By Trevor Thrall
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The podcast currently has 32 episodes available.
It happens to all of us: you make a beautiful plan, you’re pumped and ready to go. Then life happens, things go sideways, and you suddenly find yourself weeks behind. If you don’t do something drastic, you aren’t going to hit your goals.
What the heck do you do now?
For most of us, our plans need significant adjustment midstream more often than not. The problem is that most people don’t feel comfortable with what to do at that point. Do I give up? Do I pull some all nighters to make up ground?
Many folks either get a bit paralyzed or just do whatever occurs to them first. In both scenarios, people tell me that the result was not satisfying or comfortable - they didn’t feel like they made a sound decision. For many people, it’s a reason that they don’t use planning and execution systems at all.
To help combat this problem, the goals for today’s episode are to help you A) make a good decision about how to revise your plan when things break down and B) how to feel good about that decision.
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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We’re all getting the message every day. Generative AI is changing the world at warp speed. Every week reveals new possibilities for working more efficiently. Nothing will be the same. A robot is going to cook all your hamburgers and fries. No one will have a job within 10 years. And writers will go the way of the dodo.
To that I say: raspberry sound. Humans will always have a place in the loop.
In this episode I:
Links:
GYWD: Writing Like a Human Resource Guide
GYWD: AI Tools for Writers Resource Guide
Google Notebook LM
ProWritingAid
GetYourWritingDone.com
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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The 12 Week Year for Writers
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Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?
If you’ve ever found yourself in one of these situations, you’ve fallen into the research trap.
I define the research trap as “The act of conducting unnecessary research or conducting research in an inefficient or ineffective manner.”
The research trap can lead to aggravation. It can make you miss deadlines. It can keep your work from being the best it can be. But maybe worst of all, it can add up to weeks, months, even years, of wasted time.
So, that’s the goal of this episode: understanding the research trap, why people fall into it, and discussing strategies to avoid it.
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook
Is there a rock in your shoe keeping you from writing?
I don't just mean a garden variety obstacle, I'm talking about a major productivity or dream killer. Is there something that needs to change for you to reach your goals?
In today's episode, we discuss The Rock and the Response. We talk about how the obvious layer of the rock almost hides a more important inner layer of dangerous emotion. We consider how difficult it can be to recognize the real causes behind our rocks.
Then we talk about dealing with rocks. Embracing a strategic mindset is key, as is being honest with yourself and being willing to make necessary tradeoffs. Finally, we discuss finding the courage to confront the rocks in our shoes.
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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The 12 Week Year for Writers
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Everywhere I look I see workshops promising to help you get a fast start to 2024. And that’s great! But here’s the thing: how many times have you or someone you know got off to a quick start on a new writing project but never quite finished it? That’s why this episode is all about Starting to Finish. We'll talk about five common reasons people don't finish their writing and five concrete steps you can take to avoid them.
For more information and tools for the productive writer, visit getyourwritingdone.com
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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Get the Books
The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook
Do you ever hear yourself saying these sorts of things?
- I don’t have enough time to write
- I don’t have enough energy to keep going to the end
- I am so demoralized at how slow this is going
- I’m losing my enthusiasm for this writing project I’ve been at it so long
If you find yourself in one of these situations, you need to become a master of making slow progress. This idea of slow progress gets very little discussion these days, but I think it deserves a lot more. In today’s episode I define slow progress, talk about why slow progress can be challenging, and outline some strategies for mastering the art of moving slowly toward your goals.
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook
Did you know that the average person spends just 47 seconds before switching from looking at one screen/window on their computer to looking at another? Or that it takes 25 minutes to regain focus after an interruption? Staying focused in the best of times is a brutal task. Staying focused when life gets crazy is that much harder.
In this episode we'll talk about five strategies for finding focus that all happen before you sit down to write.
Ezra Klein, "Beyond the 'Matrix' Theory of the Mind,"
Gloria Mark, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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Join the newsletter
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Get the Books
The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook
Have you ever had one of those periods where you just couldn’t write consistently? Maybe your schedule was too chaotic. Maybe you got super busy at work. Or maybe you found yourself looking at the clock and seeing it was time to write but you wound up finding something else to do? Maybe you were going great guns but then went on vacation and when you came back you found that your momentum was gone and you never got back on track? Or maybe you made plans to get to work early every morning and write for an hour before work but after a couple days you stopped and didn’t start again? If any of these sound familiar, do not feel bad! We have all had trouble showing up. In fact, I think being consistent and building a writing routine that sticks is one of the single biggest challenges facing a lot of writers, especially a routine that can stand the challenges and turbulence of daily living. So today’s episode is all about showing up: why we don’t and what we can do about it. By the end of the show, you’ll have strategies for writing consistently.
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
Support the show
Connect with Me
Join the newsletter
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Get the Books
The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook
Did you ever have a writing project where everything just clicked? I mean, from the beginning when you had the idea to the finished product, everything just went great, and quickly? And on the other hand, did you ever have a writing project that did nothing but give you trouble, from the day you started it until the day you finished it, or just dropped it? I've had my share of both. And lately I've been reflecting on some of the things that determine how things go with my writing projects, and what's sticking out to me today is the importance of being in sync with your writer rhythms. That's a technical term I just made up, by the way: writer rhythms. According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, rhythm is "a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound." I submit that a writer rhythm is a strong, regular, repeated pattern of writing. Boom, new term created. The argument I want to make in today's podcast is that when you are in sync with your writer rhythms, when you honor them, in a sense, your writing will flow much more easily. When you are out of sync, however, even the easy things will eventually start to become difficult. Today I'm going to explore the concept of writer rhythms and offer a few observations that might help if you're looking to get in better sync with them.
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
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Get the Books
The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook
If you write fiction (and even if you don't), my guess is that you use, have used, or are thinking about using Scrivener, one of the most popular writing apps on the planet.
If you are thinking about it, or need some help making the most of Scrivener, this week's guest is the person to ask for help. Gwen Hernandez is an engineer turned author. She writes the popular Men of Steele series but she has another claim to fame as well. After a friend told her about this cool new writing app, Gwen discovered and fell in love with Scrivener, and wound up publishing blog posts about how to use it as she learned its ins and outs. Eventually, her widely acknowledged expertise led to a contract with Wiley to write Scrivener for Dummies. It also led to a booming business in providing Scrivener training both online and in person.
In this episode Gwen and I talk about why she thinks Scrivener is such a great writing app, how Twitter landed her a publishing deal, and she reveals a few power user moves that everyone who uses Scrivener should know.
Links
Find Gwen Hernandez at gwenhernandez.com
Gwen's courses: scrivenerclasses.com
Scrivener for Dummies
Trevor's Coach-Led Weekly Writing Group
GetYourWritingDone.com
Follow me on Twitter
The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.
Support the show
Connect with Me
Join the newsletter
Follow me on X.
Get the Books
The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook
The podcast currently has 32 episodes available.