Welcome to The Writing Coach. On this podcast, I speak with the instructors, editors, coaches, and mentors who help writers and authors create their art, build their audience, and sell their work.
In episode #122 of The Writing Coach podcast, we catch up with what I’ve been up to for the last six months, including:
- Why I specifically spent last November NOT participating in NaNoWriMo (and what I did instead)
- How a community of writers is a profoundly beautiful thing
- The exact moment I realized I had COVID (and what I did next)
- Why I gave away a $500 program for free last month
- And much more!
Listen to the full episode now or read the transcript below.
Episode #122 – Transcript
Hello beloved listeners, and welcome back to the writing coach podcast. It is your host as always writing coach Kevin T Johns here on this episode, we are going to do a little bit of a recap. It’s been a little while since our last episode of six months <laugh> or something like that, but you know what? It’s time to get back in gear. It’s time to start putting some podcasts out there. So wanted to get back into the groove. Do a little episode for you here, where we could talk a bit about what’s been going on. Where have I been? Why haven’t I been putting out podcast episodes? Oh, man. That’s bad. That’s bad. It’s supposed to be about you. How have you been, what have you been up to? How has your 2022 been so far? Has it been good? I hope it has been good. So much going on at his end.
Where do we start? Let’s start last October as a writer. You know what the fall season is about. It’s all about nano re home. Everyone’s getting geared up for it, deciding whether they’re going to participate or not. And throughout the years, I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings about nano in some ways. I think it’s amazing and awesome. So many people get excited about writing. Maybe people try writing a book who might never, never otherwise, um, do it. You know, those sorts of things are so wonderful. There are communities, and there are resources bringing people together, but I also have some problems with it. I mean, this it’s, it’s like saying the people, the people participating often are trying to produce a professional quality book and it’s like trying to be a professional hockey player in a month. It’s like, you know, let’s, let’s just put on some skates and skate for, for an hour and 18 minutes a day, every single day in November.
And by the end of it, maybe we’ll be professional hockey players. Well, <laugh>, you know, you probably get a lot better. You probably have a lot of fun. You get to play a lot of hockey, but that’s a long way off from being a professional hockey player. So last October I was thinking about how might we better spend our October as writers? And what I ended up coming up with was story plan intensive. And this is a four-week program where I took people through the process of planning a book, I think a month is a ridiculous amount of time to try to write a novel in. But I think it’s a perfect amount of time to plan an incredible novel. So what I did last November was I pitched this program. We got a ton of people to join it. And the offer was to plot your book in 30 days, you know, finish the month with an incredible outline that sets you up for long-term success, rather than blowing all your energy.
Trying to write a book in one month’s time. And I got to say it was a huge success. We had like 80 or 90% of the people in the program completed their outlines. You know, I made the promise 30 days to a, a really rock-solid outline. They did it. And in, in, in addition to kind of the work and the learning that happened, there’s also a really nice community that was forged. And so before the program was even over, they started asking me, well, well, what’s next? You know, we, we planned our novels. How do we write them now? And so, uh, we took December off, you know, everyone went and, and did their December stuff. And while they were doing that, I was planning my next group program and where that ended up was first draft. And the first draft program was a 20-week program.
And the idea was, write your book in 20 weeks. So we planned it in four weeks. I promise them spend these four weeks with me. You’ll get your book planned in four weeks. And then now this was my new promise. Join this program. And 20 weeks from now, you’re going to have a first draft of a book completed. And a lot of the people from story plan rejoined and signed up. So we were able to keep that community together. And <laugh> for me, I mean, they were working their butts off, you know, they were in there week after week working on their novels. The, uh, interesting thing for me was a component of the program was I promised them, I’d give them a new training course every week for 20 weeks. And it was amazing. It, you know, that was a lot of pressure on me to come up with content, uh, to record the videos, to edit the videos, to process them, get them loaded to YouTube and whatnot.
I mean, it was, it was 20 weeks of intensive work, but it was so amazing to finish it and have 20 mini-courses, you know, sitting there completed that I can use to help writers write better for, you know, the next decade. Uh, and I was teaching things I’d never taught before. I’d always avoided having a formal approach to teaching point of view. I, I, in the way, some writers are intimidated by point of view. I think I was intimidated about teaching it for some reason, but I, you know, I, I, I knew that was something I was going to have to teach. So I did an intense week of, of prep work and research and studying for point of view. Uh, I did a really fun week on punctuation, something, you know, I taught punctuation in, uh, when I was doing my master’s degree in English literature 20 years ago.
<laugh>, you know, it had probably been 20 years since I gave a lot of thought to, you know, conjunctions and, and, uh, semicolons and, and when to use a comma or not. And it was really great to dive back into those things. So anyway, week after week after week, I was producing, producing, uh, content for my clients and my clients for producing pages. So that first draft, uh, group was really, really great. And the success that we saw in story plan in terms of them achieving the goal of planning a book, but also forging a community. Uh, I saw that happen again in first draft. It was really cool to see writers come together and, uh, support one another and care about one another and cheer one another on, you know, as a coach, uh, particular as a coach, who’s been focused on one, on one coaching for, I mean the last probably four or five years, I’ve been really, uh, focused on one on one.
