written, I don’t know, for three days straight.

Is that still a win for you, treasure that because we’re all on our own journey. We’re all on our own path. Right?

Crystal: I think, I think there’s a lot of value in remembering to compare ourselves to ourselves, because it is too easy to be like, Oh, well, so and so did X, Y and Z. And so one of the things, uh, we have in the creative Academy, which is our online community, that, myself, Donna Barker and Eileen Cook found it a while back. So we do have sprints on an ongoing basis and there’s like a standing date where people can show up and I’ll write together in the zoom room. So it’s similar to the accountability app, but there’s a whole bunch of people. And so, you know that somebody will be in there at 7:30 AM every, every day.

And so you can show up when you can show up and not when you don’t and there’s no like, Oh, Hey, like so-and-so, didn’t, I didn’t see around the sprints this morning a little bit, because sometimes we’ll be like, Oh, we missed you. You know, we’re looking forward to when you can join us the next time. And so I think there’s… as an accountability partner, it’s really important to know, but like how the other person operate. So I’m curious for you, if you’re working with clients, how do you know if they’re a carrot or a stick person? How does that work?

Claire O’Connor: Yeah, such a good question. Yeah. And it’s something that definitely, when, some, some things are really important to know, and there’s no way you can know without chatting with someone. So the really my honest answer is I ask people and I encourage them to keep checking in with who they are, you know, and you know, be okay with testing things out. I’d be okay with changes. You don’t have to be a certain way. You know, like if you’re a night owl person and everyone else is morning people, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Just tweak your environment and do what you can with it. So for my clients really, it’s just a question of asking them like, and I, so I start off with quite a, I’d say a moderate balance of friendly checking in and you know, that little bit of pressure, but also that caring attitude. And I see which way they need to fall in, generally I keep checking in with them, like, if you need me to be harder on you, I will be like, I I’ve had clients where I’ve sent them a text every day.

Just to get them when they’ve been through a different difficult week, just to have them moving again. And then saying to them, do you still need me to do that? Or should we ease off a bit? So, yeah, it’s a, it’s a question of really checking in with people and then having them check in with themselves because we know ourselves best as well, you know, and you know, to be honest, for example, with your sprints, which are fantastic, you know, deep down if you are making excuses for not joining one, or if you’re genuinely busy, you know, like, you know, if you’re being afraid of writing, say something that puts me off from writing is that you’re feeling fearful, you know? If that reason is, you know, genuine, or if it’s something you could dig into look into, be like, so what am I really afraid of here?

Maybe I’m afraid of success, which is quite a valid fear, you know? Okay, let’s look into that. Then let’s talk about that with people, right. Because you’re not going to be the only person going through it,

Crystal: absolutely. I think. Yeah. There’s some really interesting stuff because we do sort of assume that other people think the same way, the way we do.

And so when we’re going to work with someone else, whether it’s a professional coach or whether you have an accountability buddy that you’ve found through your writing network or whatever, I think the default is to think that whatever would help you is what would help them. And that’s really not in fact, the case.

So I think it is really important. It’s not that you have to be paired up with somebody who thinks just like you do and likes things the same way you do. But like you said, you have to ask them and you have to understand, like, I completely rebel if somebody says to me, like you have to do this, I am immediately out.

I’m just not interested when I was a kid, as long as my parents didn’t ask me if I had homework, my homework was done. But the second, even if I was like, literally had my books in hand and was about to go sit at the table to do my homework. If they said you should do your homework. I was done, like I was not doing it.

I am a rebel and obliger actually. So if I make an external commitment to somebody else, like I say, okay, for the next week, I’m going to show up at sprints at seven 30 in the morning. Then I will show up because I promised someone else and the obliger part of me says yes, I’ll do this. And then, because I chose it, it’s a little bit easier to get around that rebel part, but you just, you have to be aware enough of yourself and when stuff isn’t working, if you can identify why it’s not working, that makes it easier to change, whatever you need to change in your environment to support that.

I think that’s really helpful for people to remember.

Claire O’Connor: Definitely.

Crystal: You have developed some freebie kind of helper things that I noticed on your website. So maybe, can you tell our listeners a little bit about what they might, were you able to find there?

Claire O’Connor: Sure. Yeah, of course. So my website is the fivepercent.net and that’s all spelled out.

