February 8, 2026 • 25 mins
You might think that when you sit down to write a book, you use mostly your brain, your intellect, or your thoughts to concoct the perfect argument, the most interesting story.
I believe there’s more to it than that.
I’ve written 14 books and helped hundreds of authors write, edit and publish their works and I’ve witnessed an invisible and inexplicable x factor responsible not only for bringing the idea to you, but also for growing that idea to fruition.
While I don’t know how to name this “x factor” or to define it, I have experienced it again and again and can’t imagine writing a book without it.
If you have a book you’re meant to write, maybe you don’t need to be “smart enough” or “good enough” to make it happen.
Maybe all you need is to listen closely to what this “x factor” is trying to say.
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
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
piece and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and covered it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story. Hi, friend, 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 idea of where book ideas come from,
in part because I find this so fascinating, and in
part because I think I have a different viewpoint I
(00:46):
guess on this than what some other for sure than
what some other writing or book coaches do, but maybe
something different than what you have thought about or considered before.
And I think this is a big misconception that a
lot of people have about writing a book. I know
this because most of the time, when I have someone
come to me with a book idea and they ask me,
you know, like, what is it going to take to
(01:06):
turn this idea into an outline? I have this process
where I sit down with people and we sit at
my kitchen table and we spend a whole day together,
and we can literally outline your book in a single day.
And people are always shocked by this. They're like, wait
a second, in one eight hour day, we can outline
my entire book. And to most people, I think that's
shocking because to them, they feel like the book idea
(01:27):
is coming from your brain. I think that's probably like
the common sense idea about where a book idea comes from,
as it comes from your brain. So if the book
idea comes from your brain, then the idea that we
could sit down in a single day and outline your
book seems kind of crazy or absurd. And the other
thing that I'll hear from a lot of people is like, oh,
I need to do a lot of prep work before
(01:47):
we come and do this, because again, if the book
idea is coming from your brain, then everything that goes
in the book has to be in your brain before
we sit down to the table. Otherwise how would you
be able to pull it out of your brain to
put it into the book. And I'm not refuting the
fact that your brain plays a major role in the
process of outlining a book, of course it does, and
(02:08):
the process of writing a book, you're definitely using your brain.
You're using all parts of your brain, your frontal cortex,
your olympic system, all of this in order to outline
the book, in order to idate the book, in order
to write the book, to edit the book, everything. But
here's the thing. I don't really believe that our book
ideas come directly from our brain, or at least not
in the way that we would typically think about it.
(02:29):
And a big reason for this is my own experience
with writing books. And then the second reason that I'll
talk about is my experience with other people who have
written books. But I've seen some consistencies over the years
that would refute this idea that a book idea is
coming directly from your brain. I'll just tell you about
this book idea that seems to be like coming into
my I don't even know what to call it, like
(02:50):
into my energy, into my field, into my heart space
recently that is asking to be written. I don't know
another way to say this that sounds less kind of
like woo or whack go. But this is genuinely how
I experience it, and so many other people that I've
worked with have experienced it this same way, where it's
not just like you're like hmm, what would make a
great book idea? Right now? What's selling really well on Amazon?
(03:12):
I know I should write X, Y or Z. And
then you sit down to ask the question like, okay, well,
what's the narrative arch here, and how do we tell
the right stories about this? And what's really going to
be a good hook. There is some of that that
goes on in the writing process, for sure, but at
least in my experience, the way that book ideas come
to you is like a flash of insight. It feels
like it comes from outside of you. It doesn't feel
(03:33):
like it comes from inside of you. And sure, maybe
some of this could be like coming from your subconscious
or coming from your unconscious. In fact, I wrote in
the Power of Writing It Down a lot about the
limbic system and the role that the limic system plays
in the writing process, and I talked about how sometimes
during the writing process we have to almost short circuit
what our frontal cortex is trying to do, because your
(03:54):
frontal cortex is extremely linear, your frontal cortex is extremely practical.
Your frontal cortex is like focused on time management, it's
focused on productivity, and we have to figure out little
ways to almost like disengage or disconnect to that frontal
cortex in order to drop in to the limbic system,
where you know I talked about in the book, like
where book ideas come from. It's coming from this lower,
(04:16):
more primal part of our brain, kind of like where
dreams come from. But even when you think about a dream,
like is a dream coming from your limbic system, is
it coming from your subconscious or unconscious, or is a
dream coming from the collective subconscious and unconscious, Like if
you ever had a dream about something that was outside
(04:37):
of the realm of what you've ever experienced before. Like
let's just say you have a dream about whitewater rafting
and you've never actually been whitewater rafting before. You have
a dream about an airplane crash, but you've never actually
experienced an airplane crash in real life before. So if
our dreams, if our limbic systems, can drum up imagery
(04:58):
that is outside of the realm of what we've experienced
in our physical life, we have to at least entertain
the idea that these images are coming from something that's
beyond like the just matter that's in our own skulls,
Like you've got this brain that's in your skull. Your
life experience has collected images along the way that certainly,
(05:19):
you know, your limit system could kind of collage these
together to look like something else. But what about the
images that come to you that are outside of the
realm of your own personal experience. We have to admit
that there's something else that's delivering these ideas to us.
