In this episode of The Writing Coach Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Emma Dhesi, a talented book coach who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the world of writing. We dive deep into her journey as a writer and coach, her unique approach to storytelling, and her personal and professional insights on crafting a fulfilling writing life.
Emma shares her transformative journey from actress to librarian to accomplished book coach, describing the moments that shaped her passion for storytelling. Her story reminds us of the power of perseverance and the importance of finding joy in the process, even when the path isn’t always straightforward.
Emma also describes the “Four Pillars of Author Success”—a roadmap she developed through her own experiences and coaching practice. Whether you’re penning your first chapter or navigating the complex world of publishing, these pillars offer valuable insights to help you find clarity, stay motivated, and, importantly, enjoy the ride.
Tune in to hear Emma’s thoughts on navigating the ups and downs of writing, the joy of community and mentorship, and why having fun along the way is essential for a sustainable and fulfilling creative career. This conversation is packed with warmth, insight, and practical wisdom—a must-listen for anyone committed to growing as a writer.
Listen now!
The Writing Coach Episode #210 Show Notes
Get Emma’s FREE resource covering the 4 Pillars of Authors Success here.
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The Writing Coach Episode #210 Transcript
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Welcome to the show, Emma.
Thanks so much, Kevin. It’s great to be here with you.
You are in Scotland, in Edenborough.
That is correct.
I grew up absolutely in love with Irvin Welsh’s books. The Marabou Stork Nightmares and, obviously, Trainspotting. What’s it like… how do people feel about urban Welsh in Scotland?
Oh, I think we’re very, very proud of him. Although maybe I shouldn’t confess I’m not a fan of \his style, shall we say. But no, I think everybody’s very, very proud, especially as he’s kind of shining a light on the less salubrious side of Scottish life. You know, everybody tends to think about the highlands and the heather and the kilts and Outlander and things like that, but actually, like everywhere, we’ve got an urban side to our country as well, and he certainly highlights that.
But, yeah, everybody’s very private. He’s very much a sort of stalwart, now of Scottish literature.
That’s so cool.
That’s interesting, though. Kevin, so did you, did you understand? Did you have to have a translation? Did you figure it out?
No, I mean, I just loved it. I mean, I loved it. It’s like Shakespeare, right? It’s like, you put, you put in a little effort, and it makes it all the more kind of special to read. It’s such a unique reading experience, right? Similar to Shakespeare, he’s dealing with such raw, like relatable, real violence, poverty, these sorts of issues, and so they kind of resonate universally, whether you’re using Elizabethan English or 90s Scottish phonetic spellings, either way, I think great story telling cuts through, and then unique language makes it all the more special.
Do you know, you’ve put me to shame there a bit, so sort of that idea of it’s worth putting the effort in, but actually, the stories are really good. The writing is unique, as you say, and maybe I need to go back and revisit it and kind of thing, yeah, put in that little bit of effort. Because I remember reading when I was a teenager the Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, again, this kind of unique language that he’s created. And I love that. So I wonder what it is that’s been that barrier for me with Irvin Welsh, and I think I need to go back and revisit and just put the effort in. Thank you.
You know, I think sometimes things are too close to home. So for example, I am not the biggest fan of Canadian literature. I studied literature in university, but, I mean, I love the American modernists, you know, love classic British literature, but I just am not that into Canadian literature. Farming on the prairies and all these Canadian issues just don’t really resonate with me, so maybe it’s just we can’t appreciate our own kind of homegrown literature.
Could be there could be something to that it just feels too mundane. We want to read about something elsewhere
Yeah, it’s not that escape. It’s not that new adventure going somewhere else.
Yeah. Oh, a new perspective. Thank you.
Have books always been a big part of your life? Were you a reader as a young person?