So the, and then five as a word, and then percent as a word net. And yeah, one of the freebies that I think would be great, especially for writers is I have a workbook on 10 ways to drastically increase your chances of success. And it’s like a super fun workbook, it won’t take long, you can just print out or, or even, you know, do it online, print it out.

Have a looked at the 10 factors that can help you massively improve your chances of success. And there are some of the things we’ve talked about here, like, you know, who can be in your support group, but for an off people, and especially these days, a lot of people are working from home, you might not have access to a support group.

So one of the other things is, one of the examples in the workbook is like looking for people around you, who inspire you. Like following what they’re doing as well. We don’t have to know someone personally to still learn from them or, you know, what’s the word, like, not necessarily copy them, but I’m trying to think of the word, like that’s…

Crystal: Emulate?

That’s the word, you know, not copy. Exactly. Yeah. Like take on their, you know, their, embody, I suppose, what they really represent. And that’s such a thing as well, that I think is really important for a writer can be, I suppose not owning up to that identity as a writer, but acknowledging it, embracing it, I think is the word I’m looking for, like really embracing that identity.

Because if you’re scared to tell people you’re a writer, if you’re scared to admit yourself, you’re a writer that could be a stumbling block for you. You know? So I sometimes joke with my clients and I say, if you’re saying, I don’t know, like an engineer or a hairdresser or anything, or a pilot, and you’re wanting to be a writer and you’re doing a bit of writing in your spare time.

When you meet people, you might say to them, Oh, I’m an engineer, but I, I am interested in writing or, you know, I’m an engineer, but I have a little side hobby of writing. Like I think it’s probably okay to flip that round and say, I’m a writer, you know, and I do a bit of engineering while I’m on the side while I’m, while I’m waiting for my novel to get published or whatever it is, you know?

So like fully embracing those writer qualities. And then you can look at other writers and say, what would they do in this situation? If I were having this stumbling block or this obstacle how would they approach it? Yeah. So yeah, definitely check out, check out their website, check out the freebies. Yeah.

Because I write myself, I know the struggles that come from it. I definitely do lots of blog posts and the blog posts about like how you can keep that motivation going and know, sometimes you have that thought, why am I doing this? You need that reminder of like, this is important.

Like it’s, you know, something wants to come out of you and that’s really precious,

Crystal: Yeah, absolutely. And I think something really interesting comes up there, which is when we’re talking about motivation. And we’re talking about, you know, carrot versus stick and following your passion and all of these things.

There’s some really interesting thoughts to be had about why are you resistant? And when you start looking at, okay, are you a writer in the sense that you are compelled to write things or are you passionate about your subject and writing is the medium you need to use to communicate with people about that subject, because I think those are very different kinds of creatives and the challenges you’re gonna face, like if writing is not a very comfortable medium for you, but it’s what you need to do to get your message, whether it’s, you’re writing a book about your subject matter, uh, Expert area, or whether you are writing blog posts to share what you know with people, or if you’re writing a novel, because you have a story that you really think needs to be told, and people need to be able to access, those are completely different experiences with different, potential blockages sources of fear or stumbling blocks. So I think there’s, there’s some interesting things to think about in terms of, for your own self out there, listeners, what is it that is stopping you from showing up at your desk? Is it that writing is actually not your medium because then things like dictation or,  you know, video, maybe, maybe it’s not actually a book you need to be writing.

Maybe you, you want to be video blogging. Maybe you want to be doing something else. And I I’m sure you see this in your clients, but if you are lit up about something, you shouldn’t need strategies to motivate you to do it, it should be the thing that you wake up excited to do. Just like you said, at the beginning of this episode, once you’ve figured out what you are passionate about doing, getting up early to go to work is the reward, right? And so if you feel like what you’re motivating yourself to do is punishment or like not a good experience you need to look at what you’re not enjoying about that process, because forcing yourself to do stuff you don’t want to do, isn’t the way to get you to your passion.

And you’re going to see diminished returns, and you’re going to not want to keep going. You don’t have the inherent reinforcement in that, that you need. If that’s the case.

