November 22, 2025 • 35 mins
If you’ve ever considered writing a book, you’ve also probably asked yourself this common question: is my idea any good?
Is the story or topic I want to write about interesting to anyone other than me?
There are many ways to answer this question and unfortunately, how you answer might determine whether or not you write your book. Imagine if the author of your favorite book had decided, before ever writing, that their book idea was “no good”.
In today’s episode, I’ll teach you how to answer this question for yourself and talk about the common pitfalls aspiring writers fall into.
Hopefully I inspire you to give your book idea some space to develop into what it was meant to be.
(PS) As I mention in the episode, I’m bringing back my signature course A Book in Six Months as a self-paced workshop and offering a generous discount for loyal listeners starting Friday November 28th. I will post the link to purchase as soon as it's ready.
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write, all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun. When
you write your story, you get the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and cold?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
It's all about.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And write your story. Write, write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to talk about this question that I have
been asked more times than I can count in my career,
and one that I've asked myself so many times, and
I continue to ask myself every single time that I
sit down to work on a new writing project. I
(00:50):
do believe this question and the answers to this question
have application outside of writing, and I will get there.
But really, the context of a question in the way
that I'm answering it today on this episode, has to
do with when you have an idea for a book,
an idea for a writing project, an idea for an article,
(01:10):
and you find yourself sitting in the murky waters of wondering,
is this idea any good? Meaning?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Like?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Does this idea appeal to anyone other than me. Is
this approach that I'm taking or is the topic that
I'm approaching something that a reader would have any interest in?
Is this something that has a good hook to it?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Is it interesting to someone else? I think this is
a really natural, instinctual question for people and for human
beings to ask. But I really do think that there's
something much deeper going on, and I guess that's what
I want to get into in today's episode. Part of
what's inspiring this is that I am re releasing my
signature course a book in six months, starting on Black Friday.
(01:52):
I've been talking about this for a couple of months,
so if you are a regular listener, you already know
that this is happening. But I want to tell you
another little secret about this re release that I just
decided in the past week, which is really exciting and
I can't wait to share this with you. So this
re release is coming after a year of taking a
step back from my coaching work and taking a step
back from my online courses. I really made this decision
(02:16):
at an intuitive level last fall sometimes so it's been
like a little over a year, and the reason for
taking a step back was just to recalibrate, to spend
some more time with my family, to spend a little
bit of time grieving some of the big changes and
losses that had happened in my life. I lost my
dad last fall, I went through a couple of miscarriages.
We were trying to have a baby. We still have
(02:38):
not been able to actualize that dream, and so I
wanted some space to move through some of that grief.
I wanted space to just be with myself and to
meet the moment, which is something that you'll hear me
talk about today, to just meet the moment with presence.
And I felt like if I kept moving at a
(02:58):
break neck pace showing up to coach and to teach,
which is something that I loved doing, I felt like
if I kept doing that and kept moving at the
pace that I was moving, that this period of time
was going to pass me by and I was never
going to get to really sync into what was trying
to happen in the moment. So I took a big,
long step back from my coaching practice, took a big
step back from a book in six months and then
(03:21):
not too long ago, like almost exactly at the year mark,
because I think I took a step back in August
of twenty twenty four, so like August September ish of
twenty twenty five. I got a phone call, and I
talked about this on a previous episode, so I'll keep
the story short. But I got a phone call from
a friend of mine who was like, Hey, I just
wanted to let you know I took your course. I'm
so sorry to say I didn't show up to any
of the calls. I didn't get any coaching from you,
(03:43):
but he said, I want you to know that the
videos and the emails themselves are enough. In fact, they
are plenty. I got my manuscript written, I got a
book proposal document written. I'm sending it off to my agent.
We're pitching it to publishers. It's looking very promising for me.
And I just wanted you to note that I did
it all with the help of your course, and I
could not have possibly done it otherwise. He said, do
(04:05):
you want to maybe consider bringing back your course without
the coaching element? And something about his suggestion in that moment.
It was not the first time that I had received
that suggestion, but something about his suggestion in that moment
just felt like kismet. It felt like perfect timing. It
landed in my being in just the right way, and
(04:25):
it just felt good and felt right, which was coming
on the heels of a year of like having conversations
with all these different people who maybe wanted to partner
with me and you know, bring some resources to the
table to help me continue, you know, doing the coaching
in the way that I had been doing it. And
in all of those circumstances there were these amazing opportunities.
It seemed kind of cool, but it just never really
(04:47):
felt perfectly right in my body. And when I got
that phone call from my friend Matt, it just felt right.
I don't know how else to explain it. It was just like, yes,
that feels good, that feels easy, that feels unligned. And
so I decided I did a couple of weeks after
I got that phone call that I was going to
bring back a book in six months. I was going
to bring it back without the coaching element. So the
idea would be that instead of moving through this course
(05:09):
in cohorts like we had done, where we would meet
regularly via Zoom, this would be self guided and self paced.
So you get an email in your inbox. Every week,
the email has a link to a video that you watch.
It has a link to an assignment in the workbook
that you complete, and if you move through the videos
and the assignments week by week, then you will finish
your book in six months, or if you need more time,
(05:29):
you could finish the book in eight months or twelve
months or whatever you need, because you can move through
it at your own pace. So I reached out to
my team to see if this would be possible. I
don't have a huge team, like I don't have employees
that are working for me, but I do have some
women who have helped me in the past with the
back end development part, like just getting the landing page
ready and stuff, and ask them if it would be
possible to get this ready for Thanksgiving because in the
(05:50):
past we've always done this where I've offered a book
in six months or it used to be prepared to publish,
but a book in six months, or my signature course
the day after Thanksgiving for a Black Friday price of
some kind, and that it's always just gone really well.
I feel like it's the time of year when people
are thinking about, you know, the years about to turn
over what do I want to do in the new year,
and also people are ready to spend money on Christmas presents,
(06:12):
so I said, you know, would it be possible to
get the course up and ready for the day after Thanksgiving.
So after I got the green light from everyone on
my team, in the next couple of days, I started
feeling just really compelled. I don't know how else to
say it, that I wanted to offer this particular opportunity
at a hugely discounted rate, And the idea really came
(06:33):
to me from I mean, I don't know how else
to say this. It sounds kind of crazy woo woo,
but really, since my dad passed, the number two two
two has been a really important number to me. So
my dad's birthday was February twenty second, which is not
something that I thought about much when he was alive
to twenty two, But for whatever reason, after he passed,
that number two twenty two started popping up in my
(06:54):
life everywhere, and I started to really feel like this
seeing this number out in the world was And I
know lots of people have ideas about angel numbers or
you know, maybe one one one one shows up for
you a lot or you might see the number eight
out in the world a lot, so everyone kind of
has a different idea about this. To be honest, the
number two to two before my dad passed had not
(07:14):
really like registered with me. It wasn't like something that
I saw all the time. It wasn't something that I identified
with or would have thought much about. But after he passed,
I started driving around my neighborhood, which I had driven around,
you know, a million times before, and started noticing that
the mailboxes as you drive out of my neighborhood in
either direction. I mean, that kind of doesn't make sense
(07:34):
because you go out, you know, if you turn right,
you go on one street, and then the other way to
get out my neighborhood is to take a short left
and then take a right, and then you go out
on a different street. But either way, no matter which
direction I'm driving out of my neighborhood, I'm passing mailboxes
that say two two two two two two two four
two two two six. So just everywhere this number started
(07:55):
to show up for me, and I really started to
receive this visual as a reminder that everything was going
to be okay, that my dad was still with me,
that even when things disappear from physical form, that that
doesn't mean that they're gone from my experience, that they're
still there. And there's just something about seeing the number
two to two that makes me feel like I'm being guided,
(08:16):
I'm not alone. And so I just woke up in
the middle of the night one night, shortly after this
conversation with my friend about bringing back a book in
six months, and shortly after talking to the women on
my team and realizing that we'd be able to do
this for Black Friday, I woke up in the middle
of the night and I literally was like, I should
sell a book in six months for two hundred and
twenty two dollars. And then immediately this voice of reason
(08:38):
came in. I was like, don't do that, because that
is going to devalue the regular value of the course.