And this is not a brand new idea, and it's
actually like when you really peel back the layers of it,
(05:40):
it's not that wo wo. This is like the basis
of what Carl Hume built his psychological principles on. He
talked a lot about the unconscious and the collective unconscious
and the ways that the ways that they become important
to us, that they're a part of the collective unconscious,
and that they are a part of the mythology, this
collective ethos and a collective archetypes for who we can
(06:02):
be and how we can be in the world. And
these archetypes, these mythologies are passed down through generations and
generations and generations, like passed down from thousands of years,
from centuries of human history, and they're all kind of
shared among us, like we understand the archetype of the hero.
We understand the archetype of the damsel in distress, we
(06:23):
understand the archetype of the gods. We understand all these
different archetypes, like the archetype of you know, the maiden.
So many different archetypes that we understand that help us
to organize our sense of self. They help us to
organize our sense of how stories even work. The narrative
structure that I teach is highly highly influenced by Joseph
Campbell and his work around narrative structure and how stories
(06:47):
are meant to operate. And of course there's more than
one way for stories to operate, but there's also this
collective sense that like, this is what makes a story
interesting or engaging or good, And many of those strategies
or tactics or the shape to a story actually will
hold true across cultures, across time. So how does this work?
(07:10):
It works because we have this collective unconscious that we
all can draw from. So there's like the physical matter
that's inside of my skull, that's my frontal cortex and
my limbic system, and the brain is much more complicated
than that. I'm simplifying it over simplifying it here, But
there's you know, my own brain that's the physical matter
inside of me, and then there's your own brain that's
the physical matter inside of your skull. And then there's
(07:32):
this like collective ecosystem, a collective sense that we all share.
There's like the energy that's between me and you. And
if you're a person of faith like I am, you
also believe that there's more to us than just the
physical matter that's here. There's like a soul or a
spirit or whatever you want to call that, an essence
(07:53):
of you that existed before you got here and that
will continue exist to exist after you're gone, and regardless
of whatever paradigm that you come from. Again, if you
believe that there's more to you than just the part
of you that will be buried after you die, then
you have to admit that that's also playing a role
in where these ideas are coming from that are given
to us or gifted to us. But in my own experience,
(08:15):
I've written four of my own books, I've written ten
books for other people. I've helped hundreds of people to
outline and edit and publish their books. And I can
say this with absolute certainty that my book ideas, at
least the four books that I've written, have not come
from inside of me, like inside of my brain. Oh ding,
I have a great idea, light bulb on. You know,
(08:36):
this is what I'm going to write about because of
these four reasons. The book ideas that have come to
me have come to me from what feels like outside
of me, or even if it's not outside of me,
like if it's from a higher version of myself or
a future version of myself, or something that almost like
gives me this book idea. And in my experience, every
single time that I'm given a book idea, I have
(08:58):
this feeling that's so familiar, that is wild how consistent
this is. But the feeling is just like I don't
know what to do with this, Like You've given me
this book idea that in many ways doesn't make sense
to me, and somehow I'm supposed to steward this or
shepherd this or tend to it to nurture it, to
grow it into something. And I don't even know what
(09:19):
this thing is, Like I don't know if this was
interesting to anyone else, Like I don't see a market
for this. I don't understand what this is for or
what it's meant to do here. I don't even know
if this is interesting to me yet. But it's like
this seed that's handed to me. It's in my hands
and now I'm supposed to nurture it and grow it
(09:40):
into something. And it's a very disorienting feeling. And no
matter how many times I do this, it's just as disorienting.
And I've mentioned this on a previous episode, but recently,
maybe like in the last two years. I've mentioned this
(10:03):
on a previous episode, but recently, maybe like in the
last two years, another book idea has been given to me,
and I am still in the stage of going like,
I have no idea what to do with this. This
is not a book idea I would have picked out
as my next book that makes sense in the canon
of my work that I've created here in my career
(10:24):
on this planet. It's not the book that a publisher
would go like, oh, yeah, this is the best next
book for you to write. But it's the book that
I've been given. And in a way, I feel like
you have a choice. You can either go with the
book idea that your brain invented, and you can write
that book, and that's fine. That's one path to take,
and there's nothing morally wrong with that or ethically wrong
(10:46):
with it. Then there's the book idea that's gifted to you,
that's handed to you from out there in the ethos
and the collective unconscious, whatever you want to call it,
that comes to you as like a gift that's laid
in your lap. And you can choose either which one
of these books you want to write, if you want
to write neither of them, and I will tell you
if you write the one that's gifted to you from
the outside of you. It's so disorienting and confusing that
(11:08):
sometimes it can feel I hear people say these same
phrases to me over and over all the time. It
feels like this is going to be a waste of time.
I'm worried nobody is going to be interested in this.
I'm worried nobody's going to read this. I'm worried this
won't matter for anything. I'm worried no publisher will care.
You know, I'm worried that I'm going to spend all
this time and energy writing this thing and nobody's going
to read it. Whereas if you go the other route
(11:29):
and you write the more logical book. Sometimes you can
see a pretty clear path forward. It's like there's a
big market for this topic. Right now. I happen to
be the expert on this topic. I could absolutely write,
you know, a twelve step book on this topic that
I think could really help people. We could probably sell
several thousand copies and bing bang boom, you know, you've
got a publishing deal. In my view, they are two
(11:51):
very distinctly different paths, and I think this is important
to talk about because I'm gaining clarity on why in
the last year specifically it's really been five years, but
in the last year, I feel that I have taken
a big left turn out of the world of publishing,
not out of the world of writing, but out of
(12:12):
the world of publishing. And I think this topic helps
to explain why, because in my view, after my experience
of helping so many people write books, and many times
like helping people write the type of book I'm talking about,
where it's like there's a market for this, it makes sense.
