How To Write a Book Podcast

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Tips and Tricks for Your Next Book with Author and CEO Leah Berdysz

Leah is on a "mission to empower and educate girls on how to be beautiful from the inside out through discovery of social, mental, and physical components." After graduating from John Carroll University with her Bachelor of Arts in Exercise Science and Entrepreneurship in 2017, Leah founded Empowered & Poised LLC. She is currently working towards her Master of Science in Social Administration (MSW equivalent) with a focus on School Social Work at Case Western Reserve University. She is slated to publish her very first book: Conscious Empowerment: A Guide to Helping Girls Build Self-esteem & Confidence in 2021.

 

 

Support the book, Conscious Empowerment: A Guide to Helping Girls Build Self-esteem & Confidence NOW! The goodies deadline is fast approaching!

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

Massiel:  Welcome to the How To Write a Book Podcast. Leah, thank you so much for joining us.

 

Leah: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

 

Massiel: Us too. I cannot wait to tell my listeners about your journey, about your book. Oh my gosh. So I'm excited. We're so excited. So let me just go ahead and dive into a little bit about, Leah, and then I'll have you take over from there. 

 

Leah: Yeah.

 

Massiel: Awesome. Perfect. Leah is on a mission to empower and educate girls on how to be beautiful from the inside out through the discovery of social, mental, and physical components. After graduating from John Carroll University, with her Bachelor of Arts in exercise science and entrepreneurship in 2017, she founded Empowered and Poised LLC. She's currently working towards her Master's of science in social ministration with a focus on school social work at Case Western Reserve University and slated to publish your very first book, 'Conscious Empowerment: A Guide to Helping Girls Build Self-esteem and Confidence’, which is going to be published in 2021

 

Leah: Whoo-ooh! Thank you so much for that lovely introduction.

 

Massiel: Gosh, thank you. I mean, just reading that and you're like go girl. Yes, yes. That is amazing. I mean, reading your background, reading your organization, it is so beautiful to touch base with someone who wants to empower girls, who is striving to do that and you are doing it, your LLC Empowered and Poised is doing just that. And before we dive more into like your book and your organization, your background includes anxiety and body image issues as well as 10 years of working with youth. So do tell us, what did I miss out here in your background? Tell us how did you get here?

 

Leah: Yeah. So that's a great question. It's hard to say that there's really one thing that led me here because quite frankly, this is not where I thought I would be if you would have asked me, you know, five, 10 years ago. But I think everything has its way of working out, right? Like I taught Phys. Ed for four years and I never thought I would be in the field of education. I started a business, never thinking I was going to be a business owner. I went to grad school, never thinking I would be in grad school and here I am writing a book, never having thought I was going to write a book.

 

I think it's been very serendipitous and I'm really grateful that I've been provided with so many opportunities. And it was kind of like, you know, when somebody knocks at your door, you open it up and you walk in, it was kind of like that with me; certain opportunities would just kind of come about obviously, not just on their own, but with hard work, connecting with people, being serious about my education, all of those types of things. But when these opportunities arose, like this wonderful opportunity to talk to you, I really had to step into my own courage and share my story and share my passions and I think that's a lot of what has led me to where I am today.

 

Massiel: That is amazing. And especially because you're talking about being brave, stepping into things that kind of jump out in front of you, and that is something that we talk about on the podcast, which is believing in a message. And even if you don't know where it's going to go, the opportunities will rise and that's exactly what you're doing here. I mean, you've created this beautiful LLC, right? And you're talking with these people; just touching briefly on the interviews that you have included in your book, I mean, that is just so inspiring. And I'm going to say this again and again, thank you. Thank you because you're showing up, you have this calling and that's something that we always try to do within the How To Write a Book Podcast is saying like, you know, it can be scary, but show up

 

Leah: It can be scary. It definitely can. I will not deny that. And I think that's where that courage comes into play. It's like having the courage that even when it's scary to still give it a try and to realize that if you fall down, you can get back up and keep going.

 

Massiel: Oh my gosh! Yes. And that is actually so timely because we just released an episode on what if you get rejected or what if it just doesn't work out and it's like, you're going to keep trying and moving forward. 