Claire O’Connor: A hundred percent. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And I, when you were talking at the beginning, I was like nodding my head so much and thinking I so agree because you’re right that writing might not be your medium. And I have met so many people who say, I’m like, Oh, I need to do a, you know, I need to write a blog. I need to start a blog or I need to be on social media. And you can tell from there, you know, the physical thing as well that they don’t want to do it. There’s something you’d rather be doing, perhaps that, like you say, perhaps like right on video or perhaps doing an audio, but it would be fantastic, whatever it is, but and I’d say to people as well in that instance, think about your reader as well, or the person at the end and think about the energy you’re bringing to them. You know, if you sit down and you’re forcing yourself to bright day in, day out, you know, you’re think about what you’re bringing, what’s going to be on the page is going to be kind of, Oh, It comes across somehow, you know, like I don’t want to be here, you know, very flat. Yeah. Whereas you can hear when you’re talking to somebody, you know, it’s, I love doing video you can, you can see the people that love, you know, doing their YouTube channels or their podcasts.

Like, you know, you can see your like for you, you’re smiling. You can hear it in your voice. Right. But yeah, I don’t, I think life’s too short to do something that you really don’t want to do. And of course, we all have days where we’re losing motivation, you know, it’s not, it’s not about having one day feeling a bit bad and giving up.

[But it’s saying, yeah, if you consistently that writing, isn’t your medium for consistently, like it’s like stopping yourself from doing it. Find something else then, and we live in an age where there are also many things that we can do, which is fantastic.

Crystal: Yeah. There’s more options than ever before, as far as communicating with your audience. And get I think things out there I have an 80 20 rule for myself, that if I wake up more than two mornings out of 10 and I don’t want to do the thing I’m supposed to be doing that day, then I have to make a change because that just means there’s something that needs to be adjusted and it doesn’t mean you have to necessarily quit your job or you have to, you know, give up on the book you’re writing or whatever it just means something’s got to shift.

So is it the time of day you’re doing certain things? Is it like your own mental story about that thing? Like if I say, Oh, I have to do this versus, I get to do this. It’s a completely different bodily experience. So the language you use in your self-talk makes a massive amount of difference. So I think that’s something that we don’t realize how powerful we are in our own heads and that ultimately we’re writers.

We are the authors of our own stories internally and externally. So I think that’s a really interesting opportunity. Um, and I’m curious, have you ever had to have the conversation with somebody where you’re like, I will hold you accountable, but are you sure he wants to do this?

Claire O’Connor:  Yeah, I totally have. Yeah. And I don’t want to get too personal with my clients, but I have had that experience where, and even like, I should do email accountability, which is great for introverts. I do email and text accountability. So for my six months accountability program, I check in with people on email each week. And the idea is that they don’t, I spend long on the email, yhey don’t have videos to watch. They don’t have conference calls, we cut all of that out. So they’re literally just focusing on their tasks. But it’s funny that even through email, I can tell when someone… I can tell when they’re passion is wavering. I can tell when they’re forcing themselves. I mean, of course I kind of joke with my clients that I don’t know if you’re in the bath when you write your email.

I don’t know if you’re wearing your pajamas. I don’t, you know, I don’t care if it’s four in the morning, but I can tell the level of, I suppose, commitment and level of passion. So you have a questionnaire that I do with my clients that I’ve been working on for awhile. And I say like, I’m I guessed your commitment and your passion.

Can you let me know what it is out of 10? And they rate themselves on out of a scale of one to 10 and normally I’m pretty spot on. Yeah. So yeah, even on email, you can tell whether someone is, whether there is that spark there and that passion. Yep. And what else, there were two other things you brought up that I was nodding my head in emphatically at.

Oh yeah. There were two things. I was going to say one was that as writers as well. We know already that language is so important. So when you said about using it in watching the language we use, I think, yeah, that’s fantastic practice as a writer as well, because like you say, I have to kind of has that feeling of Oh, ‘obligation’.

Whereas ‘I get to’ or ‘I dare to’, you know, so think about the words that really worked for you and going on from that one word never works for me. And I wish we could ban is the word ‘should’ like, I, I hate that word, as soon as I hear someone using the word, I should, I know that there’s a disconnect. I know that they’re going down a path that probably isn’t meant for them.

So if you find yourself saying that, like I should be writing today, why should you? You know, because you want to, or because you feel you have to, or yeah. Language is massively powerful and how we talk to ourselves. I mean, I could probably talk about that for another two hours, so I’ll hold off. But I will say in a summary, yes, be aware of this year is incredibly powerful and you don’t just have to listen to your inner critic. You can combat that with a caring, I call it like a fairy girl person in your head. Like when your inner critic is saying, what you’ve written is terrible. You can counteract that with your favorite Goldman was saying, how do we know that who’s who are you to judge?