You're the expert. Let's write your book, let's get it outlined.
(12:32):
It's pretty straightforward, it's very you know, not simple but like, yeah, simple,
but maybe not easy. That we get the book down,
we get it out there, you sell a bunch of copies,
you had a best seller's list, like I've helped with
a lot of books like that. And I think one
of the big reasons that I have decided to take
this left turn out of the world of publishing is
because I don't really believe that writing, at least for me,
(12:56):
the way that I experience it, is about publishing. I
believe that writing, for me and maybe for you too,
is more about receiving and transmitting a message that has
been gifted to you. So I don't know even exactly
what I mean by that, but that is how I
experience the gift of writing a book is like, here's
(13:18):
a message that has been given to you, gifted to you,
and you can nurture it and grow it into existence,
and then that idea can exist in the world and
can go out to help maybe some other people or
maybe not. No guarantees of publishing, no guarantees of fame,
no guarantees of monetary compensation, no guarantees at all. But
(13:41):
this idea is here and it's for you. And I
had this thought the other night, I was like, what
if someone came to you. What if I came to you.
This is just a thought experiment for you to take in.
What if I came to you and I was like, Hey,
I have a message for you that is going to
totally change your life. It's going to change the way
you see the It's going to change the way you
(14:01):
see yourself. It's going to make you feel more confident,
more empowered. It's going to like completely blow your mind.
It's gonna just like ring true to you on every
single level, and it's going to grow you into more
of who you came here to be. I can't guarantee
that giving you this message is going to make you famous.
It probably won't. I don't know. You know, it may
(14:21):
make you money, it may lose your money. I have
no idea. It may make people hate you for all
I know. But I can tell you one thing for
sure that this message is for you. It came here
specifically for you, and it's going to change your life
in a positive way. What would you say, would you
want to receive the message or would you would you not?
Would you want to walk away? This is the way
that I see how the writing process works, and I
(14:43):
think it's one of the reasons why it's stopped feeling
aligned for me. And I'm not saying that there's anything
wrong with, you know, the traditional publishing path and writing
a book that has a market and getting it in
bookstores and selling a bunch of copies. I mean, again,
I've said this before, and I'll say it until I'm
blue in the face. I would be lying if I
said that that didn't appeal to me. But I think
(15:04):
that one of the reasons since the very beginning of
my career, since like two thousand and nine, that I
have been saying over and over again that the best
seller's list doesn't matter, that the number of copies you
sell doesn't matter, is that I primarily see writing as
a spiritual tool and secondarily see it as a publishing tool.
(15:24):
I primarily see writing as a spiritual tool as a
way to be in communication with whatever that is, whether
it's God, whether it's your guides, whether it's your higher self,
your future self, whether it's just like the collective unconscious,
your creative muse, like, I don't know, whatever you want
to call this thing that is otherworldly. It's an opportunity
(15:48):
for us to like touch into that for a second
and experience the miracle of what it means to be
a human being. And at the rest of sounding like
a broken record, I really do the pair between this
and pregnancy are insane to me. I mean, I can't
even get into all the details of it because it
just seems so crazy to me how similar these two
(16:09):
things are. But the way that it is just an
absolute miracle for this seed to be handed to you,
and your whole job is to nurture it and grow
it into existence. And sometimes, you know, I've been thinking
a lot about miscarriage and you know, stillbirth, and simply
because that's something that I've been going through in my life.
(16:31):
I've had a couple of miscarriages at the end of
twenty twenty five and one at the end of twenty
twenty four. And the thought around this is like, just
because this seed doesn't become a baby doesn't necessarily mean
that you did something wrong. So a seed of an
idea may come to you, and you may nurture it
and grow it and sort of like breathe in the
(16:53):
essence of what it is and fall in love with
it and want it to be And just because it
doesn't become what you expected it to be, or it
doesn't like change hundreds of thousands of lives or whatever,
like that doesn't necessarily mean that you did something wrong
or that it didn't become what it needed to be, Like,
is there a way for us to just see creative
expression as an opportunity to touch in to the beauty
(17:17):
of what it means to be a human being, of
the miracle that it is that we are here, and this,
I think when we can shift into this view of
where book ideas come from, why it matters that we
listen to them, why we play a role in bringing
these ideas into existence, When we can shift away from
the external markers like you know, how many followers do
(17:39):
I have? How many copies can I sell? Can I
get the best sellers list? How much money can I
make from this? How many lives can I change? Even
I think like how many lives can I change? Is
always the meaning maker's way of trying to make meaning
of the external success, But it's still an external marker
of success. So shifting away from those external markers and
toward the internal markers of how well can I listen
(18:02):
to where this idea is coming from how authentic and
in integrity can I be to this idea that has
come to me from something I don't understand? How dedicated
and committed can I be to breathing life into this
seed that was handed to me? How well can I
tend to it? You know, just like blow on the
embers of this idea and trust the process that whatever
(18:27):
happens from that is what is meant to happen. It
is much easier said than done. And I say that,
you know, using this miscarriage metaphor and analogy, like the
roller coaster of hope and despair that comes from getting
pregnant and losing a pregnancy and getting pregnant and losing
a pregnancy and getting pregnant and losing a pregnancy is
(18:47):
in many ways horrifying. And also it's like, how well
can I listen to what is trying to happen here?
Because maybe there's something bigger that's trying to happen than
just this physical pregnancy or baby that's trying to come through.
