Every night I read to my daughter.
The Hobbit, Harry Potter, The Dark is Rising . . .
Most recently, I’ve been reading her The Pages Turners trilogy (written by yours truly).
It got me thinking about the process of rereading our own work and how our opinion about what is good, and what isn’t, changes over time.
In this episode of The Writing Coach podcast, I discuss how the ever-changing perspective we have about our own art functions at the macro and micro levels, and how you can use that perspective to get through those particularly challenging writing days.
Listen to the episode or read the transcript below:
The Writing Coach Episode #132 Show Notes
Get Kevin’s FREE book: NOVEL ADVICE: MOTIVATION, INSPIRATION, AND CREATIVE WRITING TIPS FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS.
The Writing Coach Episode #132 Transcript
Hello, beloved listeners and welcome back to The Writing Coach podcast. It is your host, as always, writing coach Kevin T. Johns.
I am recording this episode on Friday, August 19th. It’s going to be released today as well. How’s that for fresh? How’s that for a quick production? You’re hearing this the same day I recorded it. If you’re listening to the day it was released. Time, calendars, these are things that actually matter right now because given we’re nearing the end of August, it is the end of the summer. Kids are going back to school in a couple of weeks and the end of the year is only four months away. And now is the time to start asking yourself, did you accomplish the things you wanted to accomplish in 2022? If you started writing the first draft of a manuscript this year, I suspect you anticipated being done it by the end of this year.
Are you going to be, if not consider joining my FIRST DRAFT group coaching program, the outcome of the program is simple: I’m going to help you finish the first draft of your manuscript before the end of the year. And that first draft is going to read like a third draft, and it’s actually going to be fun to write. Inside FIRST DRAFT, we take distracted focus, and we turn it into focused progress on your manuscript. We take any existing skillset gaps in the fundamentals of writer’s craft, and we help develop that skillset. We fill your toolbox with craft tools that you can use to improve your writing. We take the emotional roller coaster ride with all of its ups and downs that is writing a book, and we turn it into a community environment where you are able to get your work completed with the support of a community of writers who are going to provide fun and friendship to the entire writing process.
If you want to get the first draft of that manuscript finished before the end of 2022, now is the time to join FIRST DRAFT. Head on over to my website and grab the free book I offer there: Novel Advice: Motivation, Inspiration, and Creative Writing Tips for Aspiring Authors. Get on my mailing list, hit reply, and let me know you are interested in learning more about FIRST DRAFT and I’ll get you all the information you need, but how we work, what the program offers, what dates we meet and all the information you need to make a decision about whether you want to finish that book this year or not.
Speaking of books, isn’t that what we always talk about here? For the most part, I read to my middle daughter every single night before bed. My, we have a program, my wife and I, my wife puts my youngest to bed and then I put the middle child to bed and then the youngest falls asleep quickly.
So then my wife goes and puts the oldest to bed while I’m putting the middle of one to bed. All of which is to say every night, my middle child. And I read together once a year, we read The Hobbit, and we’ve read the entire Harry Potter series together. We’ve read all of The Dark is Rising series. And most recently I’ve actually been reading her my trilogy, The Page Turners. The first two books are published and the third one I’m drafting or finishing up right now. And so it’s been a really, really special experience reading my novels, my stories to my own child. And it’s a great reminder of how novels are really futureproof. Novels don’t go out of style. <Laugh> Novels aren’t like a video game where the technology changes and now we can no longer access that game books are there and they’re there forever.
And it’s really amazing to put a bunch of heart and soul and time and energy into creating something a decade ago that I can now pull off the shelf and read to my daughter. I mean, if you have not yet written a book, it’s an amazing feeling to finish that project and to have it there. And to know that is going to be there forever or as long as books are in print. And that’s a really special thing. Now, revisiting my books, reading them out loud, these Page Turner’s books, that’s what they’re called. The series is called The Page Turners. I have not read them in many, many years. And so it was a really interesting process revisiting those first two novels. Those were two of the first books I ever wrote, and I’ve now written probably 15 books. I’ve written four novels, three writing instructional books, and two children’s picture books.
And then about half a dozen books that I’ve ghostwritten largely in the business and leadership field. I’ve written a lot of books at this point. And so it was particularly interesting to go back and look at my first book, the first Page Turners book, in some ways, I think it’s a great book. It’s got all the naive of a, a young author who doesn’t know what he is doing, but <laugh>, but is really passionate about it. I, I can see myself finding myself as an author. I can also see myself trying to prove myself to the reader there are sections in the book that I wouldn’t call them purple, but I would call them overwritten. It’s I don’t, it’s more like I’m trying to show off how good a writer I am, as opposed to just using the most simple and clearest language possible to tell the story.
Back in that day, I was really interested in trying to do this thing where I was trying to mash up literary fiction with pulp fiction or commercial fiction, you know, and that’s the type of naive thing you do. <Laugh> when you’re young and inexperienced. I made all the mistakes. I would never recommend anyone making now. I was trying to merge literary fiction with commercial fiction. I was trying to merge horror with sci-fi in other genres. I, I had multiple points of view characters. I mean, all of these things that just complicate the process for the writer, but I, I think also distance the reader a bit in terms of their ability to really engage with the story. So, I mean, looking back at that book there are times where I’m really proud of my young, young author self and, and my ability to really execute, even if I, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. <laugh> But there are also times I look at it and I go: I would’ve done this differently. I would’ve done that very differently.