I think compared to some, I came quite late to reading, I remember being in primary school, being very young and really hating it and but the power of a good teacher, hey? So when my favorite teacher was reading time, and I was always going, Oh, this is so boring. This is so boring. And I remember saying to me, “Well, you’ve got to read the first two, maybe three chapters. You’ve got to give it a go and take sometimes it takes a while to get into the book, and you have to give it a chance.” So I sort of grumbled, but because she was my favorite teacher, and I wanted her to love me, I went home after school that day and picked up a book from my shelf because both my parents were big readers, and pursued it, and by the end of the book, I think I might even have sat and read the whole thing in one go. I just remember falling in love, falling into the story, and being transported somewhere else. So I’m very grateful to that teacher, because then that was that kick started me onto this journey.
And yeah, I’ve totally loved reading ever since then, and have read very widely, I would say, as well, which has put me in good stead. And then, like so many of us, as a maybe sort of a 10-year-old, trying to write children’s books as a teenager, writing very angsty, very angry, what were, what were called Teen books then, but I guess would be young adult now and then, in my 20s, writing about that, and my Pharisees writing about that. But it wasn’t until I got to my 40s that I actually published, so by then, the themes had kind of matured a little bit. But yeah, I think, like lots of us, trying different styles and different stories and trying to fit, find out what we like to write, which I’m sure you’ve discovered, is quite different to what we read, necessarily,
It’s nice to hear that you evolved with age. I still just write angsty teenage, grumpy stuff, I never I never evolved beyond what I wrote when I was 16. I’m still that grumpy, angsty teenager inside.
I cannot imagine you being angsty and grumpy ever.
(Laughs)
I met my wife in a play. We were both in a play together in university. She went to a theater or high school, so she had this big theater background. I understand you are an actress as well. Tell me a little bit about your acting life and how that played a role in becoming an author and also a writing instructor.
Gosh, you’ve done some good research. Yeah, I did, that’s right, yeah. I remember, again, being forced into it by my dad. He forced me to go to drama and elocution lessons that were run by the local minister’s wife. I think he just wanted to get me out the house because I was grumpy, and so I went along. But I did, actually, I really liked the lady who taught it. A few of my friends went, and I really fell in love with it.
I remember doing must have been pretty early on, she asked us to do an improvisation talking about a difficult subject related to being a teenager, and I remember that feeling of just kind of falling into it, and that momentary you forget you’re you. You actually are inhabiting this other person, having this other conversation with a with someone they don’t that Emma didn’t know this new character. And I remember kind of being startled as I came out of it and thinking, “Oh, what just happened there?” But I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
Then in my teen years, I grew up in a small town, and they had a local amateur dramatic society, so I joined that and did a couple of things with them.
Then when I moved to London, I joined another amateur dramatics society to do that in my spare time, again, I just loved it more. The more I did, the more I loved it. At really what would be a late age in this, this, I think it was 25 when I decided to go to back to drama school and study to be an actor, and did two years of theater training there. It was a mix I both loved and loathed it. It was a tough school. So it was really, I found it quite terrifying, but at the same time, the joy of being around other people who are as passionate about theater as you are, and who, like in the the book world, you have your own language and your own way of describing things, and we all understood that common language, and so I just loved it.
Then I was a jobbing actor for about 10 years, which was great, but really tough, because as your you and your wife will know, it’s not an easy gig.
And then,I always loved language, so I was thinking about, okay, what can my next career be? And so I went to study to be a librarian, and I did enjoy that, but I rather quickly discovered I wasn’t the right personality or temperament for that. So I did that for a year, and then I we moved abroad, and I fell pregnant, and life took on a different way.
But in the background of all of that is book writing, is novel writing. I’d always been doing courses. I’d always been starting things, getting halfway through things, maybe not finishing things, but the itch wouldn’t go away.
Eventually I’m sort of getting to 40, and I just thought, right, you’ve got this itch again. You don’t need to do this and just do it and scratch that itch or let it go, move on with your life and stop kind of berating yourself over having never finished. So I made the decision that I would just write that first draft. That was the only thing I had to do. I just had to do a beginning, a middle and an end, get to the end, and then I could decide was that fun? Did you enjoy it? Do you want to revise it, or was it the most painful thing you’ve ever done, and you never want to do this again?