And of course we always want the baby to come,
and of course we always want the book to come,
and we always want the accolades to come, and all
(19:08):
of that I think it's very human to want that
and appropriate to want that. And also when we really
believe that the messages, the books that are coming through us,
the ideas that come to us from the Ethos are
coming to us like it's coming to you. This is
a message that's coming to you, that is here to
change you and change your life. And so can you
(19:29):
allow it to change you and change your life without
needing it to be something that it is not yet
it will become what it needs to be. It will.
Can you allow it to come to you and to
whisper to you? And how closely can you listen to it?
How deeply can you listen to it? And if you're
in a position right now where I know a lot
of people are where you may have two different book ideas,
(19:51):
maybe you have one that feels like, oh yeah, that
this is from the Ethos. This is like whispering to me.
It really wants me to like lean in and understand.
But it's also okay, and it's confusing, and I don't
really get what it means. And I'm like, oh, I
don't even really see a market for this. I don't
even know who would want to read this book. And
then maybe you have another idea of something that's more
cut and dried that you're like, I could see a
(20:13):
market for this, I could see how we could sell
some copies. I could see how a publisher might be interested.
Maybe you have two different ones and you're like, I
don't know which one I should follow. I want to
invite you and give you permission to follow the one
that's less clear, to follow the road less traveled, as
Robert Frost would say. And the other invitation here is
(20:34):
that if you really believe these ideas are coming to
you from outside of you, from the higher version of you,
or from God, or from the ethos or your guides
or whatever it is. If you really believe that this
is where book ideas come from, and if you really
believe that they're here to whisper something to you and
to give you a message, then it really gives you
the freedom to let go of all of the insecurities,
(20:55):
all of the objections, all of the questions, all of
the obstacles are like, well, how will I get it published?
And who is going to read this? And what about
the fact that I'm not a real writer and I
don't really have the qualifications for this it's like no
qualifications required, no background required, no degree required, Like the
message that is for you is going to be given
(21:17):
to you and only you. If the message is given
to you, it's not for someone else. It's for you.
And it's primarily about influencing and changing you your life.
It's about transforming you into the hero that you want
to be. And it's not about how many people will
read it, or how many lives will be changed, or
how many copies will we sell, or how you know,
(21:38):
what kind of bestsellers list will we get on, although
I hope and pray that those things do come to you,
because there can be a lot of fun in that,
But it's really primarily about who are you and who
are you becoming? And how can this idea become a
part of who you're becoming. And so the other thing
to note here is that when this idea comes through,
it may not make sense to you, Like it may
(22:00):
come through as something unexpected. Maybe it comes through as
a children's story, or maybe it comes through as a
fiction book. Maybe you were thinking you were going to
write something nonfiction, or maybe you're thinking you were going
to write something more didactic, and actually it's coming through
as a story or maybe vice versa, Like you thought
you were going to write a story, but it's coming
through as like a ten step list or something. Trust
the way that it's coming through. Trust what is coming through,
(22:21):
because however it's coming through, this has both to do,
I believe, with the message that's coming through for you,
and also to do with the energetic imprint that you
are putting out there into the world, the unique fingerprint
that is perfectly you. It's almost like if someone took
a photograph of you. The unique way that the coloring
(22:42):
and the pixels and everything comes back is perfectly you.
It couldn't be anybody else other than you. It's your eyes,
it's your cheekbones, it's your hair color, it's your coloring,
it's your facial hair, or your build, or your the
exact way that your body is built. It's only you.
It could only be you. And the same is true
with this piece of writing, that the way that it
(23:04):
comes out is uniquely you. So it does come from
the physical matter of you. Some of it does maybe
come from your brain, yes, or your subconscious. If you're
writing a story, it's going to come from your experiences.
If you're writing a more teaching book. It's going to
come from your experiences, and also it's coming from something else,
something bigger than you. And I guess my invitation, my benediction,
(23:26):
my encouragement is for you to allow this idea to
be bigger than you, to not need it to fit
within the confines of your brain. Like I feel like
there is a tendency to sit down and try to
control the book into what you've decided that you want
it to be. And my belief is that if you
do that, it won't become what it could possibly be.
(23:47):
There's a great episode that I recorded more than a
year ago, maybe two years ago, that is by the
author of that book called The Shack, and I talk
with him about this experience of where the story came from,
because it's a wild story that really caught wind. I
think it's such a perfect example of where book ideas
(24:08):
come from. And he talks about being almost like dragged
down this metaphorical river, especially with one of the chapters
that he wrote. He talks about almost being like in
this raft and just sort of like rough housed down
the river in the rapids as he wrote this chapter.
And he said that chapter where he was really in
this flow is one of the only chapters in the
(24:28):
book that never really got edited. I think there's something there,
there's something to be said for that that the more
deeply you can listen, the more you can let yourself
be dragged down the river by this idea, the more
powerful the idea becomes for at least you, if not
those beyond you. So I invite you to be dragged
(24:49):
down the river by your idea. I invite myself to
be dragged down the river by this idea. I have
been toying with this idea for two years and arguing
with myself because I'm like, no, the next logical, obvious
this book for me to write in my canon is this,
which is not the book that's been coming to me.
And yet this other book idea won't leave me alone.
So I have a choice, and so do you. I
(25:10):
can choose. Do I write the book that's logical and obvious,
or do I write the book that's whispering to me?