Because normally I sell the course for about one thousand bucks.
It's nine hundred and ninety nine dollars. So then I
brought it up to my husband. I was like, wow,
I had this idea in the middle of the night.
I just feel really impressed that I'm supposed to do this,
And even my husband was like, don't do it for
two hundred and twenty two dollars. Can't you you know,
(08:59):
can't you do it for like seven seven seven, or
you know, pick a different number, do it, like for
one hundred and fifty dollars off or something like that.
And I thought about it for a while, and I
just kept coming back to this, and I kept feeling like,
you know, what it's really about an obscene amount of
generosity during this time as a way to back up
(09:20):
my claim, which is what I want to talk about
on today's episode, back up this claim that writing is
a tool that will absolutely change your life, because I
think if you're someone who's like, you know, like my
friend Matt, who already knows your agent, has a pretty
good sense of what you want to write about. He's
the pastor of a big church here in Nashville. He
kind of has this feeling like I pretty much know
(09:40):
that if I put something together, a publisher is going
to be interested in it, etc. He still has to
put something, you know, great together. It's not like he
can just throw something meaningless together and a publisher is
going to go for it. But he's kind of in
a place where he feels like he's planning to publish.
He's planning to put something together for a publisher. He's
probably going to get a book contract if he can
come up with something great, and some of us are
(10:01):
not in that place. In fact, I think a lot
of people who could really benefit from writing, and maybe
this is something you identify with a lot of people
who are in the place where they could really benefit
from putting their story on paper or from putting together
their book idea. Are people who are doing something else
currently to make your money. Like maybe you're a teacher,
or maybe maybe you're a stay at home mom and
(10:22):
that's the way that you're financially contributing to your family
as your husband goes out and works and you stay
home with the kids, and your life is like so
full and so over stimulating and feel so impossible to
ever get some white space or a second to yourself
to get any creative writing done. Or maybe you're a banker,
or you're a lawyer, or you're a waiter at a
restaurant or a brister or something, and you're going in
(10:44):
every day and you're doing your job and you're paying
your bills, and there may not be a lot of
extra to invest in yourself, to invest in your own creativity,
to invest in your potentiality as a writer, as a
creative person, as a storyteller. And I think what I
want this massive discount to be and what I want
it to represent for you is my absolute belief and
(11:08):
my investment in you that your idea matters, that your
idea is a quote unquote good idea. That's what I
want to talk about today, is is my idea any good?
Is this idea even any good? People are wrestling with
that question, so I want to unpack that question today.
But this is my way of saying, I believe your
idea is good, having never even heard your idea, and
(11:29):
I'll tell you today why I believe it's good. But
I so deeply believe that your idea is one worth
pursuing that I'm going to give you the steepest discount
I can possibly give on this course without losing money,
because you know, I have to pay my team, I
have to pay for the hosting for the website, I
have to pay for the back end stuff. So without
losing money on the course, this is the absolute most
(11:51):
possible value I can give you for your money, the
greatest bang for your buck, And it is my way
of saying I believe in you. Take this chance on yourself.
Dive in, take the course, move at your own pace,
do it in your own way. So dive in, take
this chance on yourself. It's my way of meeting you
halfway or even a little bit more than halfway, to
(12:12):
lend you my confidence in you and in your idea.
So it's the perfect moment to make this announcement that
if you have been wanting to take the course a
book in six months, if you have a book idea
that's been bouncing around in your head and in your
heart forever, and you've thought ough, like I don't know
if it's really even worth investing in this, Like I
don't know if I can take the time. I don't
(12:33):
know if I have the money to put aside right now,
I don't know if I'm ready to take that kind
of risk on myself. This is me taking the risk
on you and just asking you to meet me like
twenty five percent of the way there. And I hope
this feels like an amazing opportunity for you to take
hold of something that maybe felt slightly out of reach before.
But this is my way of coming to meet you
(12:54):
and saying it's not out of reach anymore. I'm offering
this course starting on Black Friday. I will keep the
discount code active through the end of December. So hopefully
we have a groundswell of writers who have been waiting
for their moment to get started working on their books,
who start sometime in November or December or January, and
(13:16):
who have their books completed, their manuscripts completed by halfway
or three quarters of the way through twenty twenty six.
So the discount code will begin on Black Friday. And
don't worry, if you're on my email list, you will
definitely get an email to this effect. You'll be the
first to know if you are a regular listener of
the podcast. I will make sure to post a link
as soon as it's active. But you will have the
(13:37):
opportunity to purchase a book in six months for two
hundred and twenty two dollars. I will stop rambling now,
but just so you know, a book in six months
will be available for you starting Black Friday, all the
way through the month of December. I will send you
a discount code. You can use the discount code to
purchase the course for two hundred and twenty two dollars.
You can move through your own pace, and you can
have your book completed, your manuscript completed by midway through
(14:00):
twenty twenty six. Okay, now to dive into today's topic,
because these two things are connected. One of the reasons
that I wanted to talk about this is because I
think a major roadblock and hurdle for so many people
(14:21):
who want to write books is this question that they're
asking themselves, which is, how do I even know if
this idea is any good? I think what they're asking
is like, how do I know if this idea is
worthy of my time, of my energy, of my investment.
How do I know if this idea is going to
become anything that is interesting to anyone other than me.
(14:41):
If this is a question that you have asked yourself
about your book idea, I guess the biggest thing I
want you to know is that you are not crazy
and you're not alone. I have been working and publishing
for fifteen years, or maybe slightly more than that, right
around fifteen or maybe sixteen years. I have been either
working in or around the publisher space. I have written
(15:02):
I think ten books for other people. I've written four
of my own. I've been involved in hundreds of book projects.
I've worked with hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of authors who
are working on projects. I've done editing, i have met
with agents, I've met with publishers. I've submitted book proposal documents.
I've worked on dozens of book proposal documents. I have
(15:22):
done so much. I have put in my ten thousand
hours as it relates to writing and publishing books. And yet,
and still I want you to hear this as kind
of like inspiration. I hope you catch this the way
that I'm throwing it out there. And still I have
a book idea presently that I ask myself all the time,
(15:44):
is this idea even interesting to anyone? And I think
when an idea is in the baby stage of development,
like the way that book ideas come to us, where
it's like a whisper, it's a question, it's kind of like, ooh,
this is interesting. It kind of tickles your fancy, It
gives you like a little bit of chill, It registers
in your body in some kind of way like ooh,
that's interesting. I'm curious about that. I'm fascinated. I want
(16:05):
to follow that a little bit. When ideas come to
us in that kind of baby form. They're very tender.