It took me a long time, but I did get to the end of that first draft, and I did enjoy it.
There is something tough about it. There is something challenging about it. But again, similar to acting, I’d say, once I’m in, because I handwrite my first drafts as well, so that once you’re in that zone, it’s magical, and you feel that you’re transported. You don’t feel that you’re you. I find it very meditative. It takes me out of everything else that’s going on.
When I published, I think it was when I published the, my first book, I remember thinking, “Oh my goodness. I never thought I’d finish this. I never thought I’d do this. If I can do this, what else can I do?” And I remember thinking, if I can do this, I know there’s so many other stay at home mums who feel that they can’t do it, that they’re past it. They’ve left it too late, and yet they still they still can. They’ve still got to in them. And I think that’s when I thought, okay, onesie, I’m going to help other writers do the same. So that’s kind of how it led me into the the teaching and the coaching.
Someone we’ve had on this show is Jenny Nash, and I know you worked with her on your coaching training. Tell me a little bit about the Author Accelerator coaching program and what you learned from working with one of the top writing coaches out there, with Jenny, Nash
I’d actually been coaching for a few years before I kind of came across Jenny, because I hosted a really early summit back in 2019 called Author Accelerator, and I think I was trying to find some information about it online. I was trying to find some old pages about it. And Jenny popped up because, of course, she runs AuthorAaccelerator. So I thought, Oh, who’s this? Who’s this lady?
Then I got to kind of see about her, and know about her. And I put it after me. I put it off for quite a while doing the certification. But I then I decided, you know what, this might make me a better writer. So initially I went into it with the intention of just using it for myself and to be a better writer myself. But then as I was going through the course, and I realized, ah, no, I can’t keep this to myself. This is just so beneficial for everybody.
I’d say the main thing that it’s given me is an a more expansive language with which to talk in terms of coaching and not being a writer itself. How to talk about structure, how to talk about scenes, how to talk about character arcs. It’s really, really helped me at that level.
And then she’s got quite a rigorous sort of assessment process. There are three practicums that you go through, and it takes you all the way through from kind of getting to getting an author to think about their book, even possibly before they start writing it, the motivations behind it, what their intentions are with it. Do they know not even the whole plot line, but what is essentially going to happen in the story? What’s the character arc, so that they’ve at least got some foundations in there, even before they possibly start writing, but maybe, definitely before they start writing, if there is someone who likes to plan. So that was really useful.
Then learning to do a manuscript evaluation. So take a, you know, taking this whole, what, 70,000 to 100,000 word manuscript, and being able to see the big picture of it and understand what’s working. Because, believe it or not, read listeners, there is always something that is working in your manuscript and but then also looking, “Okay, where can it be tweaked? Where are there some little holes that we can plug up just to really elevate this manuscript we’ve got.” I think for me, that was the most valuable tool that I learned.
Tthen a third part of that practice, that certification, is for those who want to query and work with an agent, you know, putting that pitch package together. Me doing the searching for the agents as well, which was really interesting, and looking at how they solicit queries, so going through all the that, and then thankfully, it’s about a year ago now that I got my certification. I wear that badge with pride.
It has definitely helped me with my own writing and the pre-work that we do before we start writing, or as we’re writing if you’re a pantser. But then also, I think I give a much better service now for my clients that I work with now.
So it’s been magical.
And if anyone’s listening and they want to read for a living, I really recommend it absolutely,
I guess I had Jenny on the show probably maybe seven years ago or so. It’s crazy. But at the time, after the interview, I was talking to her about my business, and, you know, I was like, I’m so I have no time, and then I’m barely breaking even. And Jenny just said one thing to me. She was like, “Kevin, you need to charge more. That’s the problem with your business right now. You need more income to better serve your people.” I think that’s one of the great things about having mentors and going through programs and talking to people who’ve been in the game longer than you: sometimes you just need someone to say to you, “charge more” or “change this” or “do that.” And it’s just, it’s not like it didn’t occur to you, but it’s hearing it through someone else’s voice. It gives you that permission to say, “Okay, I am worth that,” or “I can achieve this,” or “I can’t do that.” And of course, that’s coaching. That’s why Jenny’s a great coach. That’s what we all do, is believe in people and tell them you can do this.