Do you write the book that's logical and obvious, or
do you write the book that's whispering to you? I
challenge you, I urge you, I encourage you to write
the book that's whispering to you. You don't know why
that is the one that's coming to you, but I
can promise you that there's meaning and there's purpose in it.
So take the chance, take the risk, pop in the
(25:31):
raft and float down the river and I'll see you
back next week. I want to write your story. Podcast
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write, all the beauty and
piece and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and covered it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story. Hi, friend, 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 idea of where book ideas come from,
in part because I find this so fascinating, and in
part because I think I have a different viewpoint I
(00:46):
guess on this than what some other for sure than
what some other writing or book coaches do, but maybe
something different than what you have thought about or considered before.
And I think this is a big misconception that a
lot of people have about writing a book. I know
this because most of the time, when I have someone
come to me with a book idea and they ask me,
you know, like, what is it going to take to
(01:06):
turn this idea into an outline? I have this process
where I sit down with people and we sit at
my kitchen table and we spend a whole day together,
and we can literally outline your book in a single day.
And people are always shocked by this. They're like, wait
a second, in one eight hour day, we can outline
my entire book. And to most people, I think that's
shocking because to them, they feel like the book idea
(01:27):
is coming from your brain. I think that's probably like
the common sense idea about where a book idea comes from,
as it comes from your brain. So if the book
idea comes from your brain, then the idea that we
could sit down in a single day and outline your
book seems kind of crazy or absurd. And the other
thing that I'll hear from a lot of people is like, oh,
I need to do a lot of prep work before
(01:47):
we come and do this, because again, if the book
idea is coming from your brain, then everything that goes
in the book has to be in your brain before
we sit down to the table. Otherwise how would you
be able to pull it out of your brain to
put it into the book. And I'm not refuting the
fact that your brain plays a major role in the
process of outlining a book, of course it does, and
(02:08):
the process of writing a book, you're definitely using your brain.
You're using all parts of your brain, your frontal cortex,
your olympic system, all of this in order to outline
the book, in order to idate the book, in order
to write the book, to edit the book, everything. But
here's the thing. I don't really believe that our book
ideas come directly from our brain, or at least not
in the way that we would typically think about it.
(02:29):
And a big reason for this is my own experience
with writing books. And then the second reason that I'll
talk about is my experience with other people who have
written books. But I've seen some consistencies over the years
that would refute this idea that a book idea is
coming directly from your brain. I'll just tell you about
this book idea that seems to be like coming into
my I don't even know what to call it, like
(02:50):
into my energy, into my field, into my heart space
recently that is asking to be written. I don't know
another way to say this that sounds less kind of
like woo or whack go. But this is genuinely how
I experience it, and so many other people that I've
worked with have experienced it this same way, where it's
not just like you're like hmm, what would make a
great book idea? Right now? What's selling really well on Amazon?
(03:12):
I know I should write X, Y or Z. And
then you sit down to ask the question like, okay, well,
what's the narrative arch here, and how do we tell
the right stories about this? And what's really going to
be a good hook. There is some of that that
goes on in the writing process, for sure, but at
least in my experience, the way that book ideas come
to you is like a flash of insight. It feels
like it comes from outside of you. It doesn't feel
(03:33):
like it comes from inside of you. And sure, maybe
some of this could be like coming from your subconscious
or coming from your unconscious. In fact, I wrote in
the Power of Writing It Down a lot about the
limbic system and the role that the limic system plays
in the writing process, and I talked about how sometimes
during the writing process we have to almost short circuit
what our frontal cortex is trying to do, because your
(03:54):
frontal cortex is extremely linear, your frontal cortex is extremely practical.
Your frontal cortex is like focused on time management, it's
focused on productivity, and we have to figure out little
ways to almost like disengage or disconnect to that frontal
cortex in order to drop in to the limbic system,
where you know I talked about in the book, like
where book ideas come from. It's coming from this lower,
(04:16):
more primal part of our brain, kind of like where
dreams come from. But even when you think about a dream,
like is a dream coming from your limbic system, is
it coming from your subconscious or unconscious, or is a
dream coming from the collective subconscious and unconscious, Like if
you ever had a dream about something that was outside
(04:37):
of the realm of what you've ever experienced before. Like
let's just say you have a dream about whitewater rafting
and you've never actually been whitewater rafting before. You have
a dream about an airplane crash, but you've never actually
experienced an airplane crash in real life before. So if
our dreams, if our limbic systems, can drum up imagery
(04:58):
that is outside of the realm of what we've experienced
in our physical life, we have to at least entertain
the idea that these images are coming from something that's
beyond like the just matter that's in our own skulls,
Like you've got this brain that's in your skull. Your
life experience has collected images along the way that certainly,
(05:19):
you know, your limit system could kind of collage these
together to look like something else. But what about the
images that come to you that are outside of the
realm of your own personal experience. We have to admit
that there's something else that's delivering these ideas to us.
And this is not a brand new idea, and it's
actually like when you really peel back the layers of it,
(05:40):
it's not that wo wo. This is like the basis
of what Carl Hume built his psychological principles on. He
talked a lot about the unconscious and the collective unconscious
and the ways that the ways that they become important
to us, that they're a part of the collective unconscious,
and that they are a part of the mythology, this
collective ethos and a collective archetypes for who we can
(06:02):
be and how we can be in the world. And
these archetypes, these mythologies are passed down through generations and
generations and generations, like passed down from thousands of years,
from centuries of human history, and they're all kind of
shared among us, like we understand the archetype of the hero.
