B is for Book Coach

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. Today, we’re making space for a Guided 5 Minute Outline.

I often hear that a 5 minute outline recording or episode helped someone, followed quickly by the acknowledgement that it took 15 minutes or more to get through.

I think my record 5 minute outline was 45 minutes long.

The thing is, the “5 minutes” part of the outline isn’t a gimmick that never comes through. It’s actually a really important constraint to the exercise.

- Why we need a direct way in

- Task initiation

- Access to intuition

- Guided 5 Minute Outline

(5 Minute Outline Introduction)

Hey, thanks for creating this space with me today.

Whether or not you’re ready to dive into writing just yet, remember that the best authors show up fully, just as they are. That’s all it takes—and you're already doing it.

Be sure to subscribe on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every coaching moment to come. And when more of your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you.

And so will I.

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. Today, we’re making space for patterns.

If you don’t have a teenager in your house, you might not have jumped onto the KPop Demon Hunters bandwagon yet. It’s an animated movie about (surprise!) a KPop girl group who hunts demons. Pretty straightforward setup, if you're open to a vital message delivered like a musical punch to the gut.

- Patterns that we tend to hide

- The magic of acceptance

- The audacity of authorship

- What to do with your writing demons

Hey, thanks for creating this space with me today.

Whether or not you’re ready to dive into writing just yet, remember that the best authors show up fully, just as they are. That’s all it takes—and you're already doing it.

Be sure to subscribe on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every coaching moment to come. And when more of your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you.

And so will I.

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. Today, we’re making space for resistance.

The other day, a colleague posted a thread on LinkedIn about certain things that aren’t as scary as we were led to believe they’d be when we were kids in the ‘90s.

Quicksand.

Razorblades in Halloween candy.

Spontaneous combustion.

I’d like to submit to the record: Resistance.

- The fear of resistance

- The reality of resistance

- A new way to look at resistance (especially for non-writers)

Thanks for creating this space with me today. Whether or not you’re ready to dive into writing just yet, remember that the best authors show up fully, just as they are. That’s all it takes—and you're already doing it.

Be sure to subscribe on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every coaching moment to come. And when more of your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you.

And so will I.

Welcome to a special edition of B is for Book Coach. In these episodes, I’m going to read through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident—the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors.

Today, we’re reading from: Ethos and Process.

To get the rest of the workbook right away, look for You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident on Amazon, or subscribe on Substack to get a free copy right now.

And as always, whenever your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you.

And so will I.

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. I’m B, midwife of big ideas and book development partner for writers and non-writers alike. And for the next few minutes, you are my author.

Today, we’re making space for a magical Guided 5 Minute Outline.

These exercises are usually pointed toward one specific kind of content, but this one is about remembering who you are.

You can reach your people.

It doesn’t even have to feel that hard.

You don’t need to be perfect. You definitely don’t need to perform. You just need to remember who you are and why you’re here.

Whether or not you’re ready to dive into writing just yet, remember that the best authors show up fully, just as they are. That’s all it takes—and you're already doing it.

Be sure to subscribe on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every coaching moment to come. And when more of your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you.

And so will I.

https://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/p/introducing-the-5-minute-outline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXkCDSUCoJA

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. I’m B, midwife of big ideas and book development partner for writers and non-writers alike. And for the next few minutes, you are my author. Today, we’re making space for balance.

Can a multipassionate, purpose-first change-maker find a routine so balanced that they’re actually satisfied?

- The myth and misunderstanding of balance

- The vulnerability of being honest

- The stuff that makes this kind of writing so hard

Be sure to subscribe on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every coaching moment to come. And when more of your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you.

And so will I.

Welcome to a special edition of B is for Book Coach. In these episodes, I’m going to read through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident—the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors.

If you want to follow along or jump ahead, pocket-sized copies are available on Amazon, and every Substack subscriber gets a fillable PDF copy as well.

Today, we’re reading from: the Introduction.

https://www.amazon.com/You-Dont-Get-Ocean-Accident/dp/B0BZFCZKJG/

bisforbookcoach.substack.com/about

bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. Today, we’re making space for perspective.

A few weeks ago, one of my teenagers wanted to spend the day “body-doubling” at the library to make progress on the last of her eighth grade school work. I took the opportunity to get my own stack of tasks done, but not before I stepped inside to grab a book that one of my authors referenced as a complementary title. While scanning the numbers and titles to find that book, I paused on one with a rainbow gradient on the spine, not unlike the design I’d just created for my Clarity Spectrum work-in-progress.

The book is called Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern, and the topic of color was way too timely to ignore.

- The metaphor of color as applied to writing

- The obviousness of our own perspective and how easy it is to miss it

- A Spongebob Squarepants update to a cliche we've all heard before

- How the science of color can help us write challenging books

For a transcript, more coaching, the links that contextualize this content, and more, subscribe via bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe

For more on the Clarity Spectrum and the two-question quiz that can give your book a home on it, go right to brannansirratt.com

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. Today, we’re making space for a simplified 5 Minute Outline.

Over the past few months, I’ve been in the trenches of articulating the Clarity Spectrum—a new set of book categories based on what the author intends to create for a reader. In that process, I realized something key: The 5 Minute Outline revolves around just two questions.

The two questions in the quiz. The two questions you can ask yourself at every stage of writing. The two questions that pull you out of performance space and back into connection with the message you want to deliver to the person who needs to hear it.

This guided 5 Minute Outline holds that focus, and it looks something like this:

* Where am I meeting my reader?

* What is my reader holding?

* What do I want to offer my reader?

* What helps my reader pick up what I’ve offered?

* What does my reader need to expect now?

Keep tuning in weekly to settle into this coaching space while your book emerges. And when it’s time to dig in further, upgraded spaces and deeper services are available too.

Subscribe on Substack for these episodes as written newsletters and for more levels of support: bisforbookcoach.substack.com

Take the two-question quiz: brannansirratt.com

Explore the Clarity Spectrum: brannansirratt.com/book-spectrum

Get to know the 5 Minute Outline: https://bisforbookcoach.substack.com/p/introducing-the-5-minute-outline

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. Today, we’re making space for genre.

At roughly the midpoint shift of my career to this point, I made my way into the Story Grid universe. If you’re not familiar, “the Story Grid” is a story nerd’s dream, plotting entire fiction works onto spreadsheets to see how the arcs take shape.

- Content genres vs sales genres

- The shape of story that we play out all the time

- The cost of living a story that's not ours

- The nonfiction story shapes that have emerged from years in this space

bisforbookcoach.substack.com/subscribe

brannansirratt.com

brannansirratt.com/book-spectrum

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