Think of it like a deer in the woods, Like
a baby deer in the woods. If you come at
it too quickly, with too much vigor, you're going to
scare it away. It's almost like you have to find
a way to invite it to come towards you. You
(16:26):
have to be still enough and quiet enough and grounded
enough to invite it to feel safe enough to come
towards you. And if you move too quickly, or if
you come out of the gates with kind of too
much fervor, yeah, you're going to scare it away. And
it's going to seem like, oh, maybe I didn't even
see a deer in the woods in the first place.
(16:48):
Maybe that was just a figment of my imagination. So
I've had this book idea lingering in my subconscious for
a couple of years now. To bring this into context,
most of you, if you've been listening here for a
long time, you know I have two little kids. I
have an almost four year old and a five year
old who are born very close together. I also have
had a crazy last couple of years of my life.
A lot of things have not gone the way that
(17:08):
I expected them to go, which I think is kind
of universal at this point. I think many of us
since twenty twenty have been on a winding path of
life events that we did not expect. So to say
that I've been too overwhelmed to sit down and we're
kind of creative project might be an understatement. I have
been underwater, just kind of drowning with daily responsibilities and
(17:32):
you know, things, just the regular stuff of life that
we all have to do, like paying bills and whatnot.
But this idea has still been kind of swirling and
knocking at the door the way that book ideas tend
to do. They just kind of go, hello, I'm here,
are you interested in paying attention to me? And we
can either pay attention or not pay attention. So anyway,
this book idea has been swirling, and I've been thinking
(17:54):
about it. I've been pondering it. I haven't really done
much with it. I haven't sat down to kind of
work it out. I haven't mapped it out the way
that that I map out books on my kitchen table.
But I have been thinking about it, and I have
been interested in it, and I have been curious about it,
and I have thought like, as soon as I have
a little white space in my life, maybe this is
something that I'll work on. And a couple of things
have happened in the last couple of years as I've
(18:16):
been considering maybe playing with this book idea, one of
which is that another author who is really similar to me,
except for probably a little bit more popular, I guess, like,
has a bigger social media platform, probably has bigger sales
numbers than me, although I don't know for sure, another
author who's similar to me, but maybe a little bit
bigger released a book with the exact title that I
(18:40):
have been planning to call my book for two years,
like the way that the title came in to me
in the very beginning, and I share the story not
for sympathy at all, and for no other reason than
just to say, like, this experience is extremely normal. You
would think that when another author releases a book with
the title that you've been planning to title your book,
(19:01):
that the response would be the feeling would be like, oh,
my idea was a good idea. Look at this other
more popular author also had the same idea, so my
idea was good. Instead, what I find is that when
this happens to authors, because it happens fairly frequently that
authors kind of spiral out of control. And what my
brain did is no different than that we spiral out
(19:22):
of control. We're like, oh no, there's only a few
more good ideas left in the world, and other authors
are just like soaking them right up. And now that
this person has written about this topic, now I absolutely
cannot write about the topic because there's this other author
who did it, you know, maybe even better than I
could possibly do it. So there's those little insecurities that
(19:43):
just find their way of creeping in when you're considering
a book idea. And then another experience that I had
shortly after that, as I went to a publishing event
where we were asked several of us were asked to
share what we were working on. And again, this book
idea of mine is extremely underdeveloped. I don't know what
it is yet. I'm still kind of playing with the idea.
I just have like a whiff of it. It's like
(20:05):
someone you know the game Telephone, where someone whispers something
in your ear and you're not sure if you heard
it correctly. That's kind of how a book idea feels
when it first comes to you, You're like, I'm not
sure if I'm hearing this correctly, but this is what
I've heard so far. So the advice that I would
probably give you about an idea like that is when
you're at a publishing industry event and someone asks you
(20:25):
to share what you're working on, maybe don't share that
idea that's still in its whisper form. Maybe just say
you know, I'm not currently working on anything, or I
don't feel comfortable sharing. That's always something you're allowed to
say too. But of course I didn't say that because
I was feeling embarrassed. I was like, Okay, it's been
two years since I've published anything, I should probably start
talking about what I'm working on. And so I tried
(20:45):
to explain to everyone sitting in that room what I
was working on, and I was met with these blank,
confused stares because for a couple of reasons, like I
don't feel anyone in that room for looking at me
the way that they do. They're not responsible for making
me feel good about my book idea. More of the
reason I bring this story up is to say, when
(21:06):
a book idea is that unformed and you start to
tell people about it, you don't even know yet what
the book is about. Like you can try to tell
people what it's about. You're kind of talking it out,
you're working it out, which might work okay with one
really safe person who can reflect back to you what
they hear. But at an industry event where everyone else
(21:27):
in the room plays some major role in publishing, and
you're sharing some half baked, underdeveloped idea and then you
get this, these looks reflected back to you as if like,
I have no idea what the heck you're saying. It
can really shake your confidence. It definitely shook my confidence.
I wanted to like burst into tears, and I came
home telling my husband, like, forget it. I'm not going
to write the book you know that I've been talking
(21:48):
about for I don't know. It was like coming up
on two years at that point I'd been talking about
writing this book, and I was like, forget it, I'm
never going to write it anyway, And you know, had
my little crash out moment with it, and then came
back around and realized, oh, this is what happens when
you share an idea before it's ready to be shared,
is that you start to see the reflections the expressions
(22:11):
that are reflected back to you, and you interpret them
as this idea isn't any good. But here's what I
want you to come away with from this conversation and
from these stories that I shared. Neither of these experiences
mean that my book idea isn't any good. Neither of
them mean that it's invalid. Neither of them mean that
it's uninteresting. Neither of them mean that it's not worth pursuing.
(22:35):
Neither of them are are reason to drop this idea
and move on to the next thing. Neither of them
mean I'm on the wrong track, not at all. In fact,
this idea continues to whisper to me, and it is
my belief that it continues to whisper to me for
a very specific reason, which is that it has something
to show me. It has something to show me, and
(22:57):
your book idea has something to show to you too.
When authors come to my house to sit down with
me to map out their books, a lot of times
people will say, you know, do you think this idea
is any good? And they'll say to me like, do
you ever work with authors who have bad ideas?
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Like?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Do you ever work with people who you're like, oh,
this could never be a book. And the very direct
answer to that question is no, No, I've never worked
with an author who I think like, oh, this is
a terrible book idea. The answer to the question is
every author comes to me at a different point in
the development process. Think about this like justest Station. I
(23:33):
know some people feel like this is so overplayed, comparing
a baby to a book, but there is a parallel here.
Think about it like just station. If you were to
measure the value of a baby at let's say twelve
weeks versus twenty six weeks versus forty weeks, the value
(23:54):
of that baby doesn't change from one week to the
next week to the next week. The readiness of the
babe to come into material physical form does change. And
I think there's a metaphor here for ideas that you
have for your book. Just because your idea isn't ready
doesn't mean that it's not a good idea. Just because
(24:24):
your idea isn't ready doesn't mean that it's not a
good idea. And what do we do to get a
book idea ready? Do we alter it, change it, delete it,
start over from the beginning? No, what do we do
to get a book idea ready, Well, one is we
just let time pass. I'm so fascinated by pregnancy and
(24:45):
just how procreation works and how something so miraculous happens
with zero effort on the part of the creator, Like
you just sit there and you're forming a central nervous
system inside of you. I mean, how insane is that?