We understand the archetype of the damsel in distress, we
(06:23):
understand the archetype of the gods. We understand all these
different archetypes, like the archetype of you know, the maiden.
So many different archetypes that we understand that help us
to organize our sense of self. They help us to
organize our sense of how stories even work. The narrative
structure that I teach is highly highly influenced by Joseph
Campbell and his work around narrative structure and how stories
(06:47):
are meant to operate. And of course there's more than
one way for stories to operate, but there's also this
collective sense that like, this is what makes a story
interesting or engaging or good, And many of those strategies
or tactics or the shape to a story actually will
hold true across cultures, across time. So how does this work?
(07:10):
It works because we have this collective unconscious that we
all can draw from. So there's like the physical matter
that's inside of my skull, that's my frontal cortex and
my limbic system, and the brain is much more complicated
than that. I'm simplifying it over simplifying it here, But
there's you know, my own brain that's the physical matter
inside of me, and then there's your own brain that's
the physical matter inside of your skull. And then there's
(07:32):
this like collective ecosystem, a collective sense that we all share.
There's like the energy that's between me and you. And
if you're a person of faith like I am, you
also believe that there's more to us than just the
physical matter that's here. There's like a soul or a
spirit or whatever you want to call that, an essence
(07:53):
of you that existed before you got here and that
will continue exist to exist after you're gone, and regardless
of whatever paradigm that you come from. Again, if you
believe that there's more to you than just the part
of you that will be buried after you die, then
you have to admit that that's also playing a role
in where these ideas are coming from that are given
to us or gifted to us. But in my own experience,
(08:15):
I've written four of my own books, I've written ten
books for other people. I've helped hundreds of people to
outline and edit and publish their books. And I can
say this with absolute certainty that my book ideas, at
least the four books that I've written, have not come
from inside of me, like inside of my brain. Oh ding,
I have a great idea, light bulb on. You know,
(08:36):
this is what I'm going to write about because of
these four reasons. The book ideas that have come to
me have come to me from what feels like outside
of me, or even if it's not outside of me,
like if it's from a higher version of myself or
a future version of myself, or something that almost like
gives me this book idea. And in my experience, every
single time that I'm given a book idea, I have
(08:58):
this feeling that's so familiar, that is wild how consistent
this is. But the feeling is just like I don't
know what to do with this, Like You've given me
this book idea that in many ways doesn't make sense
to me, and somehow I'm supposed to steward this or
shepherd this or tend to it to nurture it, to
grow it into something. And I don't even know what
(09:19):
this thing is, Like I don't know if this was
interesting to anyone else, Like I don't see a market
for this. I don't understand what this is for or
what it's meant to do here. I don't even know
if this is interesting to me yet. But it's like
this seed that's handed to me. It's in my hands
and now I'm supposed to nurture it and grow it
(09:40):
into something. And it's a very disorienting feeling. And no
matter how many times I do this, it's just as disorienting.
And I've mentioned this on a previous episode, but recently,
maybe like in the last two years. I've mentioned this
(10:03):
on a previous episode, but recently, maybe like in the
last two years, another book idea has been given to me,
and I am still in the stage of going like,
I have no idea what to do with this. This
is not a book idea I would have picked out
as my next book that makes sense in the canon
of my work that I've created here in my career
(10:24):
on this planet. It's not the book that a publisher
would go like, oh, yeah, this is the best next
book for you to write. But it's the book that
I've been given. And in a way, I feel like
you have a choice. You can either go with the
book idea that your brain invented, and you can write
that book, and that's fine. That's one path to take,
and there's nothing morally wrong with that or ethically wrong
(10:46):
with it. Then there's the book idea that's gifted to you,
that's handed to you from out there in the ethos
and the collective unconscious, whatever you want to call it,
that comes to you as like a gift that's laid
in your lap. And you can choose either which one
of these books you want to write, if you want
to write neither of them, and I will tell you
if you write the one that's gifted to you from
the outside of you. It's so disorienting and confusing that
(11:08):
sometimes it can feel I hear people say these same
phrases to me over and over all the time. It
feels like this is going to be a waste of time.
I'm worried nobody is going to be interested in this.
I'm worried nobody's going to read this. I'm worried this
won't matter for anything. I'm worried no publisher will care.
You know, I'm worried that I'm going to spend all
this time and energy writing this thing and nobody's going
to read it. Whereas if you go the other route
(11:29):
and you write the more logical book. Sometimes you can
see a pretty clear path forward. It's like there's a
big market for this topic. Right now. I happen to
be the expert on this topic. I could absolutely write,
you know, a twelve step book on this topic that
I think could really help people. We could probably sell
several thousand copies and bing bang boom, you know, you've
got a publishing deal. In my view, they are two
(11:51):
very distinctly different paths, and I think this is important
to talk about because I'm gaining clarity on why in
the last year specifically it's really been five years, but
in the last year, I feel that I have taken
a big left turn out of the world of publishing,
not out of the world of writing, but out of
(12:12):
the world of publishing. And I think this topic helps
to explain why, because in my view, after my experience
of helping so many people write books, and many times
like helping people write the type of book I'm talking about,
where it's like there's a market for this, it makes sense.
You're the expert. Let's write your book, let's get it outlined.