And I think sometimes it’s because it’s not a as a book coach, we can’t say you’re going to have a bestseller. You are going to, you know, there’s no specific, tangible financial reward at the end of it. This is something individual to each writer. It’s for their own inner growth, their own sense of achievement. And I think then we can, we can forget that actually what we’re doing is vital to a lot of people, is valuable to a lot of people who, without the service that we offer, would never write that book, would never give themselves the opportunity to start their author career, which could take off, absolutely could take off.
I think you know, the friend of mine, Julie Duffy, she some she always says it to me afterwards, “Emma,” she says, “you know, you’re saving lives,” and I really need to hear that from her from time to time, to remind myself that what we do and is valuable. It might not be the promise of a million dollars, but it is the promise of personal growth, personal satisfaction and achieving a dream that someone has always held. So it’s nice to be reminded of that.
And she’s right. You do need to charge more.
I often tell my clients… I’ve written a dozen books, I’ve had so many different experiences and successes and failures and everything along the way, but when I think about the rewards of being a published author the thing that always comes back to me is I did a children’s picture book/ I have three kids, so for like five or six years now, every year, I go into one of their classrooms and I read this picture book to the kids, and I see my daughters smiling at me and feeling proud, and I see the kids laughing at the right parts and having fun. And it’s like, you know, that’s not a best seller, that’s not a million dollars, but that’s a better life. My life is the better for having those experiences and I would not have those experiences if I hadn’t written that book.
I think that’s sometimes the challenge for coaches. As you said, everyone wants a bestseller; everyone wants a Hollywood movie. Everyone wants a dump truck of money arriving and dumping money on their driveway. But life like money doesn’t always buy happiness and book sales isn’t always the big result. Sometimes the big result is a better life, a more interesting life. Relationships, you know, you and I talking to each other, we would not be having this conversation if we hadn’t both published books.
I was talking to an agent recently in the summer, and she was telling me, you know, someone asked her about successful books, and she was saying, you know, what depends on what your view of success is. She told us the story of a client she had worked with who wanted to write a memoir, and it was about a very, very difficult relationship she’d had in her life. And they sweated over this and this woman was, I’d say, in her 70s when she was writing it so you know, she wasn’t looking for the big the big Hollywood blockbuster, necessarily, but she sweated over it. She put her heart and soul into it. She worked so hard with it, but it was a very, very controversial topic that she was writing about. And so my friend, the agent, asked her at the end, when they’d finished it, “Are you sure you want to go ahead and publish this?” Is this what you want to do? And she said, “Nope, don’t want to publish it. Burn it.” And they burnt the book.
Wow.
The succes for her, as this woman had taken this subject, had delved into it, put so many ghosts to rest, understood this, the whole thing herself, and that was enough. Now she could let it go. And the burning, I’m sure, for her, was very ritualistic, and it was a way of saying, I let that go, but that was a very successful book.
Everybody needs to kind of know what is their own definition of success. Is it going into your kid’s class and just seeing and hearing the laughter, or is it? No, I want that Netflix deal. I’m going for it and everything in between.
Why those something you teach are the four pillars of author success. Can you tell us a little bit about those four pillars?
Yes, of course, I’d love to.
These are the pillars that I’ve noticed in my own writing life and that I’ve gone through and then I noticed as well with the clients that I work with.
I work with people on a 12-month basis, so I really see them at all aspects of all stages of the drafting process. But equally, when I’m looking around on social media and Facebook groups and so on, I see the same issues come up again and again and again. I realized that it didn’t matter what stage you were at, we were all going to go through these four pillars.