It was nice to get back to this idea of community building and say, Hey, I don’t necessarily have all the answers, but as a community, we can come together and find the answers. And in the answers, aren’t the same for everyone. One writer’s answer is another writer’s, you know, problem and vice versa. And so, you know, it was so beautiful and fun and amazing, to spend 20 weeks, uh, actually 21 weeks going through that program and also creating that program. Now I say 21 weeks because it was a 20-week program, but we ended up having what I call COVID summer break. So yes, after two years of being pretty obsessively, uh, afraid of COVID, I mean, mostly afraid of my family getting it, um, really, really worried about my kids, my wife, I’m so terrified of them getting sick, you know, as a parent, uh, that’s all you think about as, as a parent and a husband, all you think about is keeping your family healthy and safe.
And so for two years, that was really my focus, um, probably too much. So, uh, I was pretty obsessed with being safe and not going out and, and washing hands and sanitizing and, and all of that. But in the end, uh, on Easter Sunday, we, uh, I, I, I was working with a client. I finished the one on one coaching call. I went upstairs and, for some reason walking up the stairs, I kind of had this feeling that kind of hit me. And I said, oh, I’m sick. <laugh> and we’ve been so careful for two years that I, it was pretty clear to me immediately. Cause I was like, oh, I haven’t felt this in two years. This is kind of weird. And, and right away I knew something was off. And I said to my wife, I, I think I might have COVID <laugh> and she’s like, oh my goodness, Kevin, you, you overreact to everything.
You don’t have COVID, but you know, I’ll, I’ll give you a test, uh, just to make sure, so, you know, put your mind at ease. And so she gave me the test and she was like, oh my goodness, Kevin, you have COVID. And then she tested herself <laugh> and she had C and then she tested my oldest daughter and she had COVID and then a couple of days later, my middle child got COVID and all week my wife had been feeling off, but she had been blaming it on allergies, but no, it, it was COVID and we all got pretty sick. There were four or five days there where we were really down and out and <laugh>, you know, so many people have had it at this point. But for those of you who haven’t, it’s just crazy. it’s every symptom you’ve ever had from any sickness, like randomly at any time.
So, you know, you just wake up and you’re like, what’s going on at this man? Does my throat hurt? Am I coughing up phlegm? Do I feel like I have a SINED this infection? Am I coughing horribly? Am I sneezing everywhere? Am I pouring sweat with a fever? Am I shaking with chills? Am I utterly exhausted because I had insomnia all night, the night before? It was just, you know, it was, it was the thing P it’s no joke COVID is no joke. And I, I can absolutely see how people who have other conditions and, and, and are elderly could absolutely be taken out by this thing because my wife, my daughters, they got over it in, in about a week’s time. But this is me recording in June. So I got COVID on Easter Sunday. It’s June now. And I am still coughing. I’ve been coughing phlegm for months, weeks and months.
My throat still hurts. It’s crazy. It, it, it is a, a crazy thing. So anyway, all of which is to say, first draft had to, to take a spring break. We took a week off so that I could try to recover from that COVID. And then, uh, we got back to work and finished up the program and finished up the program strong again, it was kind of that 80% range where most people finished the first draft in that time. And if they didn’t, they were really happy with the progress that they made and nearly there. And, and again, similar to story plan where people started saying, well, what’s next in first draft people started saying, well, we’re, we’re getting to the end of our 21 weeks. Um, what’s next? And so that kind of became my focus last month, may in may I developed a new program for the folks graduating from first draft, but I also needed to find new folks <laugh> to start the new round of first draft.
And I’d seen so much success with story plan, which was a paid program, a $500 program. I gave folks a bit of a discount because it was the first round, but it was a serious program with a ton of material, but I was also really proud of it and really proud of how it worked. Like, I think it’s a good course. I share a lot of material, but it also succeeds in getting the people, the results that they want, which at the end of the day is all that matters. And so I had this idea. I was like, what if I just give it away? What if rather than this being a $500 course, it’s a four-week free challenge and I just gave it away. And that’s what I did. So last may about 125 people signed up and they did story plan for free and the folks who, I mean, you know, anytime you do anything for free people, don’t value something that you give away for free.
And so there was a big drop off about halfway through which wasn’t a surprise to me, but the folks who stuck with it, the folks who were dedicated, the people who did the homework, saw the exact same results that I got the first time I ran the program, which again was so rewarding, but it was also really interesting because it brought a bunch of new people into my, you know, my world, my community that I wasn’t familiar with before, most of the people who’d gone through story plan. The first time were people I’d somehow worked with in the past via one-on-one coaching group coaching, they’d been attending a bunch of my webinars or things like that. But this time the people who did the story plan challenge were largely new people. And at the end of story plan again, I said, Hey, if you want to continue join first draft.