(12:32):
It's pretty straightforward, it's very you know, not simple but like, yeah, simple,
but maybe not easy. That we get the book down,
we get it out there, you sell a bunch of copies,
you had a best seller's list, like I've helped with
a lot of books like that. And I think one
of the big reasons that I have decided to take
this left turn out of the world of publishing is
because I don't really believe that writing, at least for me,
(12:56):
the way that I experience it, is about publishing. I
believe that writing, for me and maybe for you too,
is more about receiving and transmitting a message that has
been gifted to you. So I don't know even exactly
what I mean by that, but that is how I
experience the gift of writing a book is like, here's
(13:18):
a message that has been given to you, gifted to you,
and you can nurture it and grow it into existence,
and then that idea can exist in the world and
can go out to help maybe some other people or
maybe not. No guarantees of publishing, no guarantees of fame,
no guarantees of monetary compensation, no guarantees at all. But
(13:41):
this idea is here and it's for you. And I
had this thought the other night, I was like, what
if someone came to you. What if I came to you.
This is just a thought experiment for you to take in.
What if I came to you and I was like, Hey,
I have a message for you that is going to
totally change your life. It's going to change the way
you see the It's going to change the way you
(14:01):
see yourself. It's going to make you feel more confident,
more empowered. It's going to like completely blow your mind.
It's gonna just like ring true to you on every
single level, and it's going to grow you into more
of who you came here to be. I can't guarantee
that giving you this message is going to make you famous.
It probably won't. I don't know. You know, it may
(14:21):
make you money, it may lose your money. I have
no idea. It may make people hate you for all
I know. But I can tell you one thing for
sure that this message is for you. It came here
specifically for you, and it's going to change your life
in a positive way. What would you say, would you
want to receive the message or would you would you not?
Would you want to walk away? This is the way
that I see how the writing process works, and I
(14:43):
think it's one of the reasons why it's stopped feeling
aligned for me. And I'm not saying that there's anything
wrong with, you know, the traditional publishing path and writing
a book that has a market and getting it in
bookstores and selling a bunch of copies. I mean, again,
I've said this before, and I'll say it until I'm
blue in the face. I would be lying if I
said that that didn't appeal to me. But I think
(15:04):
that one of the reasons since the very beginning of
my career, since like two thousand and nine, that I
have been saying over and over again that the best
seller's list doesn't matter, that the number of copies you
sell doesn't matter, is that I primarily see writing as
a spiritual tool and secondarily see it as a publishing tool.
(15:24):
I primarily see writing as a spiritual tool as a
way to be in communication with whatever that is, whether
it's God, whether it's your guides, whether it's your higher self,
your future self, whether it's just like the collective unconscious,
your creative muse, like, I don't know, whatever you want
to call this thing that is otherworldly. It's an opportunity
(15:48):
for us to like touch into that for a second
and experience the miracle of what it means to be
a human being. And at the rest of sounding like
a broken record, I really do the pair between this
and pregnancy are insane to me. I mean, I can't
even get into all the details of it because it
just seems so crazy to me how similar these two
(16:09):
things are. But the way that it is just an
absolute miracle for this seed to be handed to you,
and your whole job is to nurture it and grow
it into existence. And sometimes, you know, I've been thinking
a lot about miscarriage and you know, stillbirth, and simply
because that's something that I've been going through in my life.
(16:31):
I've had a couple of miscarriages at the end of
twenty twenty five and one at the end of twenty
twenty four. And the thought around this is like, just
because this seed doesn't become a baby doesn't necessarily mean
that you did something wrong. So a seed of an
idea may come to you, and you may nurture it
and grow it and sort of like breathe in the
(16:53):
essence of what it is and fall in love with
it and want it to be And just because it
doesn't become what you expected it to be, or it
doesn't like change hundreds of thousands of lives or whatever,
like that doesn't necessarily mean that you did something wrong
or that it didn't become what it needed to be, Like,
is there a way for us to just see creative
expression as an opportunity to touch in to the beauty
(17:17):
of what it means to be a human being, of
the miracle that it is that we are here, and this,
I think when we can shift into this view of
where book ideas come from, why it matters that we
listen to them, why we play a role in bringing
these ideas into existence, When we can shift away from
the external markers like you know, how many followers do
(17:39):
I have? How many copies can I sell? Can I
get the best sellers list? How much money can I
make from this? How many lives can I change? Even
I think like how many lives can I change? Is
always the meaning maker's way of trying to make meaning
of the external success, But it's still an external marker
of success. So shifting away from those external markers and
toward the internal markers of how well can I listen
(18:02):
to where this idea is coming from how authentic and
in integrity can I be to this idea that has
come to me from something I don't understand? How dedicated
and committed can I be to breathing life into this
seed that was handed to me? How well can I
tend to it? You know, just like blow on the
embers of this idea and trust the process that whatever
(18:27):
happens from that is what is meant to happen. It
is much easier said than done. And I say that,
you know, using this miscarriage metaphor and analogy, like the
roller coaster of hope and despair that comes from getting
pregnant and losing a pregnancy and getting pregnant and losing
a pregnancy and getting pregnant and losing a pregnancy is
(18:47):
in many ways horrifying. And also it's like, how well
can I listen to what is trying to happen here?
Because maybe there's something bigger that's trying to happen than
just this physical pregnancy or baby that's trying to come through.
And of course we always want the baby to come,
and of course we always want the book to come,
and we always want the accolades to come, and all
(19:08):
of that I think it's very human to want that
and appropriate to want that. And also when we really
believe that the messages, the books that are coming through us,
the ideas that come to us from the Ethos are
coming to us like it's coming to you. This is
a message that's coming to you, that is here to
change you and change your life. And so can you
(19:29):
allow it to change you and change your life without
needing it to be something that it is not yet
it will become what it needs to be. It will.