 

Leah: Absolutely. 

 

Massiel: I totally agree. Now before we dive more into your book and your book writing process, I would love to talk about your organization. So tell us a little bit about Empowered and Poised. I mean, this sounds like just such a game-changer for teaching girls how to believe in themselves. Can you tell us more about that?

 

Leah: Yeah. I would love to; if there are any specific questions that you have for me about it, let me know. I know that you definitely hit on the mission, which is to empower and educate girls on how to be beautiful from the inside out. So we're looking at the whole person, so helping young girls to develop socially, mentally, physically, becoming well-rounded individuals. Teaching those skills to ultimately help a young girl to be confident in her own abilities. And we do this through a variety of different programming and just different platforms that we have. So for example, individuals of any age can share their story on our blog, which shares about what makes an individual empowered and poised in his or her own right. And so, we have been really fortunate that we've built a community where over 150 individuals have shared their stories about all of the amazing things that they're doing and the challenges and obstacles that they've overcome. So we're so grateful for everybody who's contributed to that. 

 

And then in our programming, we've done after school programs, One-Time workshops, partnered with different school districts basically to help young girls, as we had mentioned before, become more confident in their selves and their abilities. And we do that through a lot of different hands-on activities. You know, a lot of people don't like to be talked at, even as adults, we don't like to be talked at, right? So we like to find a way to engage our students when we're working with them to spread the word. And now there's this book, which is to help the parents and educators and mental health professionals who are working with young girls to look at the different principles of how we can help a young girl, but keeping in mind that a one size fits all approach just doesn't work when we're empowering young women that we have to think about and look at their unique background and where they come from, their race, their culture, their socioeconomic status, experiences they've had in the past. So we're really excited and empowered and poised to just continue to spread the word about all of this that we're doing and to continue to promote positivity for young women.

 

Massiel: That is awesome. Oh my gosh! Literally just talking with you and I feel like this blossom of hope because I mean, a program like this, I know that it's a game-changer. I'm almost like, Oh, I wish I was like, you know, 10 years ago, let's do it. I love it. But still, I mean, we'll dive in now as well, but it is so awesome how you're showing up. And I would love to kind of talk a little bit about you're talking about this one size fits all approach that we have for girls right now. Can you tell us more? What is that? Cause when I read that, I was like, what is this approach? I would like to help in recognizing what this one size fits all is.

 

Leah: Yeah. So, I think that it's just, you know, when I was doing reading and research, it feels like sometimes people say like, okay, if you say this to your daughter or to the girl that you're working with, or if you do this or you do that, then automatically, she's just going to become confident. But it's like, you can't just do that for everybody. I mean, affirmations might work for one girl, but for another girl, it's going to be the importance of giving her opportunities and experiences. Granted, I would argue that really, it's both of those things but when you are talking to a young girl and you're affirming her, it needs to be specific to who she is. Not just general, not something that she's not going to believe about herself. Because just these blanket statements, unfortunately, the research says that, you know, they're not working the way that we think that they are, that they need to believe that in themselves too, that is something that they can do. 

 

And so, you know, finding different role models who look like the girls that they're trying to empower and continuing to expand representation media and the different people who are helping our young women. So again, it's just that idea that when your working with a young girl, you need to really think about who she is as an individual and how you can help her based on what her interests are, what her experience is, the family that she's come from; just her general overall background.

 

Massiel: That is such a good point because I mean, as we dive into girls, their mentality, it can be a lot like, actually being a doctor in the sense of everyone's prescription is different, everybody has to be approached differently. And that is awesome. And that is awesome that you have found that not only is that true, that's the case, but you're working with girls and you're creating these outcomes. And speaking of the outcomes, I noticed in your program, you have four learning outcomes. And so, you touch on self-awareness and positive self-image, leadership skills, and creative thinking strategies. And there was one that stood out to me that I would love to touch on, which is your outcome is girls will become critical consumers of information related to overall wellness. So like, what's that one about?