And what if we approached our creative work a little
bit more like that, a little bit more like I
don't have to do anything. I'm having an experience with
(25:09):
this soul, with this idea, with this thing that's coming
through me. I'm having an experience with this thing, and
it doesn't totally make sense to me, and I can't
totally catch the vision of it right now, but I
know that something really spectacular is coming through me, and
I'm going to trust the process and I'm going to
just let this happen and unfold in the way that
(25:30):
it's meant to happen. What if you could treat your
book idea a little bit more like that, more like
I don't have to do anything or perform in any
kind of way or force this idea into form. I
don't have to make it be something that I need
it to be. All I have to do is sit
back and let time pass and let the ideas come
(25:54):
through me and let it come to me. All I
have to do is just let this thing percolate and
continue to put attention onto it. So this is one
big mistake I think that we make with idea development
is that we think that there's an answer to the
question is this a good idea or a bad idea?
And we think it's just that black and white. It's like,
(26:15):
if it's good, I should pursue it, if it's bad,
I shouldn't pursue it. The fact of the matter is,
in my opinion, there are not good ideas and bad ideas.
There are underdeveloped ideas and more developed ideas. And in
order to really see the potentiality of an idea, we
have to be willing to sit with it and allow
it toes state. We have to be willing to hold
(26:36):
space for that idea. Another mistake I think we make
with book ideas, and I definitely made this mistake in
that room with all those publishing professionals, is you have
a book idea, you're wondering if it's any good or not.
You might be already feeling slightly insecure that it's not
it's not as good of a book idea as you
hope it is or want it to be, and so
you share it with someone else, hoping to get this
(26:56):
response like, oh, that's phenomenal, I can't wait to that book,
and instead, oftentimes we get the response like I got
in that room that day, where it's blank stares or
confused looks or whatever, or someone's just not interested in
it the same way that we are, and we take
that to mean that this book idea isn't worth pursuing.
And what I want to encourage you to do is
(27:17):
something I've been practicing in the last several months, which is,
instead of asking someone else, is my book idea any good?
Instead of asking me that question, instead of relying on
someone outside of you to answer that question for you,
I want you to start a dialogue with your book idea.
I want you to start talking to your book idea
as if it were a person, as if it were
(27:40):
something you could be in communication with, asking it, what
do you want to become. I really believe that we
enter into this relationship with our creative work and we
begin to have a dialogue with it from the very
beginning all the way until it's quote fully formed. And
then you think that when you finish a book and
you put it out in the world, well, now that
(28:01):
book is kind of you know, written in stone, and
it's finished and it's out there. But then the weirdest
thing happens. That book takes on a complete life of
its own. And it's like launching a kid into the world,
where it takes on a life of its own. It
has its own little personality, it finds its own way,
it finds its own people, its own readers, its own community.
(28:22):
And so it isn't this fixed thing that we think
it is. Where is this good or is it bad?
It's really its own essence that we can enter into
relationship with that we have the very privilege of entering
into relationship with. So I want you to think about
your book idea, however it comes across to you. Maybe
you don't even really have an idea. Like one of
(28:43):
the things that I teach in a book in six
months is this formula for writing the controlling idea of
your book. And the controlling idea of your book is
kind of like a thesis. If you think about learning
how to write a thesis in high school or college.
It's kind of like a thesis of the book. It
is the idea that control the entire arc of your manuscript.
(29:03):
So writing the controlling idea and getting that right is
extremely important. And also, you know, anybody who's participated in
a book in six months can tell you that getting
your controlling idea down is an evolving process. It's not
something that you do in one single sitting. Your first
shot at it is your first draft, and that thing
evolves over time as you write the book. So often
(29:24):
as you write the book, the manuscript speaks back to you,
this is what I want to be about, these are
the stories that I want included, this is what I'm
really trying to say. And so you enter into this
long dialogue with the book, and the book becomes something
that you never maybe predicted or saw it becoming. And
so just like that, this relationship with your creative thing
(29:45):
is symbiotic. It's not one sided. It's not on you
to make sure that this thing becomes good. It is
a relationship with two think of it like two people.
It's between you and the idea, and you have an
influence on the idea and the idea has the influence
on you, which leads me to the final thing that
(30:05):
I want to say. So there's kind of three pieces
to this. One is like, don't rely on other people
to tell you whether your book idea is good. Enter
into conversation with the idea itself. Number two is, don't
see this thing as black and white. It's like it's
either good or bad. No, this is like allowing the
space and the time for your idea to develop and
to percolate. And finally, the third paradigm shift that I
(30:28):
want to offer on this topic is to stop thinking
about your creative work as a process where the outcome
is meant to be a finished product that impresses everyone.
I know that it's so easy to get caught in
that trap, and especially if you're wanting to publish, it's
really easy to get caught in that trap. But even
if you're not wanting to publish, it's easy to get
(30:48):
caught in that trap, you know. I remember in the
early days of writing a book, I didn't really think
that I had what it took to ever get published,
but I did want to write a novel. That was
what I was working on at the time, was a
fiction book. That was going to like impress all my peers,
that I could like show it to these other literary
folks in my life and they'd be like, Wow, what
an amazing writer. I think that's kind of built in
and that's part of our human nature, So no need
(31:11):
to fight that. But I guess what I'm suggesting is
that because you're in relationship with this creative idea, it
is wayless about this finished product and way more about
who you are becoming in the process. This is not
the first time that you've heard me say this, but
I really want to emphasize this here that it really
doesn't matter. The answer to this question is my book idea,
(31:33):
any good is not nearly as important as what is
this book idea inviting you to become? If you were
to take the step forward to listen to what this
idea has to share with you, what do you think
it wants to share with you? Who does it want
you to become? How does it want to alter and
(31:53):
change and evolve you? What's being invited here? And when
you can begin to see it like that, it takes
so much of the pressure off of like needing this
finished product to be a thing that's impressive or that
gets the attention of a publisher or whatever. This is
much easier said than done. I'm in this so deep,
and I still it's human nature. It's just part of
(32:16):
who we are. I still hope that I write something
that really impresses people, that really, you know, influences them,
that really means something to them, that connects me to them.
And yet I recognize that the number one reason for
this invitation to write anything at all is because of
who I'm becoming. The number one reason that I'm that
(32:38):
I've been invited into this process is because of who
I'm becoming. And so if I can listen deeply enough
to my idea, if I can listen deeply enough to
this book idea that wants to come through, if I
can say yes to the invitation, if I can step
into it and take the chance on myself, then what
I produce is really none of my business other than
(33:00):
that I am the production and we are in this
symbiotic relationship together, me and this idea, Me and this idea.
Can I be a good listener? Can you be a
good listener to the book idea? Ask not is this
book idea any good? But ask yourself. What is this
book idea here to share with me? I read this
(33:20):
beautiful poem that I want to share with you. This
came from Instagram by an author named ember Adeline, and
she says, I am a sinful, stubborn woman persevering in
spite of myself. How dare I maintain hope in the
face of hopelessness? How dare I give myself grace when
no one else will. My story is mine, and no
matter how afraid and burnt at the edges it may be,
(33:42):
I still believe it's worth telling. And that's what I
want to leave you with on today's episode. That's the
benediction is to be stubborn enough to still believe that
your story is worth telling, even if other people have
told you it's not, even if someone else has said
to you it's not in even if their face has
told you everything that their voice did not say. Even
(34:06):
if you question yourself of this idea as any good,
even if you question your ability as a writer, No
matter what, be stubborn enough to assume that your story
is still worth telling. And I hope you'll take this
chance on yourself, as I take this chance on you,
to take the opportunity to purchase a book in six
(34:27):
months for a hugely discounted rate. I hope you take
this as the gift that I mean it to be.
This is my Christmas gift to you. It's my New
Year's gift to you. It's my Thanksgiving gift to you.