The first of these pillars is awareness. So really, it’s just an awareness of where you are in the publishing landscape. We’re all somewhere different. Some people are just opened the gates onto the path, and they’re maybe picking up the pen for the first time, and the road ahead is very, very long. Then you might be further along and you’ve written a very rubbish or a very good first draft. But equally, you might have published by now. You might have published 5,10, 20. In the indie space, we know people who have published hundreds of books, so everybody is somewhere along on that path in the in the publishing landscape, and it’s sometimes, I think it takes us a while to kind of be aware of everything that’s going around us, to kind of lift our head from the page and see that there is this whole industry going on, there’s this whole landscape, and that’s not solely about us, but actually about the collective and everybody. I do think there’s a level of awareness that we need to have about just where we sit in that. That would be the first pillar.
The second pillar is acceptance of that, which is not always easy. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m always like what’s next? What’s next, what’s next. It’s not good enough. I need to get the next thing. Why haven’t I had a bestseller yet? Why haven’t I sold this number of books yet? Why haven’t I published this number of books yet?
This one’s been hard for me, but actually, just to kind of go, “Oh, you know what, Emma, you’re where you’re at, because you’ve come through the gates at this time. The people that have published the 100 books, they came in much earlier, and they work more hours than you on their books,” and so kind of being away at accepting that. That’s where you’re at. The idea of, you know, we might have heard the the phrase, you stay in your lane, or, you know, you’re running your own race. It’s that kind of idea.
Now that doesn’t mean, if you accept it, that you’re just going to sit back on your laurels and say, “Oh, well, it’s going to come to me. When it comes to me, I just need to kind of hang on in there.” No, it means that you still have to do the work. You still have to do what you need to do to get along, whether it’s to write a scene, write a book, whether it’s to do your first podcast interview or write your first blog post, whatever stage you are at on that that pathway is kind of accepting that’s where you’re at and that there’s no shame around it. It’s okay to be where you’re at. If you keep doing the work, you will move further along the pathway. I don’t know if that’s something that’s come up for you, if you’re always wanting to be the next step ahead, absolutely,
I think we get into creative work because we want to create, but at the same time, we have to run a business, and businesses involve taxes and accounting and scheduling and all the boring office work that we think we’re avoiding by choosing a creative career. It’s all part of it as well, right? And so finding that balance between doing what you have to do to put food on the table and pay the bills and be a professional while also finding your space to creatively express yourself and tell stories and be an artist.
Yeah, 100%. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do, but we can be a creative and artist at the same time. Yes, I love that.
So those would be our first two pillars. You know that awareness and acceptance.
The third pillar is probably the most difficult pillar, and that’s the pillar of growth. And this is really where the rubber hits the road. You know? This is the hard work of being an author. This is where you have to put in the grind, you have to put in the hours, you have to pull your hair out, but then you get back to it. You have a cry, and it doesn’t go well, but then you get back to it.
We can sit in this pillar, particularly in the writing side of things, for a long, long time, particularly for writing as well our first couple of books, where we’re still learning our process. We’re still learning how it works for us. At which point in the process do we get fed up and throw it across the room? At which point in the process do we fall and move back in love with the story? All of those things that is the growth period.
But equally, that is the most rewarding of all of the pillars. The more hard work you put into this, the more tenacity and resilience that you show in this pillar, the bigger your reward is going to be at the end because if we’re thinking about the book writing itself, that’s how you get a finished first draft, second, third, fourth, fifth revision, a final product. At the end, if we’re thinking about publishing, we have to put in the growth of learning how to, if you’re traditional, putting in that pitch package together, staying the course, not giving up after the first 10,20, rejections.
If you’re indie publishing, then you know you’ve got that growth and learning. Well, how do I trust this editor? How do I know which editor to go to? How do I know how to get a book cover? And how does that all work? Oh, my goodness, how am I going to publish this thing? What if I get a review?
So then there’s all of these things that come along, and that first one star review that, for sure, is a period of growth and where you have to kind of come through that okay, but then it might be when you’re doing the marketing side of it, and you do that first podcast interview, which you’re terrified about, because you’re a natural introvert, and you don’t want to do it, but you’ve got to do it if you want people to know about your book.