 

Leah: Absolutely. So this one is explored a little bit more deeply in the book, if anybody wants to check that out where it really dives in. But just to give you an overall understanding, a great example would be about social media, right? Because unfortunately, on social media and just media in general, girls are depicted in such a way that it's not always what the reality is. They're photo-shopped, filters are used and so, it's helping a young girl to realize when she sees that picture, that it's not all true, it's not all reality so that she doesn't go and compare herself to something that's really unrealistic; which unfortunately is something that I have done for myself in the past that got me into a lot of trouble. I know I've shared this story before, but you haven't heard it so let me share it with you if that's okay. 

 

Massiel: Yeah.

 

Leah:  So when I was in my undergrad career, I thought that I wanted to be a personal trainer for a little while. And so, I'm not that far removed from the social media age and technology where I was like, Oh my gosh, how is anybody going to take me seriously? Like if I don't look like these personal trainers on Instagram, AKA people who are filtered, maybe who are on some sort of, you know, are using some sort of substance, just really is not something that like my body is necessarily made out to be. And so, I had a friend who at the time was a nutritionist - still is - create me a meal plan, which it was all healthy foods so that was great, right? Because I was feeding my body, the fuel that it needed to be healthy.

 

However, what happened was I started weighing my food similar to how a bodybuilder would, but I wasn't competing. So in all reality, this was not healthy, you know, and thankfully it didn't turn into an eating disorder, but had I not had the knowledge and had I not had the support that I did to be like, Oh my gosh, something's not right about what I'm doing right now. And I'm not happy inside even though physically, I love great, you know, mentally I wasn't in a really great place. And so, I think that's why this particular objective is so important is because I've gone through it on my own, realizing that the impact that the media can have on a young girl, you know, as she's developing and trying to figure out who she is. And I just think that it's really, really important that we have these conversations starting at a very young age with girls about the way that, you know, the media portrays women and how we can fight against that and realize that that's not who we have to be. And that being our authentic self is really, truly what is going to help us, you know, to move forward in life as individuals.

 

Massiel: Wow. Yes. Yes. I mean, that is just powerful and you're so right. And I love that you're doing that. So it really is training girls to look at this critically and to understand that what's out there is not reflective of what you should be, you know, things like that. And trying to deconstruct that and loving yourself as you are, because we're all beautiful, you know, as we are right now.

 

Leah: Absolutely. And I think this is too right. It's more than just what we see, but it's what we hear like in songs. So like if a song comes on the radio and it's talking about degrading women and your daughter hears it, you know, having that conversation with her to say, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think that this is okay? You know, how could this be changed? You know, so really, just engaging these conversations with students and the young women that we live and work with.

 

Massiel: Wow. Yeah, totally, totally. And I agree with that, just consuming all of that and trying to understand how to filter it and better see the perspective and those conversations, you know? And so now, I mean, yeah, let's dive into the book. I mean, just that message alone, having that in the book is amazing. So the book itself, you know, I mean just the title, it is The Conscious Empowerment, and it's a guide to helping girls build self-esteem and confidence. So let's start with just the idea of this. So was the LLC and the book kind of hand-in-hand or how did the idea of the book come about?

 

Leah: Yeah, so they kind of went hand in hand. So as you had mentioned, I'm in grad school. And so why not take on one more thing while I'm in grad school and decide to write a book. Like naturally that would be the only thing that we could do. I was really fortunate that I had actually a friend go through this program because I'm writing my book in a unique way. It's actually through the Creator Institute. And so, they take you through essentially a course that helps to teach you how to write a book, because the reality was, I didn't know how to do this on my own and I needed some assistance, which is why I decided to enroll in this program. And at the time a fellowship was going on so I decided to join this fellowship which started this past, I think it was either late spring or the summer of this year so 2020. 

 

And we started this journey and I think that I always had some inkling of like, I think this would be me to write a book, but I think what really propelled me was like, Hey, this is a really great opportunity over the summer. I don't have as many classes as I do, now, I have time to actually begin writing this. Let's just do it because, you know, no time is going to be a great time. And this sounds awesome because it's a fellowship and I'm going to have the support of other authors and editors and kind of a framework to build this book from. And so, I thought like this would be a really great opportunity to expand Empowered and Poised, to help get the message out more, and to connect with even more great individuals that I could interview for the book. So I got really excited about it and here I am.