It's my gratitude for you for being here, for tuning in,
for listening, for being on this ride with me, for
being in this process with me. This is my way
of saying thank you, and I believe in you and
(34:47):
I'm inspired by you. Keep doing what you're doing and
take advantage of this gift that I'm offering this holiday
season and pay me back by writing your story setting
all I love to you, and I'll see you next
week I'm About your Story podcast
Speaker 1 (35:08):
MHM
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write, all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun. When
you write your story, you get the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and cold?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
It's all about.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And write your story. Write, write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to talk about this question that I have
been asked more times than I can count in my career,
and one that I've asked myself so many times, and
I continue to ask myself every single time that I
sit down to work on a new writing project. I
(00:50):
do believe this question and the answers to this question
have application outside of writing, and I will get there.
But really, the context of a question in the way
that I'm answering it today on this episode, has to
do with when you have an idea for a book,
an idea for a writing project, an idea for an article,
(01:10):
and you find yourself sitting in the murky waters of wondering,
is this idea any good? Meaning?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Like?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Does this idea appeal to anyone other than me. Is
this approach that I'm taking or is the topic that
I'm approaching something that a reader would have any interest in?
Is this something that has a good hook to it?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Is it interesting to someone else? I think this is
a really natural, instinctual question for people and for human
beings to ask. But I really do think that there's
something much deeper going on, and I guess that's what
I want to get into in today's episode. Part of
what's inspiring this is that I am re releasing my
signature course a book in six months, starting on Black Friday.
(01:52):
I've been talking about this for a couple of months,
so if you are a regular listener, you already know
that this is happening. But I want to tell you
another little secret about this re release that I just
decided in the past week, which is really exciting and
I can't wait to share this with you. So this
re release is coming after a year of taking a
step back from my coaching work and taking a step
back from my online courses. I really made this decision
(02:16):
at an intuitive level last fall sometimes so it's been
like a little over a year, and the reason for
taking a step back was just to recalibrate, to spend
some more time with my family, to spend a little
bit of time grieving some of the big changes and
losses that had happened in my life. I lost my
dad last fall, I went through a couple of miscarriages.
We were trying to have a baby. We still have
(02:38):
not been able to actualize that dream, and so I
wanted some space to move through some of that grief.
I wanted space to just be with myself and to
meet the moment, which is something that you'll hear me
talk about today, to just meet the moment with presence.
And I felt like if I kept moving at a
(02:58):
break neck pace showing up to coach and to teach,
which is something that I loved doing, I felt like
if I kept doing that and kept moving at the
pace that I was moving, that this period of time
was going to pass me by and I was never
going to get to really sync into what was trying
to happen in the moment. So I took a big,
long step back from my coaching practice, took a big
step back from a book in six months and then
(03:21):
not too long ago, like almost exactly at the year mark,
because I think I took a step back in August
of twenty twenty four, so like August September ish of
twenty twenty five. I got a phone call, and I
talked about this on a previous episode, so I'll keep
the story short. But I got a phone call from
a friend of mine who was like, Hey, I just
wanted to let you know I took your course. I'm
so sorry to say I didn't show up to any
of the calls. I didn't get any coaching from you,
(03:43):
but he said, I want you to know that the
videos and the emails themselves are enough. In fact, they
are plenty. I got my manuscript written, I got a
book proposal document written. I'm sending it off to my agent.
We're pitching it to publishers. It's looking very promising for me.
And I just wanted you to note that I did
it all with the help of your course, and I
could not have possibly done it otherwise. He said, do
(04:05):
you want to maybe consider bringing back your course without
the coaching element? And something about his suggestion in that moment.
It was not the first time that I had received
that suggestion, but something about his suggestion in that moment
just felt like kismet. It felt like perfect timing. It
landed in my being in just the right way, and
(04:25):
it just felt good and felt right, which was coming
on the heels of a year of like having conversations
with all these different people who maybe wanted to partner
with me and you know, bring some resources to the
table to help me continue, you know, doing the coaching
in the way that I had been doing it. And
in all of those circumstances there were these amazing opportunities.
It seemed kind of cool, but it just never really
(04:47):
felt perfectly right in my body. And when I got
that phone call from my friend Matt, it just felt right.
I don't know how else to explain it. It was just like, yes,
that feels good, that feels easy, that feels unligned. And
so I decided I did a couple of weeks after
I got that phone call that I was going to
bring back a book in six months. I was going
to bring it back without the coaching element. So the
idea would be that instead of moving through this course
(05:09):
in cohorts like we had done, where we would meet
regularly via Zoom, this would be self guided and self paced.
So you get an email in your inbox. Every week,
the email has a link to a video that you watch.
It has a link to an assignment in the workbook
that you complete, and if you move through the videos
and the assignments week by week, then you will finish
your book in six months, or if you need more time,
(05:29):
you could finish the book in eight months or twelve
months or whatever you need, because you can move through
it at your own pace. So I reached out to
my team to see if this would be possible. I
don't have a huge team, like I don't have employees
that are working for me, but I do have some
women who have helped me in the past with the
back end development part, like just getting the landing page
ready and stuff, and ask them if it would be
possible to get this ready for Thanksgiving because in the
(05:50):
past we've always done this where I've offered a book
in six months or it used to be prepared to publish,
but a book in six months, or my signature course
the day after Thanksgiving for a Black Friday price of
some kind, and that it's always just gone really well.
I feel like it's the time of year when people
are thinking about, you know, the years about to turn
over what do I want to do in the new year,
and also people are ready to spend money on Christmas presents,
(06:12):
so I said, you know, would it be possible to
get the course up and ready for the day after Thanksgiving.
So after I got the green light from everyone on
my team, in the next couple of days, I started
feeling just really compelled. I don't know how else to
say it, that I wanted to offer this particular opportunity
at a hugely discounted rate, And the idea really came
(06:33):
to me from I mean, I don't know how else
to say this. It sounds kind of crazy woo woo,
but really, since my dad passed, the number two two
two has been a really important number to me. So
my dad's birthday was February twenty second, which is not
something that I thought about much when he was alive
to twenty two, But for whatever reason, after he passed,
that number two twenty two started popping up in my
(06:54):
life everywhere, and I started to really feel like this
seeing this number out in the world was And I
know lots of people have ideas about angel numbers or
you know, maybe one one one one shows up for
you a lot or you might see the number eight
out in the world a lot, so everyone kind of
has a different idea about this. To be honest, the
number two to two before my dad passed had not
(07:14):
really like registered with me. It wasn't like something that
I saw all the time. It wasn't something that I identified
with or would have thought much about. But after he passed,
I started driving around my neighborhood, which I had driven around,
you know, a million times before, and started noticing that
the mailboxes as you drive out of my neighborhood in
either direction. I mean, that kind of doesn't make sense
(07:34):
because you go out, you know, if you turn right,
you go on one street, and then the other way to
get out my neighborhood is to take a short left
and then take a right, and then you go out
on a different street. But either way, no matter which
direction I'm driving out of my neighborhood, I'm passing mailboxes
that say two two two two two two two four
two two two six. So just everywhere this number started
(07:55):
to show up for me, and I really started to
receive this visual as a reminder that everything was going
to be okay, that my dad was still with me,
that even when things disappear from physical form, that that
doesn't mean that they're gone from my experience, that they're
still there. And there's just something about seeing the number
two to two that makes me feel like I'm being guided,
(08:16):
I'm not alone. And so I just woke up in
the middle of the night one night, shortly after this
conversation with my friend about bringing back a book in
six months, and shortly after talking to the women on
my team and realizing that we'd be able to do
this for Black Friday, I woke up in the middle
of the night and I literally was like, I should
sell a book in six months for two hundred and
twenty two dollars. And then immediately this voice of reason
(08:38):
came in. I was like, don't do that, because that
is going to devalue the regular value of the course.