And I had big bunch of people did it all over again. And that kind of brings us up to where we are now, the first week of June, uh, where we’re just finished our first week of first draft and final draft, which is the program for the folks who graduate from first draft. Um, I’m meeting all sorts of new writers. Um, some of my one-on-one cl clients have joined the group coaching program. And it’s really interesting. I, I, as I said, one on one is so intense and you’re working so closely with something it’s really a, a collaboration it’s you and someone on a really intense, really regular schedule working on a project together. Whereas a group coaching is much more of community building it. It’s about bringing the right people together and then letting them kind of decide what it is and what the feel is and, and how it all works.
And of course, as a coach and a leader, it’s my responsibility to set the values and set the tone. But at the same time, everyone brings their own knowledge and background experience to a group coaching program. And, uh, so that is where I am now, where we’re in the very early days of first draft round two. I have amazing, I, so there are about 15 people in the program right now. It’s just an incredible group of writers. I’m so excited to be working with them, but like I said, I was also really excited to meet a lot of new people through story plan and, uh, get to know some amazing writers through that program. So that’s it. If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, uh, I, I haven’t been, you know, like laying in a field, looking at the sky, uh, with like a, a piece of straw in my mouth daydreaming.
I wish that was what I could say was happening, but no, I have been working my butt off trying to develop the best material possible for writers out there to get them to where they want to be, to achieve the goals that they want to achieve as quickly as possible, but also as painfully as possible. I mean, that’s the thing, you know, I started out really saying, just work your ass off. That’s how you succeed, work, work, work. But you know, I’m, I’m in my forties and I’m at a point now where I, I kind of think the, probably the best way to succeed is to work, work, work, but the way you work, work, work without burning out is by having fun by, by really getting some laughs out of it. And when I think of the job I want, you know, I want a job where I go to work every day and I laugh and we have fun.
And that’s what writing can be writing can be joyful. Uh, yes, we, in, in the programs that I run, we work very hard, but we also have fun. And, and that’s the, I, I am at a point in my life where it’s, something is not worth doing if it’s not fun for me. And if it’s not fun for the people involved. And so I’m having a lot of fun, uh, we’re midway through 2022, I guess we’re going into the summer. The kids are finishing up school and I’m feeling really helpful. I think the second half of this year is gonna be amazing. And I really think I’m going to be able to help a lot of writers. And there was a time when, you know, when I started this podcast, if you go back 120 episodes or whatever it is, seven years or whatever, and go back to the early episodes, I was recording those episodes, asking myself, can I do this?
Can I be a coach? Can I help writers? Can I teach professionally, can I be an entrepreneur? Can I run my own business? Is any of this possible? And now, you know, almost a decade later, I’m at a point where I’m saying to myself, not, can I be a writing coach? I’m at the point now where I’m saying, can I be one of the best writing coaches? What can I do to be the top 1% of writing coaches out there in the world? What can I do to continually up my game, to continually help my clients and just get people to that happy place, to where they want to be quicker and better and easier and with more fun. And so that’s really my focus. So, um, you know, that’s where I’ve been, that’s where I’m at getting better, continuing to work, continuing to try to be the best writing coach that I can be.
I mean, and that’s maybe the other thing, you know, there’s the time in my life where I was saying, I’m an author and I’m gonna coach other authors to make money, to support my writing as an author. Uh, but some point in here, I, I, I kind of had this revelation, which was, you know, Kevin, you weren’t really put on this earth to write books. You know, you’ve written, you’ve written a dozen books. You’ve done that. You know, that was one of the things that you were meant to do, perhaps, but I really feel like I’m here to teach writers and help writers. And so, um, it’s nice to feel mission-focused. It’s nice to, I mean, there are so many things about getting old, getting old is not easy. You know, that COVID hit me pretty hard. My kids, you know, they bounced back within a week.
They were feeling great. It’s been months. I’m still battling it. Yeah. There’s, there’s a lot of hard things that come along with getting old, but there’s also a lot of amazing things like becoming more and more clear on who you are and what your purpose in life is and what your mission is, what you want to achieve, where you want to get in the time that you have. And, uh, so that’s where I’m at. Let me know, where are you at? Are you on my email list? If you’re on my email list, go to the last email I sent you hit reply, and let me know where you’re at. Um, if you’re not on my email list, head on over to Kevin T johns.com. There’s a free book there. My book, novel advice, uh, uh, inspirational motivation, and writing tips for writers. I think that’s the subtitles, something like that.
And over there and, and get that book for free and get on my mailing list. And then let me know, what are you working on? What has 2022 been like for you and, um, where you at, in your life, in your writing career, are, are you feeling mission-focused like me? Are you clear on what it is you’re going to achieve in the next year or the next couple of years? I want to know. So thank you so much for tuning in it. It’s been a little while, and I’m so glad to welcome you back to the podcast, and I will see you on the next episode of The Writing Coach.
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