 

Massiel: Yeah, that was so awesome. I saw your trailer right on Indiegogo for the book. And just like you said, like you're interviewing like these awesome go-getters as well. The CEO of Girls Inc; Stephanie Hall, Dr. Gillian Lambert, Lee Paiva, who's a founder of No Means No Worldwide. And then Julia Lambert is a chief strategy officer for the Emily Program, which I actually wasn't aware of this program. So it's a national leader in eating disorder awareness treatment and lifetime recovery and that is awesome just having those resources. So, I mean, so all the interviews and the way that you structure your book because you have the different sections of your book and then you have these interviews, was that already laid out for you within this course or that's from your idea generation?

 

Leah: Yeah. So that's where my idea generation, we were able to lay it out however we wanted. So usually like when you start writing a book, it's not going to probably end up the way that you think it is in the end. That's what they always tell you, like where you start is not necessarily where you finished. But what I decided to do was really use this opportunity, like I said, to connect with different individuals. I don't want to say just women because there were also, you know, a couple of really amazing men that I interviewed who are key. So like, for example, Lou Birkholz, who is the author of Vital Connections, which talks all about how to connect with young people, which I highly recommend that book, Vital Connections, it really is fabulous. And so mostly though, you know, it was a lot of different women who are experts in this field of working with girls that we interviewed.

 

And what I ended up noticing was that there were some different principles that stood out among many of these interviews. So that's how I decided to pool the six principles that are now in this book was what are those kinds of trending topics, right? When we say trending, it's like the things that we see over and over again, and it also relates to young girls because obviously, they're very, you know, intertwined in the world of social media, so kind of a fun play on pop culture. And so those six trending topics have become the chapters of the book. So it goes into those. And then from there, we kind of discuss a little bit of how-to, so how do you implement this principle in a way that, you know, you can use it with whatever girl you live and work with and make it unique to her and helping her. So really tangible steps on how to apply these principles or what comes after what the main principles are. And I'm happy to share with you if you're interested in what some of these principles are.

 

Massiel: Definitely. Actually, that was my next question. So let's dive in. 

 

Leah: Yes. So I'm not going to give you too much, but I will give you a little teaser here. And that is to be that adult, which is basically being the person, the role model that a girl needs in her life, being there, being her champion. Exposure, which is exposing her to different activities, events, and things so that she can learn more about who she is, who she wants to become, and what she enjoys in life. Representation; so this is kind of what we were already talking about, making sure that there's representation in the classrooms, in the media of girls who are from different backgrounds who look different, who speak differently, who are just diverse.

 

We have affirmations, which we spoke a little bit about and the chapter does a much better job than even I just explained about how to actually use affirmations in a way that science backs and that it actually works. Being seen; so this is the idea that to be seen, it's not about wearing the most glamorous dress. It's about exactly what you said to me here today is showing up, being who you are, being brave to speak your truth. And then finally, we have a chapter all about sports and fitness. Because like I said, with the wellness triangle, it's social, mental and physical wellbeing, and there's a lot of science out there that sports, fitness, exercise, you know, physical activity, that those things can also help to improve a young girl and her self-esteem and confidence. 

 

So those are the principles that are explained in the book and hopefully, people take the opportunity to check them out. I would really appreciate your support, you know, in picking up a copy and reading the book and then giving us feedback on what your thoughts are.

 

Massiel: Yeah. And that's so cool, like right now that you have the book on Indiegogo. And you say on there that as part of the tears, when you pledge in, you can give feedback and be part of the author community. So how did you come up with that idea and to create that community there?

 

Leah: Yeah. So actually I'm grateful to be able to work with the publisher. So New Degree Press has helped along the way and coming up with some of these ideas, because they've had a great number of authors that have come before me to kind of figure out like what works. Now, outside of that, community is just super important to me. I think that it is so vital, especially in this COVID-19 world, that we continue to connect with one another to build community. And that's the whole premise of Empowered and Poised is like joining this community, join us.