Because normally I sell the course for about one thousand bucks.
It's nine hundred and ninety nine dollars. So then I
brought it up to my husband. I was like, wow,
I had this idea in the middle of the night.
I just feel really impressed that I'm supposed to do this,
And even my husband was like, don't do it for
two hundred and twenty two dollars. Can't you you know,
(08:59):
can't you do it for like seven seven seven, or
you know, pick a different number, do it, like for
one hundred and fifty dollars off or something like that.
And I thought about it for a while, and I
just kept coming back to this, and I kept feeling like,
you know, what it's really about an obscene amount of
generosity during this time as a way to back up
(09:20):
my claim, which is what I want to talk about
on today's episode, back up this claim that writing is
a tool that will absolutely change your life, because I
think if you're someone who's like, you know, like my
friend Matt, who already knows your agent, has a pretty
good sense of what you want to write about. He's
the pastor of a big church here in Nashville. He
kind of has this feeling like I pretty much know
(09:40):
that if I put something together, a publisher is going
to be interested in it, etc. He still has to
put something, you know, great together. It's not like he
can just throw something meaningless together and a publisher is
going to go for it. But he's kind of in
a place where he feels like he's planning to publish.
He's planning to put something together for a publisher. He's
probably going to get a book contract if he can
come up with something great, and some of us are
(10:01):
not in that place. In fact, I think a lot
of people who could really benefit from writing, and maybe
this is something you identify with a lot of people
who are in the place where they could really benefit
from putting their story on paper or from putting together
their book idea. Are people who are doing something else
currently to make your money. Like maybe you're a teacher,
or maybe maybe you're a stay at home mom and
(10:22):
that's the way that you're financially contributing to your family
as your husband goes out and works and you stay
home with the kids, and your life is like so
full and so over stimulating and feel so impossible to
ever get some white space or a second to yourself
to get any creative writing done. Or maybe you're a banker,
or you're a lawyer, or you're a waiter at a
restaurant or a brister or something, and you're going in
(10:44):
every day and you're doing your job and you're paying
your bills, and there may not be a lot of
extra to invest in yourself, to invest in your own creativity,
to invest in your potentiality as a writer, as a
creative person, as a storyteller. And I think what I
want this massive discount to be and what I want
it to represent for you is my absolute belief and
(11:08):
my investment in you that your idea matters, that your
idea is a quote unquote good idea. That's what I
want to talk about today, is is my idea any good?
Is this idea even any good? People are wrestling with
that question, so I want to unpack that question today.
But this is my way of saying, I believe your
idea is good, having never even heard your idea, and
(11:29):
I'll tell you today why I believe it's good. But
I so deeply believe that your idea is one worth
pursuing that I'm going to give you the steepest discount
I can possibly give on this course without losing money,
because you know, I have to pay my team, I
have to pay for the hosting for the website, I
have to pay for the back end stuff. So without
losing money on the course, this is the absolute most
(11:51):
possible value I can give you for your money, the
greatest bang for your buck, And it is my way
of saying I believe in you. Take this chance on yourself.
Dive in, take the course, move at your own pace,
do it in your own way. So dive in, take
this chance on yourself. It's my way of meeting you
halfway or even a little bit more than halfway, to
(12:12):
lend you my confidence in you and in your idea.
So it's the perfect moment to make this announcement that
if you have been wanting to take the course a
book in six months, if you have a book idea
that's been bouncing around in your head and in your
heart forever, and you've thought ough, like I don't know
if it's really even worth investing in this, Like I
don't know if I can take the time. I don't
(12:33):
know if I have the money to put aside right now,
I don't know if I'm ready to take that kind
of risk on myself. This is me taking the risk
on you and just asking you to meet me like
twenty five percent of the way there. And I hope
this feels like an amazing opportunity for you to take
hold of something that maybe felt slightly out of reach before.
But this is my way of coming to meet you
(12:54):
and saying it's not out of reach anymore. I'm offering
this course starting on Black Friday. I will keep the
discount code active through the end of December. So hopefully
we have a groundswell of writers who have been waiting
for their moment to get started working on their books,
who start sometime in November or December or January, and
(13:16):
who have their books completed, their manuscripts completed by halfway
or three quarters of the way through twenty twenty six.
So the discount code will begin on Black Friday. And
don't worry, if you're on my email list, you will
definitely get an email to this effect. You'll be the
first to know if you are a regular listener of
the podcast. I will make sure to post a link
as soon as it's active. But you will have the
(13:37):
opportunity to purchase a book in six months for two
hundred and twenty two dollars. I will stop rambling now,
but just so you know, a book in six months
will be available for you starting Black Friday, all the
way through the month of December. I will send you
a discount code. You can use the discount code to
purchase the course for two hundred and twenty two dollars.
You can move through your own pace, and you can
have your book completed, your manuscript completed by midway through
(14:00):
twenty twenty six. Okay, now to dive into today's topic,
because these two things are connected. One of the reasons
that I wanted to talk about this is because I
think a major roadblock and hurdle for so many people
(14:21):
who want to write books is this question that they're
asking themselves, which is, how do I even know if
this idea is any good? I think what they're asking
is like, how do I know if this idea is
worthy of my time, of my energy, of my investment.
How do I know if this idea is going to
become anything that is interesting to anyone other than me.
(14:41):
If this is a question that you have asked yourself
about your book idea, I guess the biggest thing I
want you to know is that you are not crazy
and you're not alone. I have been working and publishing
for fifteen years, or maybe slightly more than that, right
around fifteen or maybe sixteen years. I have been either
working in or around the publisher space. I have written
(15:02):
I think ten books for other people. I've written four
of my own. I've been involved in hundreds of book projects.
I've worked with hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of authors who
are working on projects. I've done editing, i have met
with agents, I've met with publishers. I've submitted book proposal documents.
I've worked on dozens of book proposal documents. I have
(15:22):
done so much. I have put in my ten thousand
hours as it relates to writing and publishing books. And yet,
and still I want you to hear this as kind
of like inspiration. I hope you catch this the way
that I'm throwing it out there. And still I have
a book idea presently that I ask myself all the time,
(15:44):
is this idea even interesting to anyone? And I think
when an idea is in the baby stage of development,
like the way that book ideas come to us, where
it's like a whisper, it's a question, it's kind of like, ooh,
this is interesting. It kind of tickles your fancy, It
gives you like a little bit of chill, It registers
in your body in some kind of way like ooh,
that's interesting. I'm curious about that. I'm fascinated. I want
(16:05):
to follow that a little bit. When ideas come to
us in that kind of baby form. They're very tender.
Think of it like a deer in the woods, Like
a baby deer in the woods. If you come at
it too quickly, with too much vigor, you're going to
scare it away. It's almost like you have to find
a way to invite it to come towards you. You
(16:26):
have to be still enough and quiet enough and grounded
enough to invite it to feel safe enough to come
towards you. And if you move too quickly, or if
you come out of the gates with kind of too
much fervor, yeah, you're going to scare it away. And
it's going to seem like, oh, maybe I didn't even
see a deer in the woods in the first place.