That growth pillar is a big one in it. It’s for everybody at every stage because no matter what stage of the path that you’re on, no matter how far along the path, there’s always a new challenge. We’re all as humans always looking to grow and develop and expand ourselves, aren’t we?
And I would kind of say, you know, think about yourself, ourselves as that, that writer who started out and knew nothing was writing that went to that first workshop and did that first short story, it was applicable to those guys.
But equally, I’m thinking about writers like Harlan Coben, you know, top of his game, absolute top of his game, selling block gangbusters. I follow on socials, he’s living life. He is clearly just loving life. And but he wanted a new growth, he wanted a new challenge, and so now he teaches, and he does online courses and things now, so that’s a new period of growth for him. He’ll have had to learn how to disseminate what he knows in his head and put it down on paper or to video.
I’m thinking too of Lisa Jewel. I’m a thriller writer, so my examples tend to be thriller writers. She is a British author who writes thriller but again, top of her game right now, everything she sells gets to number one. So the new challenge for her was to write her first Marvel comic book. She was invited to do that.
I like this example, because she was aware, you know, whereas she is on the path, and she was thinking, “Okay, I’m looking for something new. I’m accepting how good things are but maybe they’re a bit stale, maybe I need some new growth.” So she said yes to this project, and she’s talked about it this year at the book festivals. She said it was the most painful experience that she’s ever been through. It was so hard because, and interestingly, one of the reasons she said it was so hard is because it’s a, you know, it’s a multiverse. There’s no limitation on it.
So once Marvel superheroes were talking about.
Yeah, so having to kind of then go, “Oh, well, Where’d I put the boundaries in? How do I stop this from getting too ridiculous?” So it was a whole new thing for her, and interestingly, for her, she went through that period of growth and decided it was not for her. So acceptance there, acknowledgement there that that’s not for her. We’ve got to try things to see if they fit, and give it a go, and if it’s right for us. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not, but there’s no shame in that and no embarrassment in that as part of the authorpreneurial journey that we’re on, so growth is a big one.
I always go back to the quote from Hemingway, where he said, we’re all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a Master. I always look at that as as you know, the permission to, even as a coach or an editor, to not know it all. We’re all still growing. We’re all still learning. If Hemingway could sit there and say, I’m not a master, that the rest of us can have the humility to say I’m not a master either. I’m on a lifelong journey that is learning to be a writer.
Yeah, so check that perfectionism to the side, yeah. And you know, it’s the same in the acting world, particularly with Shakespeare. There’s so many different ways you can interpret it, that you can say it. Every performance you do is slightly different. It’s all nuanced.
I remember listening to an interview with Judi Dench, who does a lot of Shakespeare. She knows it very well, and she was still, saying, “Gosh, I did a six-month run, and it wasn’t until the last one, I suddenly had this new realization about the character I was playing,” and I think that’s exactly the same for us as novelists, as we are. We’re not like Judy in that. We’re taking an existing character, we’re creating these characters. We’re doing what Shakespeare did. And so of course, it’s going to take us time to get to know who they are, what they do, how they function, and what we want to bring to them as well. So yeah, we’ve got to be humility. We’ve got to show humility as well.
that’s exactly why writing is iterative. Judy probably did 50 performances before she hit that right note, right? And as authors, it’s just so silly to think we’re going to sit down and write one draft and get it all perfect. You know, you got to come back. And every time you go through you see something different. You see something new. Things get more refined. You understand the character better. You understand the story better, which goes back to, like, just putting in the reps, like you said earlier, right?
It can be fun as well. I quite enjoy there’s a period where I hate it, and then I come back to it, and you’re getting to just do the final touches, and it’s lovely.
But talking of fun, that brings me to the fourth pillar, which is fun. Something that too often we forget about. We get so, so intense about it.