 

Join the community to help empower and inspire young women. Now, I am very excited like you said because people joining the author community, means that they get the opportunity that if they hop into this presale campaign that we have going here just for this month, they can help to pick the cover of the book, help give feedback and being beta readers. So some really exciting things to be really a pivotal part of this journey of launching this book, which is I think super exciting. I'm excited to see what everybody has to say and which book covers they might like the best and feel like, you know, what speak to the audience the most.

 

Massiel: Yeah. Oh, that is so exciting. And totally not going to lie, I purchased your book cause I was like, I love all this.

 

Leah: Yeah!! Thank you! I appreciate it and I'm excited for your feedback too. 

 

Massiel: Oh my gosh. Yes. I was just reading the intro, your principles that you broke down in the chapters on there, the interviews you had, and then you were also being really transparent about your editing process on there as well. And I was like, I mean, as a writer, first of all, you're just laying it all out there, which is awesome. It's empowering. And I think it really ties into this idea of, you know, how as girls, we have these myths that we need to deconstruct, but then also as writers, we have these myths that we need to just kind of break down. So I was like, I'm going to support that as well, but then also your message.

 

Leah: I appreciate it. 

 

Massiel: Definitely. I'm so excited for where your book is going and, you know, speaking of, I mean, it's such a great and powerful message. At any time did you feel like when you decided like, okay, let's just like tack on the book as well, did you feel overwhelmed? What were your mental obstacles when you first started?

 

Leah: Oh yeah. I definitely felt overwhelmed. I still feel a little overwhelmed if I'm just being honest. I would be lying to say that this was an easy process, that's not the truth of it. There were definitely times where I hit creative blocks and walls, times where I wasn't as interested in writing, maybe, on one day or the people that I was reaching out to interview, you know, I'd have people who wouldn't get back to me or, you know, right now, as I'm trying to reach this huge goal for fundraising, for the book and it's not going maybe as quickly as, as I hope for it to. But I think at the end of the day, it's everything that we're talking about right now is you just have to continue to be patient, continue to, you know, do your best, work hard, and know that you have a good message.

 

And that's something I needed to remind myself as like, this is really important work that's happening, you know, and it's not going to be an easy process because for as cliche as it is, if it was an easy process, everybody would be doing it. So I think through this process, what I want to say is just thank you to all of the other writers out there, to all the other authors out there, because I definitely, through my own journey of writing a book, have found a new respect for authors and the challenge that it is to really come up with a kick-butt book that, you know, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of research. I just want to say, thank you to everybody else out there who is writing books to inspire people, to educate people, and to also just entertain people because it's not a super easy process.

 

Massiel: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, that is something that we talk about on the podcast, which is thanking the authors who have inspired us, who have shown up to write. And even when you're staring at the blank page and you're like, I don't know what I'm doing here and that doubt creeps in, but still showing up and believing in that message. And so you actually just touched on something that's you said that you had to remind yourself about that message. Was there anything specific you're doing? Cause you talk about affirmations in your books, so I'm curious, are there some principles that you're also using that are mentioned in your book that you use to write your book?

 

Leah: Yeah, that's a great idea. You know, I think a lot of times we're inspired to write the things that are personal to us. And so, I think that, you know, if I'm just being completely transparent, that for as much as this book is for everybody else, I think it was still a part of like my journey for myself and seeking and helping myself to understand some of the parts of me that I still continue to be uncovering. And so I think I just needed to go back and really listen to some of the advice that the different interviewees gave me along the way and the inspiration that I was feeling every time that I got to talk to such a wonderful individual who was passionate about the same things that I'm passionate about and, you know, their advice, how to help other girls has in return, helped me. So in addition to thanking all the authors, I think that it would only make sense for me to also thank, once again, all of the interviewees who helped contribute to this book, because just as you were helping all of these other young women, I want you to know that, you know, you've also helped me too. So thank you for that.