You know, why don’t you let your readers decide that like, let’s see, well, let’s come back and look at it in half an hour or a couple of days or something, and that’s not be so hard on us. Right?

Crystal: Absolutely. I developed this thing I used with my clients a lot when I was doing cognitive behavioral therapy and it was, I call it stop, drop and roll.

So it’s like the fire, you know, what you learned in school that, you know, if somebody you catch on fire, you stop, you drop to the ground and then you roll over because you’re trying to like put it all out. Right. But it works with your thoughts too. If you have a, like a persistent thought you can, picture yourself, just freeze the thought, drop it and then flip it over and reframe it. So if the thought is, you know, I can’t do this. I’m stuck. Then you freeze it, you drop it, you flip it over and you write in your journal and you say out loud, and you try to phrase it in the positive. So, I can do, I can write one paragraph today or I, you know, you can start with, I am not stuck. I can do the thing. So sometimes it does take that connecting sentence of, okay, your brain thinks you can’t so you can use the words your brain is using, but you add a word to make it positive. So, you know, I can do the thing and then, or what you will do or what you are doing stating it in the present also helps sometimes. So I am writing this paragraph I’m doing right now.

Claire O’Connor: This is happening. This is going to happen. It is happening. It has. Yeah. Yeah, and I love that you did CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy massively important and I think everyone could help themselves by learning about it. And I actually had a similar exercise I used to do in workshops, which is it’s very similar to what you were saying. Flipping a sentence from negative to positive. And I used to call it adding apart. And essentially you would I’d have people write down a thought that they were having about themselves or their work like, um, I don’t know. My writing is stupid or whatever your thoughts are and then I would have them at a coma and writing ‘but’, and then I would have them finish the sentence afterwards. And I do it all myself sometimes as well. You know, I find myself thinking, I don’t know. I might think, Oh, this blog post, I think, you know, this blog post isn’t that great. And then I’d say to myself, , how about: this blog post isn’t that great but I can work on it some more. You know, I will edit it tomorrow when I’m feeling fresh or, but, why don’t I let my readers decide that because quite often, you know, we are the harshest critics and so often I’ve sent out a piece of writing that I think, you know, I’m not sure how this is going to resonate, and I’ve got a really good response back from that.

You know, people saying, thank you so much for this. I needed this. So remember that you’ll probably your heart is critic and at that, but reframing the positive.

Crystal: Absolutely. All caps come up. Oh, there you go. Listeners, you have two options of how you can change those thoughts. Super easy to hand. And we didn’t charge you a penny for that professional advice. Okay, so now we have something really important to talk about because I’m noticing the time and there’s something that we really need to discuss very serious, whiskey bacon donuts.

Claire O’Connor: Oh yes. Okay, cool. I’m glad. So I’m glad you say this to the end because we don’t want any kind of mass hysteria.

Crystal: Yes, so let’s talk about that for a second. I know of one source in particular in Vancouver where one can acquire those. I’m curious where you get yours.

Claire O’Connor: Mine are [unintelligible}. It has to be like think they, they have done one or two donut shops and they just have done everything so well, so they’re expanding, but it’s still keeping that community vibe and they’ve still, like for me, I just see it as such an inspiring success story. And they do great donuts

Crystal: I was going to say for fellow celiacs out there, cartoons has gluten free donuts. And I had not had the doughnut in like 20 years. And then my cousin said, I found this place, you have to go, when we checked it out and it was fantastic. So we will put a link in the show notes, if anyone’s around Vancouver, then if you need a whiskey bacon donut, that is your place to go.

Claire O’Connor: And I think they were so, I mean, not, I don’t work for them, I must say, although that could be on commission, but they do free donut on your birthday. And they think, correct me if I’m wrong, but they do more than one choice for celiacs and gluten free. Is that right?

Crystal: Yes. They have actually a flavor options.

Claire O’Connor: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not like the gluten free and you’re like, Oh, that’s, the donut at the end. It’s like, they actually have to of these things and they cater for lots of people and yeah. And I guess we can link to that saying like, Know what you’re, you know, know what keeps you going use that reward system as well? If it works for you, I would not recommend having a whiskey bacon donut every day, at the end…

Crystal: You’re finished the book reward

Claire O’Connor: Finish the book a little extra than whiskey bacon donuts. You know, we’re talking a glass of something as well or whatever it is, but yeah, definitely.