I mean, I remember there’s a chapter in that book where I just couldn’t get into the scene. I couldn’t figure out how to write the scene from the point of view character it needed to be in. And so I just moved the point of view to this random bystander down the hall and watching it all play out, and it works okay, I guess, but I mean, reading it now, I would never do that. I would just figure out a proper way to get the scene written with one of the point of view characters we already have established and who are key to the narrative, not just some bystander down the hall. So, I mean, there are times where I look at it, and I say, I definitely would’ve done that differently, but there are other times where I’m pretty impressed with my young self.
Then we moved on to the second book. So we read The Page Turners: Blood—that’s part one. And then we read the page Turner’s economy of fear, and I was actually blown away. <Laugh> I think it’s a really great book. I was really proud going back and reading it. It was much better than I remembered. I really feel like it’s a book with an author who’s firing on all cylinders. I think I had really learned how to execute my craft and I was feeling very confident as a writer, and I probably still had enough of that naivete that kind of powers you through. And you know, these get a lot more difficult once you become more experienced and a little more cynical. And I really love that book. So page Turner is economy of fear, check it out. I’m pretty proud of it, especially for a book again, pretty early in my career.
And here’s the thing though, looking back at book one and book two, like I said, I kind of mixed feelings about book one, really feeling great about book two. Now, if I go back and read these books again, five years from now, I might feel very different. Maybe I’ll think that the first book is much better than I feel like it is right now. Or maybe I’ll think that the second book isn’t quite as good as I currently feel like it is. And that’s because the emotional state that we’re in, when we read something, the state of the world who we are as people, how we’re feeling about ourselves, how we’re feeling about others, how we’re feeling about art, how much energy we have on any given day. All of these things change our perspective on the art that we create, whether or not we think our own work is terrible or extraordinary is not a static thing.
It changes over time, and we’ve been talking big picture stuff here right now. We’ve been saying, oh, I went back and looked at my books that I wrote 10 years ago, and I have different feelings about them, but what I want to talk to you about today and why I wanted to bring this topic up on today’s call is that this also happens on the micro level and over much, much shorter periods of time. I’ll give you an example from my own experience as an author, I have days where I’m writing and nothing’s working. I, I can’t get into the scene. It’s not very good. The words aren’t coming. And I, I put in my hours, I put in my day of work, but I say, well, that, that might be the worst thing ever written. And today wasn’t my day. I have other days where I sit down and things are rocking and rolling, they feel amazing.
And when I finish that writing session, I think to myself, that might be one of the greatest scenes ever written. I might be a literary genius <laugh> but here’s the thing. When I come back to those same two scenes a week later, even just a few days later, that extraordinary, brilliant stuff is never quite as good as I thought it was in the moment when I was riding the high of creating it. But you know what? Those terrible, terrible, bad scenes are never quite as bad as I thought either. And so when you come back and look at things again, you’re going to realize it. It’s not the highs and lows that we think things are much more in the middle than it feels at the time in the creative process. And so, I mean, if you are feeling like everything you write is incredible, cool ride that high, but on those days where you’re feeling like nothing’s working, just remind yourself that might have more to do with how you are feeling that day than what you’re actually putting down on the page.
And of course, there’s always going to be a dissidence between the story we see in our minds, this perfect version of the scene we have in our heads, and what ends up on the page. And the more immediate that transition is when you are in the process of trying to get something from your mind onto the page, it never feels quite right. But if you give yourself some time, come back a few days later, I’m pretty confident. You’re going to find it’s not nearly as bad as you thought. And this is largely because, while our opinion about our own writing changes over time, the fundamentals of craft don’t change over time.
At the beginning of this podcast episode, I said, “Hey, come join FIRST DRAFT. I can help you write an incredible first draft by the end of this year.” Why do I feel like I can make that promise?
Well, because I know the fundamentals of the craft. I know I can teach them to you. And I know that if you execute on them, you’re going to have a really good book. I don’t make any promises about best sellers or becoming a millionaire. I, I don’t know if your story is going to capture the zeitgeist of the moment, or if you are going to become the voice of your generation. But I do know that when you execute on the fundamentals of good story craft, you can feel confident that your book is going to be good, regardless of how you’re feeling it about it on that day, that moment in time.
S join FIRST DRAFT, and we can help even out those highs and lows with a little bit of community, a little bit of coaching, and a little bit of perspective. If you continue to learn the craft and execute on the fundamentals, you are going to create this thing that is going to live on after you.
You’re going to have written a book that you can put on the shelf and pull down decades later and read to your kid the way I’m reading my work to my kid, or maybe your kid’s kid is going to take your book off the shelf one day. And they’re going to want to see what grandma’s book was like or what grandpa’s book is like time changes our perspectives on our own work, but executing on craft fundamentals stands the test of time.
All right? I hope you enjoyed that talk.
If you want to check out the transcript of this episode, if you want to download my free book, Novel Advice: Motivation, Inspiration, and Creative Writing Tips for Aspiring Authors, head on over to www.kevintjohns.com. And if you are ready to get your first draft completed by the end of 2022, reach out to me, let’s get you all the information you need to find out about the FIRST DRAFT group coaching program. Get you into our community, get you trained up, get you coached up, get you motivated and making progress to make your book finished by the end of 2022 to make your book finished. “Make” your book finished? Oh, man. When my sentences start falling apart, you know what that means: time to call it the end of the episode. <Laugh>
All right, my friends. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode. Remember to hit subscribe, and I will see you next Friday on the latest episode of The Writing Coach.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