(16:48):
Maybe that was just a figment of my imagination. So
I've had this book idea lingering in my subconscious for
a couple of years now. To bring this into context,
most of you, if you've been listening here for a
long time, you know I have two little kids. I
have an almost four year old and a five year
old who are born very close together. I also have
had a crazy last couple of years of my life.
A lot of things have not gone the way that
(17:08):
I expected them to go, which I think is kind
of universal at this point. I think many of us
since twenty twenty have been on a winding path of
life events that we did not expect. So to say
that I've been too overwhelmed to sit down and we're
kind of creative project might be an understatement. I have
been underwater, just kind of drowning with daily responsibilities and
(17:32):
you know, things, just the regular stuff of life that
we all have to do, like paying bills and whatnot.
But this idea has still been kind of swirling and
knocking at the door the way that book ideas tend
to do. They just kind of go, hello, I'm here,
are you interested in paying attention to me? And we
can either pay attention or not pay attention. So anyway,
this book idea has been swirling, and I've been thinking
(17:54):
about it. I've been pondering it. I haven't really done
much with it. I haven't sat down to kind of
work it out. I haven't mapped it out the way
that that I map out books on my kitchen table.
But I have been thinking about it, and I have
been interested in it, and I have been curious about it,
and I have thought like, as soon as I have
a little white space in my life, maybe this is
something that I'll work on. And a couple of things
have happened in the last couple of years as I've
(18:16):
been considering maybe playing with this book idea, one of
which is that another author who is really similar to me,
except for probably a little bit more popular, I guess, like,
has a bigger social media platform, probably has bigger sales
numbers than me, although I don't know for sure, another
author who's similar to me, but maybe a little bit
bigger released a book with the exact title that I
(18:40):
have been planning to call my book for two years,
like the way that the title came in to me
in the very beginning, and I share the story not
for sympathy at all, and for no other reason than
just to say, like, this experience is extremely normal. You
would think that when another author releases a book with
the title that you've been planning to title your book,
(19:01):
that the response would be the feeling would be like, oh,
my idea was a good idea. Look at this other
more popular author also had the same idea, so my
idea was good. Instead, what I find is that when
this happens to authors, because it happens fairly frequently that
authors kind of spiral out of control. And what my
brain did is no different than that we spiral out
(19:22):
of control. We're like, oh no, there's only a few
more good ideas left in the world, and other authors
are just like soaking them right up. And now that
this person has written about this topic, now I absolutely
cannot write about the topic because there's this other author
who did it, you know, maybe even better than I
could possibly do it. So there's those little insecurities that
(19:43):
just find their way of creeping in when you're considering
a book idea. And then another experience that I had
shortly after that, as I went to a publishing event
where we were asked several of us were asked to
share what we were working on. And again, this book
idea of mine is extremely underdeveloped. I don't know what
it is yet. I'm still kind of playing with the idea.
I just have like a whiff of it. It's like
(20:05):
someone you know the game Telephone, where someone whispers something
in your ear and you're not sure if you heard
it correctly. That's kind of how a book idea feels
when it first comes to you, You're like, I'm not
sure if I'm hearing this correctly, but this is what
I've heard so far. So the advice that I would
probably give you about an idea like that is when
you're at a publishing industry event and someone asks you
(20:25):
to share what you're working on, maybe don't share that
idea that's still in its whisper form. Maybe just say
you know, I'm not currently working on anything, or I
don't feel comfortable sharing. That's always something you're allowed to
say too. But of course I didn't say that because
I was feeling embarrassed. I was like, Okay, it's been
two years since I've published anything, I should probably start
talking about what I'm working on. And so I tried
(20:45):
to explain to everyone sitting in that room what I
was working on, and I was met with these blank,
confused stares because for a couple of reasons, like I
don't feel anyone in that room for looking at me
the way that they do. They're not responsible for making
me feel good about my book idea. More of the
reason I bring this story up is to say, when
(21:06):
a book idea is that unformed and you start to
tell people about it, you don't even know yet what
the book is about. Like you can try to tell
people what it's about. You're kind of talking it out,
you're working it out, which might work okay with one
really safe person who can reflect back to you what
they hear. But at an industry event where everyone else
(21:27):
in the room plays some major role in publishing, and
you're sharing some half baked, underdeveloped idea and then you
get this, these looks reflected back to you as if like,
I have no idea what the heck you're saying. It
can really shake your confidence. It definitely shook my confidence.
I wanted to like burst into tears, and I came
home telling my husband, like, forget it. I'm not going
to write the book you know that I've been talking
(21:48):
about for I don't know. It was like coming up
on two years at that point I'd been talking about
writing this book, and I was like, forget it, I'm
never going to write it anyway, And you know, had
my little crash out moment with it, and then came
back around and realized, oh, this is what happens when
you share an idea before it's ready to be shared,
is that you start to see the reflections the expressions
(22:11):
that are reflected back to you, and you interpret them
as this idea isn't any good. But here's what I
want you to come away with from this conversation and
from these stories that I shared. Neither of these experiences
mean that my book idea isn't any good. Neither of
them mean that it's invalid. Neither of them mean that
it's uninteresting. Neither of them mean that it's not worth pursuing.
(22:35):
Neither of them are are reason to drop this idea
and move on to the next thing. Neither of them
mean I'm on the wrong track, not at all. In fact,
this idea continues to whisper to me, and it is
my belief that it continues to whisper to me for
a very specific reason, which is that it has something
to show me. It has something to show me, and
(22:57):
your book idea has something to show to you too.
When authors come to my house to sit down with
me to map out their books, a lot of times
people will say, you know, do you think this idea
is any good? And they'll say to me like, do
you ever work with authors who have bad ideas?
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Like?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Do you ever work with people who you're like, oh,
this could never be a book. And the very direct
answer to that question is no, No, I've never worked
with an author who I think like, oh, this is
a terrible book idea. The answer to the question is
every author comes to me at a different point in
the development process. Think about this like justest Station. I
(23:33):
know some people feel like this is so overplayed, comparing
a baby to a book, but there is a parallel here.
Think about it like just station. If you were to
measure the value of a baby at let's say twelve
weeks versus twenty six weeks versus forty weeks, the value
(23:54):
of that baby doesn't change from one week to the
next week to the next week. The readiness of the
babe to come into material physical form does change. And
I think there's a metaphor here for ideas that you
have for your book. Just because your idea isn't ready
doesn't mean that it's not a good idea. Just because
(24:24):
your idea isn't ready doesn't mean that it's not a
good idea. And what do we do to get a
book idea ready? Do we alter it, change it, delete it,
start over from the beginning? No, what do we do
to get a book idea ready, Well, one is we
just let time pass. I'm so fascinated by pregnancy and
(24:45):
just how procreation works and how something so miraculous happens
with zero effort on the part of the creator, Like
you just sit there and you're forming a central nervous
system inside of you. I mean, how insane is that?
And what if we approached our creative work a little
bit more like that, a little bit more like I
don't have to do anything. I'm having an experience with
(25:09):
this soul, with this idea, with this thing that's coming
through me. I'm having an experience with this thing, and
it doesn't totally make sense to me, and I can't
totally catch the vision of it right now, but I
know that something really spectacular is coming through me, and
I'm going to trust the process and I'm going to
just let this happen and unfold in the way that
(25:30):
it's meant to happen. What if you could treat your
book idea a little bit more like that, more like
I don't have to do anything or perform in any
kind of way or force this idea into form. I
don't have to make it be something that I need
it to be. All I have to do is sit
back and let time pass and let the ideas come
(25:54):
through me and let it come to me. All I
have to do is just let this thing percolate and
continue to put attention onto it. So this is one
big mistake I think that we make with idea development
is that we think that there's an answer to the
question is this a good idea or a bad idea?