Crystal: All right. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Claire. We will put all of the links to the things we talked about and the great resources you mentioned into the show notes.

So be sure to check there. And I just want to say thank you so much for coming out and sharing your tips, your knowledge and all of that good stuff with us today.

Claire O’Connor: So thank you so much. Yeah, I really enjoyed again. I really enjoyed chatting with you, so thank you very much. And yeah, I will look forward to connecting with you again soon in some way.

Post interview discussion

Michele: Okay, We watched the amazing, talk within Crystal and Claire. There are a couple of things that I really loves that that she said and I would like to spend a few minutes on these two points. And there was one thing that she said at the beginning about change and choices there. I think that it’s remarkable and it’s important for writers too.

She was saying at 30 she decided to, let’s say, dig a bit deeper and to find what should we wanted to do with her life. And so the story is that she started with accountability when an accountability partner via text messages with a friend and I found this, uh, really interesting and useful because it’s like an approach that we as writers can use on our everyday agenda.

So she gave me a very interesting point to explore, which is like, sometimes we, or not enough, we need the help from the outside world. It can be a friend with text messages. It can be, as I said, in previous episode, Crystal kicking my butt if I have a deadline to meet writing wise, it can be an app she gave an interesting suggestion on that note, we’re going to put the link on the show notes for you guys. It can be anything you want to, but sometimes we just have to recognize, there are other people out there in the world that’s somebody has good to help us we need to use them. And I think like once you give yourself the freedom to understand that you are not alone in your writing journey, in your authorpreneurial journey, whatever is the journey you are in, you’re going to rock it. You’re going to kill it. Uh, because you, know that you are more of a part of a team. You’re not a lone wolf. And there is no problem if  you like the idea of being a lone walf. But if you are a strategic lone wolf, your going get the help of the people you need. Same thin if you are, for example, in indie author, you need help with the cover if you can’t design your own cover, you need help with the editor you need help if you need somebody kicking your butt again,  with a partner that is telling you, you need to do this by this date. This is the important point that I really wanted to underline that Claire said, and that I think it’s very useful for all of us to understand. Sometimes we’re just not enough it’s okay to ask help to other people. And then between the many interesting things she said, another of the point that she mentioned was about space, physical space.

Crystal: Can we, can we pause? Can we go back? Cause I want to, I want to talk about that first thing before we go away

Michele: Oh, I’m so sorry. I was just going my way.

Crystal: There are two points. We’re going to make them.

Michele: And I’m wondering Crystal what you think about that.

Crystal: Yeah, I really like the idea that anytime you can make that change. You know, some of my favorite authors that I’ve worked with have been in their eighties, the first book that they had published. And I love that. And there’s also, we get kids who are like 10 years old, who are approaching us at conferences or at creative Academy.

And they’re, they’re ready to make a book. And I spent many, many years teaching the creative writing for children’s society and I’m mentoring kids who are writing their first book and because they’re part of this program, they actually were publishing their first books at age 10 or 11, and they were learning all the things of how to be an author and what that life looks like and learning how to follow through a project to the end.

And I really just love that there is really no age and there’s no requirements to be a writer in the same way that there are for a lot of other careers, you really can, maybe you can’t use your hands so you dictate maybe, you know, you don’t have to be able to get up and walk around. I feel like the accessibility in being a writer is quite high with all the technologies that we have available to us and the different ways of telling a story. So that is very cool. And I think there are so many opportunities to overcome whatever our limitations are, whether they are visible or not visible, often the things are on the inside, but because there’s no one right way to tell a story that we can pick our formats and pick our methods and pick our, our genre and our characters to suit whatever our lifestyle looks like and our capabilities look like. So I just think that’s a really neat piece of, of the storytelling life is yes absolutely. Dial in help from anyone and anything around you that will help get you to where you want to be.

I think we do have a lot of options for that, and it’s very exciting right now, especially to see all of the advancements in the way technology is working and all of the options that we really have for accessing our readers directly and getting those stories out there into the world in whatever way works for us. It’s very cool.