 

Massiel: Oh, that's a beautiful message. And yes, thank you. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this book and everyone who continues to put out powerful and inspiring messages. And it's exactly, as you said, I mean, actually that is how this podcast was born, which was trying to understand what my own writing process was and trying to show up because you have maybe this doubt or this the struggle. And so, we write this in other words for ourselves, but you know, there are people struggling with this as you have encountered and we're helping them by also showing up. So that was awesome. Thank you. So I would love to talk about your interviewing process because I know some of our listeners, they want to write memoirs that might take other people into account or might be doing research nonfiction. So what was your interview process like? How did you choose, you know, who you were going to ask, and go from there?

 

Leah: Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. So I think this is one of the most fun parts, I think for me of the book writing process was kind of discovering such amazing individuals. Some of whom I did not know about before I started writing this book and it was really through just a lot of research; Googling like experts in girls, experts in girls confidence, all those kinds of keywords, buzzwords that hit the book. And that's when I just started reaching out to people and it was kind of just like, Hey, I've got this project, you know, it seems you have a similar passion to me. I would really love to take 30 minutes to an hour to interview you for it, to hear your expertise on this topic. And I think you would be surprised by how many people are willing to help and said yes.

 

And then from there, it was a snowball effect. Because when I would talk to one person at the end, I'd say, you know, and if you have anybody else that you think I should talk to as I'm writing this book, I would really appreciate if you could connect me and a lot of them did. And so, that's how I started meeting and learning about all of these other really wonderful people and growing my network, and growing the interviews for the book. So it was really just a super exciting process that was just simply asking and that was kind of it.

 

Massiel: I love that. Yeah. Because exactly you said the snowball, what's gonna start getting that traction. You start trying to be like, okay, I'm rolling, I'm rolling. I love that. So I'm wondering how many interviews did you do, I mean, you started this summer, right?

 

Leah: Yeah. So in the end the bulk has incorporated roughly, I'd say like 35 or so interviews. So the majority of them did make it into the book. Unfortunately, not every single one did, but I would say, Oh, probably a good 90% did. And these also, the other thing too, is we were instructed by NDP - New Degree Press - to really bring in stories. And I'm so grateful that I did that because I think it makes it that much more enriching. And quite frankly, it's like in this book, you're not going to find these stories anywhere else, because some of them are from everyday individuals or from the experiences of the leaders of these young women and the things that they've seen. So it's not something that you could go pick another book up off the shelf and read about, because like we said, stories are unique to who you are. So I'm really excited and really grateful that people were brave enough to share their stories and allow them to then go public. And so yeah, about 35 individuals, in the end, were interviewed for this.

 

Massiel: Wow. That is fantastic. I mean, especially because it's letting us know that there are so many resources out there and that is amazing because sometimes you jump into a topic and you're really not sure where to begin, but you have like consolidated all of that and given us an opportunity to search for and find these new enriching places where we can get that information, and that is awesome.

 

Leah: Yeah. And I think that's where authors can like really tap into the wonderful resources that we have in this virtual world. Even though there's a lot of negativity around it, there's also a lot of really amazing things that have come from it. And so it could be as small as like searching up a hashtag and like finding somebody who's kind of in that same genre community as you are, you know, I've recently been trying to connect with some books-to-grammars, you know, which is something kind of new that I just found out about. Are you familiar with that bookstagram? 

 

Massiel: Yeah. So Instagram, it's the authors and the books of bookstagram. So hashtag bookstagram. Or like hashtag writers of Instagram. Yeah. I'm actually pretty new to this as well, but I'm like, once I find it, I'm like, well, here I go. I love it.

 

Leah: Oh my gosh. I know it's so easy to dive right in. And that's the same thing that I did when I was looking for different individuals to interview is I just dove right in. And I also should give the credit to, you know, some of my interns as well, who has been a major part of this process and supporting me along the way. So shout out to all my amazing Empowered and Poised interns. I appreciate you all as I tell you all on a daily basis, but I'm really so grateful to have a team supporting me through this. Because just as I always say with entrepreneurship being a lonely road, I think that writing a book can also sometimes be a lonely road. So really connect with other authors in the community, whether it be through social media or through your own network, going out and meeting people on LinkedIn, whatever you have to do because having people who also understand what it's like to write a book can definitely help to continue to push you forward when things get challenging, in my opinion.