So many people, they come to writing as a way of switching off at the end of the day, something fun to do at the weekend, an outlet of creativity. And too often, something seems to happen when we make that decision, making that switch from being a hobby writer to a career author who wants to publish, and all of a sudden it becomes the most serious business in the world. We become very, very earnest about it all, and we kind of lose the fun in it, I think, in our bid to create this perfect piece of literature.
And so I really want to help people to come back to those small moments of fun. So if you’ve written your first chapter of your first book, celebrate it with a chocolate bar. It doesn’t have to be big, but just something where you acknowledge to yourself, “Wow, I did that.” You know, you finish the first draft again. Let’s celebrate that you get to the final draft. Celebrate that you publish, celebrate that you do that podcast you’ve been dreading. Celebrate that all of these things need to be acknowledged so that we feel good about what we’re doing. We don’t feel that we’re just on this hamster wheel, but actually, we’re reaping the rewards of the hard work we’ve put in. That gives us the motivation to keep going and start that new project as well and not get burned out. I mean, between us, we must know quite a lot of authors who they haven’t done that. They haven’t taken that fun pillar and so they have just been burnt out, and they’ve left the space altogether. I don’t want that for people. I want them to take a breath, take a moment and realize why they’re doing it and that it’s fun and they enjoy it.
I think that’s a benefit of working with a writing coach that I’m not sure writers who haven’t worked with a coach understand. I think there’s an assumption that a coach is there for when you’re feeling down, they pick you back, right? And certainly that is what we’re there for. But in my experience, way more often I’m high-fiving people. I’m like, “You killed it this week. Nicely done!” It’s about having someone there who’s in the trenches with you, who understands what it’s like, and it’s like, no one in the world other than you cares that you got chapter 32 written this week. But I care. Emma cares, right? We’re there to say nicely done because it is a long process. The gratification is so delayed, so you absolutely have to take those little moments along the way to celebrate. And I think being in a writing community or having a writing coach is a great opportunity to do that with someone else and not be so alone on your journey and saying, oh, 32 is written on to 33. Instead having someone there to say, “Nicely done. I see you. I know how hard that was, and I’m proud of you.”
You’re so right. Much as our friends and family love us, they don’t care as much as we do, do they? But having, yeah, having that coach who’s with you every step of the way, and so my kind of promise to my clients is, by the end of working together, you have a finished first draft. And I can’t say the number of people I’ve kind of gone on a call with and said, “Congratulations, you finished your first draft,” and they’ve kind of come up, “Oh gosh, yes, I have.”
It’s like when you go into a trance and then you come out and you’re like, “Where did the last six months go? Where the year ago? How was the first draft done?”
It does go quickly, for sure, it goes quickly, but I think it’s just kind of that’s it just exemplifies how sometimes we find it hard to just take our head up from the page and realize how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved, and how close, how much closer to our dream that we are, that even when we finish that draft, we don’t kind of recognize it. It needs a kind of snap of the fingers to say you’ve done it. Congratulations. You know, this is an this is an amazing moment for someone who particularly, I mean, the women I work with tend to be 60 and up, really, and so this is something that they’ve been striving for decades, and in some cases, writing the same book for decades, so to get to the end of that, it’s magical.
You have a resource that you give away to folks on this topic, the four pillars, tell folks about that tool, yay.
Its little cheat sheet just covering what we’ve talked about. So it’s there for you to use as a reminder, and I’ve got some examples of more famous authors in there, just to know that this happens to everybody, and we all go through this. And so it’s just a nice little tool to either have on your desktop or print out if you prefer having the paper coffee, just to remind yourself, okay, I think I’m in this pillar right now. That’s okay. I’ll come through it, or I’ve just come out of this pillar, come out of growth. Yay. Now I get to have some fun. I just find it a nice simple reminder, because again, we get on that treadmill and we can forget to do these things. So you can go to emmadhes.com/kevin and it will be there waiting for you.
Emma, it was such a delight speaking with you today. Thank you so much for taking time to join me on The Writing Coach podcast.
Oh, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you, Kevin. I really enjoyed it.