Michele: Yeah. And I think when she mentioned the app, like a, you’re going to be like shy and you’re going to be in your pajamas, but that’s basically not an excuse, with the resources we have today, the instruments we have today, the tools we have today. Anybody can use that, you don’t necessarily have to be like, for example, Creative Academy sprints, that’s something else that we can mention. Like you just have to be part of a community of people that want to do the same thing, and then it can be a writing sprint it can be an accountability partner. It doesn’t matter. It just your will. That’s the only thing that’s really, really matters.

And there was another thing that Claire said that I think it’s important to mention, or at least at least, it resonated with me if I can talk today. And, uh, it was, the importance that she had with this space and with the rest. Space I mean physical space and rest, like sleeping, getting to sleep. It is something that I actually notice on my day to day schedule. If I don’t get enough rest, I’m not able to produce as nearly as a good content as I can, if I’m resting for example. And sometimes I tried to convince myself that I don’t need that much rest, which is bad. And I know a lot of people doing that.

Some people need like six hours of sleep a day. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But some of them might need like seven or eight. I know people that need ten to eleven and I’m not going to give names. But yes, you need that rest, Crystal. You need to be enable to recharge your body in whenever way you think is best for you. And the other thing is this space physical space means where ask her a question, ask yourself this question. Where do you usually sit if you writing sitting, when you’re going to write. Look around. What is it like the writing space? There’s something interesting that has been said before by, Steven Pressfield, the author the War of Art. And he was like, there was a moment in my life that I was doing writing, when I lived in my car, he lived in a car and the car like, had like everything in it, like dresses, shoes, any stuff, any single time you had to write he had to locate the machine. The typewriter. Yes. Thank you for that. Okay. Okay. Dig that out of like socks and stuff anyways. Right. And then he was like, this is no way to welcome the Muse, using his own words. And I think it’s something similar to what, she’s been set as saying in the interview, like, you need space, you need peace of mind.

.And I don’t care if you write the best in a disorganized the mayhem kind of space, then so be it, but you have to understand what it is that works for you. And it does inform me, for example, usually I can be in a coffee shop, uh, but it needs to be in the morning. If it’s not in the morning, I’m going to have some problems.

it needs to be usually like a surface that only have my notebook, my pen and my Mac book that’s. And I’m curious to know, like, if you have some similarities with me or if you do both for the resting part and for the writing space part, it’s something similar, it’s something completely different. What do you do?

Crystal: I am very, very guarded about my sleep. So I make very sure that I get enough sleep every night. Very occasionally that doesn’t happen, but that is the way that I get so much done. The rest of the time is I sleep eight hours. Bare minimum for sure. And if things have been really crazy, then it’s probably more like 10.

And that’s just what I need to run my brain at the capacity that it runs at. And I spend most of the hours in the day in taking information and learning things and processing things and creating things. I don’t do a ton of what I call passive downtime. Even if I’m watching Netflix, it’s usually I’m choosing shows that are related to the genre I’m writing in and I’m kind of breaking down, like which of these characters are pulling me in and why.

And I don’t count it as work because I love it and it’s what I think is fun. And so it, it’s not like I feel overburdened, like I’m working all the time. It’s just that that’s what I’m passionate about and excited about and what lights me up. And so it generates energy but it burns a lot of energy at the same time when you’re, when you are really passionate about what you’re doing, it  requires a lot of feeding that in terms of fresh air and in terms of that sleep has to happen.

I can feel the processing speed in my brain lower. If I didn’t get enough sleep and I can feel that my body hurts quicker and that things don’t do what they’re supposed to do. And so for me, that’s kind of my number one priority is protecting the hours that I’m asleep and making sure the environment I’m sleeping in doesn’t have any other things and that that’s something that I can do. Obviously, there are times when that doesn’t work perfectly, you know, lately there’s been some strange dreams and some, just weird mental processing going on with the state of the world. And so, you know, you have to make allowances and so that means I might have to make a couple hours in the afternoon to get some more sleep then if I couldn’t get it in the night.

And so I tend to just not, not focus on if it’s not working, I will just get up and do something. And then I’ll go back to bed and then I’ll just adjust my schedule because I do have the freedom to do that. So that is one advantage of living the author’s life in a very full way is that you can adjust your schedule as you need to around other appointments presentations and things like that.