 

Massiel: Yes, totally. I agree with you. And especially, I was just going to take a moment to say thank you for being so transparent as well. Because I think that that is something that we strive to do here on the podcast, which is letting people know that every writing process can be different. Every personality is different when it comes to writing. And sometimes we, you know, want to strive to be a certain image of writing. But when we struggle, it's totally normal. It's totally okay. It doesn't mean that, Oh, you're doing anything wrong; you just keep showing up. So thank you again for being transparent on the process. And also that, yeah, writing can feel lonely. But there are like bookstagram and things like that we can start connecting. And maybe this is just me, but I love all those beautiful photos of books piled up on Bookstagram.

 

Leah: Oh my gosh. I love them too. My photography skills really probably aren't that good.

 

Massiel: Mine too. I'm just like I'll just stare with them. Seriously. I'm like, if I could just get big posters of all these, it would be fantastic. But I totally get what you mean. So I mean, the journey can be up and down, but just based on what you're saying, always worth it showing up. So after all your interviews, I'm sure we would love to know. So you've done all this interview process and you're talking with your publisher about maybe the organization, what happened from there? How do you go from interviews to actually writing?

 

Leah: Yeah, so, you know, I kind of did it along the way. So as I would there's actually a really great, and I think your audience would love to know about this, it's called Otter AI, and it's an app. And Otter AI helps to transcribe the different interviews that you're doing, which is really great because even though it's not a hundred percent accurate all the time, you can go back and look up keywords in that interview. And so for me, it was like, I remember, I don't know, like Stephanie Hall saying this really amazing thing about the importance of making sure that this book fits all girls and that we realize that confidence doesn't look the same for everybody. So a girl can be shy and still be confident. So maybe I would look up on Otter, AI shy the word shy because then it will ping it and you can find that part and relisten to her and it even types it out for you so you can go back. 

 

And then what I did is I would kind of listen to these interviews again or start typing up. I would type notes out too, as I would interview, and then that's how I would come up with the stories. So the stories were really based on these individuals, and having this Otter AI technology was super helpful because, for me, it was really, really important that I'm not speaking for the women who I interviewed, but that it's really their voices that are coming through and being heard. Especially because I interviewed you know, many different individuals from various backgrounds that weren't similar to mine so I never want to act like I'm the expert of a different group that I'm not a part of. So being able to use this technology was really helpful and then developing the stories. Then once I had the stories is kind of when I would pair them and say like, okay, these are both about sports and fitness, so I'd put them in the same chapter.

 

And then from there I would go and add in my own experiences, my own suggestions from the years that I've had working with young women. And then, finally, I would take and beef it up with some research to make sure that the information that we're giving is actually, like I said, backed by research. And then, that's kind of the way that the chapters were built. And then, from there, just figuring out how to piece everything together to make one coherent book; figuring out what's the history that we need to add in the beginning of the book to help set the scene so that people understand the difference between self-esteem and confidence because that's not very well understood, you know what is this word, intersectionality? What does that mean? And then it kind of flows into those principles and how-to, and wraps it all together in a nice little book.

 

Massiel: That is so awesome. And I love what you're saying. So, as you were researching, you were building, so the book was being built as it was going. I love that.

 

Leah: Yes. Yes. I think for me, it would have been very, very overwhelming to not have done it that way and to have done all of the interviews and research and then have to write it all after. So I really enjoy doing it along the way, especially because immediately upon listening to the interviewee or speaking with them, that's when I was most inspired. Because I just got off the phone and I'm like, this is awesome, people need to hear this, people need to know this. So to be able to write right then and I would also if you don't mind me sharing another tip that I have for all of your listeners and that's to not get too stuck in the way you've always used to do things but be open to a different process. So what I mean by that is I thought that I was going to be the type of writer where I would set a block of time aside, you know, like every Monday at five o'clock, I'm going to write for an hour and then I'm going to write again on Wednesday or whatever because I like to have checklists of things that I accomplished.