And we think it's just that black and white. It's like,
(26:15):
if it's good, I should pursue it, if it's bad,
I shouldn't pursue it. The fact of the matter is,
in my opinion, there are not good ideas and bad ideas.
There are underdeveloped ideas and more developed ideas. And in
order to really see the potentiality of an idea, we
have to be willing to sit with it and allow
it toes state. We have to be willing to hold
(26:36):
space for that idea. Another mistake I think we make
with book ideas, and I definitely made this mistake in
that room with all those publishing professionals, is you have
a book idea, you're wondering if it's any good or not.
You might be already feeling slightly insecure that it's not
it's not as good of a book idea as you
hope it is or want it to be, and so
you share it with someone else, hoping to get this
(26:56):
response like, oh, that's phenomenal, I can't wait to that book,
and instead, oftentimes we get the response like I got
in that room that day, where it's blank stares or
confused looks or whatever, or someone's just not interested in
it the same way that we are, and we take
that to mean that this book idea isn't worth pursuing.
And what I want to encourage you to do is
(27:17):
something I've been practicing in the last several months, which is,
instead of asking someone else, is my book idea any good?
Instead of asking me that question, instead of relying on
someone outside of you to answer that question for you,
I want you to start a dialogue with your book idea.
I want you to start talking to your book idea
as if it were a person, as if it were
(27:40):
something you could be in communication with, asking it, what
do you want to become. I really believe that we
enter into this relationship with our creative work and we
begin to have a dialogue with it from the very
beginning all the way until it's quote fully formed. And
then you think that when you finish a book and
you put it out in the world, well, now that
(28:01):
book is kind of you know, written in stone, and
it's finished and it's out there. But then the weirdest
thing happens. That book takes on a complete life of
its own. And it's like launching a kid into the world,
where it takes on a life of its own. It
has its own little personality, it finds its own way,
it finds its own people, its own readers, its own community.
(28:22):
And so it isn't this fixed thing that we think
it is. Where is this good or is it bad?
It's really its own essence that we can enter into
relationship with that we have the very privilege of entering
into relationship with. So I want you to think about
your book idea, however it comes across to you. Maybe
you don't even really have an idea. Like one of
(28:43):
the things that I teach in a book in six
months is this formula for writing the controlling idea of
your book. And the controlling idea of your book is
kind of like a thesis. If you think about learning
how to write a thesis in high school or college.
It's kind of like a thesis of the book. It
is the idea that control the entire arc of your manuscript.
(29:03):
So writing the controlling idea and getting that right is
extremely important. And also, you know, anybody who's participated in
a book in six months can tell you that getting
your controlling idea down is an evolving process. It's not
something that you do in one single sitting. Your first
shot at it is your first draft, and that thing
evolves over time as you write the book. So often
(29:24):
as you write the book, the manuscript speaks back to you,
this is what I want to be about, these are
the stories that I want included, this is what I'm
really trying to say. And so you enter into this
long dialogue with the book, and the book becomes something
that you never maybe predicted or saw it becoming. And
so just like that, this relationship with your creative thing
(29:45):
is symbiotic. It's not one sided. It's not on you
to make sure that this thing becomes good. It is
a relationship with two think of it like two people.
It's between you and the idea, and you have an
influence on the idea and the idea has the influence
on you, which leads me to the final thing that
(30:05):
I want to say. So there's kind of three pieces
to this. One is like, don't rely on other people
to tell you whether your book idea is good. Enter
into conversation with the idea itself. Number two is, don't
see this thing as black and white. It's like it's
either good or bad. No, this is like allowing the
space and the time for your idea to develop and
to percolate. And finally, the third paradigm shift that I
(30:28):
want to offer on this topic is to stop thinking
about your creative work as a process where the outcome
is meant to be a finished product that impresses everyone.
I know that it's so easy to get caught in
that trap, and especially if you're wanting to publish, it's
really easy to get caught in that trap. But even
if you're not wanting to publish, it's easy to get
(30:48):
caught in that trap, you know. I remember in the
early days of writing a book, I didn't really think
that I had what it took to ever get published,
but I did want to write a novel. That was
what I was working on at the time, was a
fiction book. That was going to like impress all my peers,
that I could like show it to these other literary
folks in my life and they'd be like, Wow, what
an amazing writer. I think that's kind of built in
and that's part of our human nature, So no need
(31:11):
to fight that. But I guess what I'm suggesting is
that because you're in relationship with this creative idea, it
is wayless about this finished product and way more about
who you are becoming in the process. This is not
the first time that you've heard me say this, but
I really want to emphasize this here that it really
doesn't matter. The answer to this question is my book idea,
(31:33):
any good is not nearly as important as what is
this book idea inviting you to become? If you were
to take the step forward to listen to what this
idea has to share with you, what do you think
it wants to share with you? Who does it want
you to become? How does it want to alter and
(31:53):
change and evolve you? What's being invited here? And when
you can begin to see it like that, it takes
so much of the pressure off of like needing this
finished product to be a thing that's impressive or that
gets the attention of a publisher or whatever. This is
much easier said than done. I'm in this so deep,
and I still it's human nature. It's just part of
(32:16):
who we are. I still hope that I write something
that really impresses people, that really, you know, influences them,
that really means something to them, that connects me to them.
And yet I recognize that the number one reason for
this invitation to write anything at all is because of
who I'm becoming. The number one reason that I'm that
(32:38):
I've been invited into this process is because of who
I'm becoming. And so if I can listen deeply enough
to my idea, if I can listen deeply enough to
this book idea that wants to come through, if I
can say yes to the invitation, if I can step
into it and take the chance on myself, then what
I produce is really none of my business other than
(33:00):
that I am the production and we are in this
symbiotic relationship together, me and this idea, Me and this idea.
Can I be a good listener? Can you be a
good listener to the book idea? Ask not is this
book idea any good? But ask yourself. What is this
book idea here to share with me? I read this
(33:20):
beautiful poem that I want to share with you. This
came from Instagram by an author named ember Adeline, and
she says, I am a sinful, stubborn woman persevering in
spite of myself. How dare I maintain hope in the
face of hopelessness? How dare I give myself grace when
no one else will. My story is mine, and no
matter how afraid and burnt at the edges it may be,
(33:42):
I still believe it's worth telling. And that's what I
want to leave you with on today's episode. That's the
benediction is to be stubborn enough to still believe that
your story is worth telling, even if other people have
told you it's not, even if someone else has said
to you it's not in even if their face has
told you everything that their voice did not say. Even
(34:06):
if you question yourself of this idea as any good,
even if you question your ability as a writer, No
matter what, be stubborn enough to assume that your story
is still worth telling. And I hope you'll take this
chance on yourself, as I take this chance on you,
to take the opportunity to purchase a book in six
(34:27):
months for a hugely discounted rate. I hope you take
this as the gift that I mean it to be.
This is my Christmas gift to you. It's my New
Year's gift to you. It's my Thanksgiving gift to you.
It's my gratitude for you for being here, for tuning in,
for listening, for being on this ride with me, for
being in this process with me. This is my way
of saying thank you, and I believe in you and
(34:47):
I'm inspired by you. Keep doing what you're doing and
take advantage of this gift that I'm offering this holiday
season and pay me back by writing your story setting
all I love to you, and I'll see you next
week I'm About your Story podcast
Speaker 1 (35:08):
MHM
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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