So, I think just giving yourself permission to do that is important because when your brain is your tool, you can’t always control when and how it’s going to work. Um, sometimes the story idea will come late at night and then you’re suddenly very inspired and you want to just act on that. And so habits routines are great as a backup structure, but I think you do have to be willing if something kind of hits you to act on it then, or you do sometimes lose that momentum that you could have had.

Michele: What about the space? Usually you write in that office a lot. So I think like we spoke about this before, and you told me when you were at the beginning you wrote three books in a coffee shop, but I know. So tell me a bit more about that.

Crystal: Yeah. I’m easily distracted. So coffee shops are hard for me. The coffee shop worked great when, well, we actually aren’t, you know, if our daughter was living with us and we had a small apartment and if concentrating at home is hard, then a coffee shop can be a good alternative. My preference is actually writing not completely alone. I write really well if my husband is in the house with me, but not in the same room and not talking to me, but he will be working on his own creative projects in one area and I will be like sitting on the couch or whatever, and he’ll be on the chair. We’ll both be on separate laptops. We both have headphones on, we can’t hear each other, but it’s just like a nice energy and that it feels not so isolated. So that actually works really well. For me, it isn’t necessarily the physical space. It’s that I have, I put rain sounds on the headphones or I put one song on repeat. We talked about this a bit when we talked about our work from home episode. So, you know, there’s a little bit of repeat there, but it is very much about, I use a keyboard, a separate keyboard that is not attached to my computer and does not have the internet.

And I just slipped my phone in it or the small iPads that I can’t see very much. It’s just the words on the page. And then I go nuts there. So it just depends what stage of the writing process really. The curious jar has made an appearance. Serious businesses happening here. Okay. So the curious jar is back. You see the shiny papers if you’re watching this on YouTube, all different colours, like a rainbow cause that makes me happy much like my highlighter collection. I’m going to dig around in here. Tell me when to stop.

What are some of the jobs you’ve had while you were building your writing career and how did they help you become the writer you are today?

Michele: Go, go, go. Stop now.

Crystal: Yellow.

Michele: We never had a yellow.

Crystal: Okay. Brace yourself. What are some of the jobs you’ve had while you were building your writing career and how did they help you become the writer you are today?

Michele: Oh I can answer to this in a second.

Crystal: Do it. Dive in.

Michele: So I worked, as a project assistant for company based in Vancouver, a language base company. Basically what they did was like translation of things from one language to the others and they need these kinds of projects and stuff.

And so what I got to do was, I got to meet a lot of people that spoke different languages. So people from Mexico, Italy, Quebec, France from Europe, and US, Canada, Germany, Austria. Yeah. Anyways, a lot of them. And, one of the policy of the this job was like that you had to be very welcoming because like the environment that they were in was a bit weird. And it was different. And so when I greeted people from, different culture, one thing that I learned and that I believe I internalize and I apply then on my books and sometimes on characters is that, uh, every single one of them, people from different parts of the world we’ll have a different expectation on the project they were about to, to undergo with me, because I was the person that was going to give to them specific instructions for that project. And so every single time,  the thing that I had to do with them was to make them feel comfortable so that project would have been done flawlessly, and in time, because we had like one person after the other.

And then, I did that and then I was thinking of something because every single time there is an experience that I do I just think, how can I apply this to my writing? And then I realized after a few, a weeks ,after a few months. When I created the character, I put that character in a situation similar to these people from around the world.

And I would ask myself, how would this character in this situation react based on these, for example, nationality or background? So it seems like a bit weird if you think about that. There’s a bit of this, uh, on, Build Better Character from, Eileen Cook. Like she also said the background is so important for characters and that it was a job that taught me, yes, that actually makes sense. Like the background,  set up expectation from the person that is in front of you.

So, yeah, I just thought, I don’t know if it makes any sense to you, but really that was one of the job that’s really taught me a lot about character creation. So I don’t know if you have something similar on that side, but I really thought this question was smart and I loved it.

Crystal: There you go. You can make friends with the curious jar. It does not bear you ill intent. Yeah. The questions are neutral. I’m older than you. I’ve had a lot of jobs. I tend to, I tended when I was younger to have multiple jobs as well at any given time I would work evenings, weekends all the time.

I did all of the expensive education and I had to pay for that. So I have had I think my, I think my max was about five jobs at the same time for a few months period, while I was trying to get enough money to I do my masters in Ireland, but they’ve been all over the map, because my parents owned their own businesses always.

