Get Your Writing Done

We’re all getting the message every day. Generative AI is changing the world at warp speed. Every week reveals new possibilities for working more efficiently. Nothing will be the same. A robot is going to cook all your hamburgers and fries. No one will have a job within 10 years. And writers will go the way of the dodo.

To that I say: raspberry sound. Humans will always have a place in the loop.

In this episode I:

• Explai...

Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?

• You know you need to do some research for your book, but you have no idea where to start
• You want to write a book about a new topic, or a novel that takes place in a new setting perhaps, but you are so worried that you won’t sound authoritative or convincing enough, so you spend months doing research, never sure whether you’ve done enough
• You’ve just created a great plan, and doing...

Is there a rock in your shoe keeping you from writing? 

I don't just mean a garden variety obstacle, I'm talking about a major productivity or dream killer. Is there something that needs to change for you to reach your goals?

In today's episode, we discuss The Rock and the Response. We talk about how the obvious layer of the rock almost hides a more important inner layer of dangerous emotion. We con...

Everywhere I look I see workshops promising to help you get a fast start to 2024. And that’s great! But here’s the thing: how many times have you or someone you know got off to a quick start on a new writing project but never quite finished it? That’s why this episode is all about Starting to Finish. We'll talk about five common reasons people don't finish their writing and five concrete steps you can take to avoi...

Do you ever hear yourself saying these sorts of things?
- I don’t have enough time to write
- I don’t have enough energy to keep going to the end
- I am so demoralized at how slow this is going
- I’m losing my enthusiasm for this writing project I’ve been at it so long

If you find yourself in one of these situations, you need to become a master of making slow progress. This idea of slow progress gets very lit...

Did you know that the average person spends just 47 seconds before switching from looking at one screen/window on their computer to looking at another? Or that it takes 25 minutes to regain focus after an interruption? Staying focused in the best of times is a brutal task. Staying focused when life gets crazy is that much harder.

In this episode we'll talk about five strategies for finding focus that all happen before y...

Have you ever had one of those periods where you just couldn’t write consistently? Maybe your schedule was too chaotic. Maybe you got super busy at work. Or maybe you found yourself looking at the clock and seeing it was time to write but you wound up finding something else to do? Maybe you were going great guns but then went on vacation and when you came back you found that your momentum was gone and you never got back on ...

Did you ever have a writing project where everything just clicked? I mean, from the beginning when you had the idea to the finished product, everything just went great, and quickly? And on the other hand, did you ever have a writing project that did nothing but give you trouble, from the day you started it until the day you finished it, or just dropped it? I've had my share of both. And lately I've been reflecting...

If you write fiction (and even if you don't), my guess is that you use, have used, or are thinking about using Scrivener, one of the most popular writing apps on the planet.

If you are thinking about it, or need some help making the most of Scrivener, this week's guest is the person to ask for help. Gwen Hernandez is an engineer turned author. She writes the popular Men of Steele series but she has anoth...

Welcome to the Get Your Writing Done podcast, I’m Trevor Thrall, author of The 12 Week Year for Writers. If you enjoy today’s episode, please submit a review wherever you get your podcasts. And for weekly updates on the podcast and other writing resources, you can subscribe to my newsletter at GYWD.com

Are you the kind of person who likes to hash out all the details before you start writing? Or are you the kind of ...

Are great writers born or made? Is your productivity level something fixed, or can you become a more productive person over time? If you haven’t written a book by age 30, will you ever? Do rejections mean you’re a failure?

In this podcast we take another look at the writer’s mindset. Our focus today is the importance of a growth mindset. Research shows that adopting a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, pl...

It’s a new year and for many of us that means it’s time to launch ambitious new writing projects. And that’s great, because the world needs more of what you’re doing. But it turns out that the launch phase is fraught with perils and risks. How many of us have had a blinding epiphany strike while in the shower, only to realize later that the idea wasn’t so brilliant after all? Or have you ever spent a week enthusiastically p...

If you aren’t a 12 Week Year follower, you might be surprised to learn that a key element of the 12 Week Year system is, in fact, a 13th week. The 13th week is dedicated to assessing the previous 12 so that you can look at what went well, what didn’t go so well, and identify lessons learned to help you shape your next 12 Week plan.

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for any time, or read the book, you’ll know ...

Let me ask you a simple question: Why do you write?

This question - so simple and unassuming and yet so profound - is the starting point for our conversation about motivation. We all have good days and bad days. I’m sure we have all experienced some high highs and some low lows. But some people seem to have a higher baseline level of motivation than others. Some people pretty much always seem excited about their wo...

Today I sit down with Susan Scott, counselor, leadership coach, author, and founder of Life Inspired, Inc., a company that provides life design and coaching for leaders and life coaches.

Our topic today is resilience. As I discuss in the 12WY for Writers, resilience is a critical element of the writer’s mindset. Every writer - no matter the type or genre, has to deal with rejections, criticism, false starts, and ne...

Have you ever been thinking about a writing project but then said, I don’t know everything I need to know about that so I shouldn’t start that project right now, I should wait until I’m more confident about what I know. Or have you ever found yourself in the middle of a manuscript and asked, “Why did I ever think I could do this?” Have you ever sat around a table of your peers and thought, If these people really knew me the...

Welcome to the Get Your Writing Done podcast, I’m Trevor Thrall, author of The 12 Week Year for Writers. If you enjoy today’s episode, please submit a review wherever you get your podcasts. And for weekly updates on the podcast and other writing resources, you can subscribe to my newsletter at GYWD.com

Ah the holidays, that time of year where everyone’s plans to get things done meet the hard cold reality of holiday...

Welcome to the Get Your Writing Done podcast, I’m Trevor Thrall, author of The 12 Week Year for Writers. If you enjoy today’s episode, please submit a review wherever you get your podcasts. And for weekly updates on the podcast and other writing resources, you can subscribe to my newsletter at GYWD.com

What if there were a tool that would simultaneously help you be more accountable, give you inspiration and support...

Are you one of those people who uses a fancy watch or phone to track your blood pressure, heart rate, daily step count, laps swum, miles run, calories consumed, and all that?

On the flip side, have you ever decided not to get on the scale after Thanksgiving, or after vacation? Or did you ever do so badly on an exam in college that you didn’t bother going to pick it up from the professor?

Measuring things...