Can you allow it to come to you and to
whisper to you? And how closely can you listen to it?
How deeply can you listen to it? And if you're
in a position right now where I know a lot
of people are where you may have two different book ideas,
(19:51):
maybe you have one that feels like, oh yeah, that
this is from the Ethos. This is like whispering to me.
It really wants me to like lean in and understand.
But it's also okay, and it's confusing, and I don't
really get what it means. And I'm like, oh, I
don't even really see a market for this. I don't
even know who would want to read this book. And
then maybe you have another idea of something that's more
cut and dried that you're like, I could see a
(20:13):
market for this, I could see how we could sell
some copies. I could see how a publisher might be interested.
Maybe you have two different ones and you're like, I
don't know which one I should follow. I want to
invite you and give you permission to follow the one
that's less clear, to follow the road less traveled, as
Robert Frost would say. And the other invitation here is
(20:34):
that if you really believe these ideas are coming to
you from outside of you, from the higher version of you,
or from God, or from the ethos or your guides
or whatever it is. If you really believe that this
is where book ideas come from, and if you really
believe that they're here to whisper something to you and
to give you a message, then it really gives you
the freedom to let go of all of the insecurities,
(20:55):
all of the objections, all of the questions, all of
the obstacles are like, well, how will I get it published?
And who is going to read this? And what about
the fact that I'm not a real writer and I
don't really have the qualifications for this it's like no
qualifications required, no background required, no degree required, Like the
message that is for you is going to be given
(21:17):
to you and only you. If the message is given
to you, it's not for someone else. It's for you.
And it's primarily about influencing and changing you your life.
It's about transforming you into the hero that you want
to be. And it's not about how many people will
read it, or how many lives will be changed, or
how many copies will we sell, or how you know,
(21:38):
what kind of bestsellers list will we get on, although
I hope and pray that those things do come to you,
because there can be a lot of fun in that,
But it's really primarily about who are you and who
are you becoming? And how can this idea become a
part of who you're becoming. And so the other thing
to note here is that when this idea comes through,
it may not make sense to you, Like it may
(22:00):
come through as something unexpected. Maybe it comes through as
a children's story, or maybe it comes through as a
fiction book. Maybe you were thinking you were going to
write something nonfiction, or maybe you're thinking you were going
to write something more didactic, and actually it's coming through
as a story or maybe vice versa, Like you thought
you were going to write a story, but it's coming
through as like a ten step list or something. Trust
the way that it's coming through. Trust what is coming through,
(22:21):
because however it's coming through, this has both to do,
I believe, with the message that's coming through for you,
and also to do with the energetic imprint that you
are putting out there into the world, the unique fingerprint
that is perfectly you. It's almost like if someone took
a photograph of you. The unique way that the coloring
(22:42):
and the pixels and everything comes back is perfectly you.
It couldn't be anybody else other than you. It's your eyes,
it's your cheekbones, it's your hair color, it's your coloring,
it's your facial hair, or your build, or your the
exact way that your body is built. It's only you.
It could only be you. And the same is true
with this piece of writing, that the way that it
(23:04):
comes out is uniquely you. So it does come from
the physical matter of you. Some of it does maybe
come from your brain, yes, or your subconscious. If you're
writing a story, it's going to come from your experiences.
If you're writing a more teaching book. It's going to
come from your experiences, and also it's coming from something else,
something bigger than you. And I guess my invitation, my benediction,
(23:26):
my encouragement is for you to allow this idea to
be bigger than you, to not need it to fit
within the confines of your brain. Like I feel like
there is a tendency to sit down and try to
control the book into what you've decided that you want
it to be. And my belief is that if you
do that, it won't become what it could possibly be.
(23:47):
There's a great episode that I recorded more than a
year ago, maybe two years ago, that is by the
author of that book called The Shack, and I talk
with him about this experience of where the story came from,
because it's a wild story that really caught wind. I
think it's such a perfect example of where book ideas
(24:08):
come from. And he talks about being almost like dragged
down this metaphorical river, especially with one of the chapters
that he wrote. He talks about almost being like in
this raft and just sort of like rough housed down
the river in the rapids as he wrote this chapter.
And he said that chapter where he was really in
this flow is one of the only chapters in the
(24:28):
book that never really got edited. I think there's something there,
there's something to be said for that that the more
deeply you can listen, the more you can let yourself
be dragged down the river by this idea, the more
powerful the idea becomes for at least you, if not
those beyond you. So I invite you to be dragged
(24:49):
down the river by your idea. I invite myself to
be dragged down the river by this idea. I have
been toying with this idea for two years and arguing
with myself because I'm like, no, the next logical, obvious
this book for me to write in my canon is this,
which is not the book that's been coming to me.
And yet this other book idea won't leave me alone.
So I have a choice, and so do you. I
(25:10):
can choose. Do I write the book that's logical and obvious,
or do I write the book that's whispering to me?
Do you write the book that's logical and obvious, or
do you write the book that's whispering to you? I
challenge you, I urge you, I encourage you to write
the book that's whispering to you. You don't know why
that is the one that's coming to you, but I
can promise you that there's meaning and there's purpose in it.
So take the chance, take the risk, pop in the
(25:31):
raft and float down the river and I'll see you
back next week. I want to write your story. Podcast
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.