And I often worked for them growing up and also I just was in small towns. And so you just, you do whatever you can in that situation to make what you need. So I have had every single role in a restaurant except hostess. I don’t think I’ve ever officially been a hostess, but yeah, I’ve been a dishwasher.

I worked in kitchens for years and years and years as a line cook. I was a server in everything from a Cola diner to fancy catering, to bars and nightclubs. I was in management and restaurant for a little while I have done childcare, I was a live in nanny, a behavioral therapist,  working with children with autism for a long time, I was, I taught at the university courses on academic writing.

I was a TA in psychology, I’ve taught workshops for kids. I have done leadership seminars all around the province with student councils and things like that. I have worked in construction sites and, I’ve been a property manager, of like rentals I have done about everything you could imagine actually at one point or another in some contexts or other.

So I think the way that that really helped with my writing is that when I’m looking at building my town of river’s end and I need all the people who live there to be able to do all of these different careers, I have a bit of an insight track into what a lot of them are and any job that I haven’t had, I have a massive family so the chances are good that one of my family members either does that job or is married to somebody who does that job. And so between all of that, I think that’s the sort of benefit to my writing is understanding what it feels like to do those jobs. You know, I’ve worked in housekeeping, I’ve been a lifeguard I’ve collected garbage from around the resort my parents own like there, there wasn’t really anything glamorous about it, it was really just digging in and doing what you have to do to make your life work. And I think that is valuable from a personal development point of view, as a writer, deciding like, I want to do this badly enough, I’m willing to do just about anything else to make it happen.

And, and also from a, as you said, digging into character development and building out real people’s experiences, if you have some sense of what those things feel like, it brings you a really different approach to creating those characters. And you can put a piece of yourself into that in a really authentic way, you can remember in harvest the emotions and really make that work for you.

So now we want to know you, what are, and I’m going to read this off the page again, so we get it right, but we want you to go to strategicauthorpreneur.com. You can answer this question for us, whether that’s on the podcast website or on YouTube or wherever you are right now, we want you to tell us what are some of the jobs you’ve had while you’re building your writing career and how did they help you become the writer you are today? How are they contributing to your success as an author?

So please do send us some more curious jar questions. The jar is running a little bit low at the moment. I mean, we’re so few, we’ve got a little bit of time, but we need to build up our collection. So ideas@strategicauthorpreneur.com is where those questions should go, so that we can answer you.

Michele:  And for show notes, links to resources that we mentioned and coupons or discount on tools we love, we invite you to visit us at strategicauthorpreneur.com. Also subscribe to the newsletter and each week we’ll make sure to email you just one thing, Yeah, we think without you on your authorpreneur journey and a link to our latest episode.

Crystal: You’ll get a gold star and a million bonus points in the game of life if you leave us a review, wherever you listen to this podcast, we love to hear what you’re enjoying about this show and what you’re finding helpful so any comments you can leave will help us with that. And of course, star ratings go a long way to helping other people find us and our show. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy life to get to know us and be sure to subscribe.

So you don’t miss out on the next episode where we will be taking a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities of writing short. So short stories, novellas, and novelettes, as far as length goes will be our focus. And we are gonna share all kinds of stuff that we have learned as we both have been writing fairly extensively in those short areas.

Thanks so much. We’ll see you next time. See you next week.

Michele: See you next week. Bye bye.

Crystal: Okay. Um, well, let’s see, let’s dive in and do the first part first and the second part second, and then we’ll be good.

Michele: Let’s do this. I really need to cut my hair.

Crystal: You’ve got the Italian shirt thing going. So you can just go with that now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you just, you can just always say, this is just Italian. This is just stylish. And we all know Italy is ahead in fashion of Canada, right?

Welcome to episode 16 of the…

Michele: After 16 times you can’t say it right.

Crystal: After 16 times I can’t say it right. Okay.

Michele: Did you see her? She is my friend.

Crystal:  I spent my allowance on this week was, new highlighters in all of the colors because I have all of these nonfiction books to read. Second night, hit stop. Then you say something really funny. I am. Recording everything now. I’m a teachable monkey. I was looking not at the camera because of where things were on my screen and Oh, I talk too much with my hands or whatever.

I don’t think that’s a problem either. Clearly. I don’t think that’s a problem.

Claire O’Connor: What you still doing here? Go and find your accountability buddy, and start working.