 

That's just the way that I kind of work. I'm a little type A, but what I realized was in creative writing, that didn't work as well for me. I actually needed to write when I was feeling inspired, as opposed to when I thought I could just get the work done. And I think that that definitely probably helped to make this an even better book is because that passion was really jumping outside of me as I was writing the words on the pages.

 

Massiel: Yes, yes, totally. That is literally, what we talk about on the podcast. It's getting to know yourself as a writer and knowing that it's okay if you need to change and transform and do things a little bit differently; totally. You hit the nail on the head and especially because like you said, like if you thought you might be in one way, and I find that I'm one way when I write nonfiction, but I'm different when I write fiction.

 

Leah: Yes. Yes. Well, that's what I found from like my academic papers that I've been writing academia, you know, for my grad school is very different than what I have been writing for this book. Even though there's research in it, it's much more creative and it was a very different process, and writing up these stories too, which was like, it was kind of a challenge, an exciting challenge though but it was definitely different for me. So I totally understand what you're saying. That it was different for you fiction versus non-fiction writing. I totally get that.

 

Massiel: Yeah. Right. Exactly. So for all the listeners out there, you know, just like Leah's talking about, it's okay if you find that you actually need to go this way, you need to go that way, you need to pivot and change. It's totally normal. Totally okay; embrace that and jump into it. You said you were enjoying the process and that's something that we like to hit upon is like, it's like enjoy the process cause it's fun. It is fun.

 

Leah: It really is. I really did have fun writing the book. I'm not even going to lie. I'm not just saying that, it was exciting.

 

Massiel: That's awesome. Was it surprising to you, like before that, were you thinking like, Oh, I'm not sure how I'm gonna feel about this?

 

Leah: Yeah, I think honestly, I thought it was going to feel more like work that did, and I'm not saying, like I said, it was hard work and it definitely wasn't necessarily wouldn't it call it easy, but I don't think I've realized I would enjoy it as much as I did. I think it was more like, this is a really good idea. I have a message. It needs to get out there. I would love to do more speaking and I'd love to be able to speak, you know, about the things that I'm sharing in my book. But I don't think I realized how much I would enjoy the process of writing. And so I'm really grateful that I tried something new because who knows, maybe there'll be another book in the future now that I never would have thought.

 

Massiel: I love that! Yes. I love that because I'm always telling everyone and my listeners know, I'm like, you know, you write your first book, but you probably have another book in you so just keep going.

 

Leah: And I think I'd like to do something very different. Like I would maybe like to write for the young women that I work with or maybe do a children's book. Like, I don't know. I mean, there's so many opportunities and possibilities, you know, like I said, nothing else in the past, I really thought I would be doing so I'm not going to say no, I'm not going to say never. And who knows what might come next.

 

Massiel: Exactly. Exactly. No, I love exactly how you've recapped you know, where you started, your interview process, and then your writing process, which is so beautiful. It really just speaks to the creativity and how much fun you were having. And one thing that you also mentioned inside your Indiegogo page for the book is next year editing process. So how is that going? Cause what are the updates on that and how did you decide how you're going to approach your editing?

 

Leah: Yes. So as I had mentioned through this program, we are also given an editing team and I'm very grateful for that because that is also a huge process. So we originally had our developmental editor, which helped us to kind of just get our ideas out, you know, find any holes maybe that we would have, make sure that the flow of the book is working nicely. And now I'm in the stage where an acquiring editor is looking through the book. So they're going through and looking for things that are a little bit more detailed, but after they look at it, then everybody who is in my pre-sale who has purchased a copy in the presale campaign, they also will have the opportunity if they so choose to be beta readers. So before the book actually launches and goes live, they can help to give me feedback.

 

And I'm also gonna recruit some individuals who are in my network, who I really trust, who are good editors, excellent readers, things like that to make sure that it really is in tip-top shape. And then from there, it goes on to another editor. I'm no expert in the editing process and how all of it works. Through this program, they've really offered support to help us figure out the editing process and how that all works. But I know that that is going to be after this pre-sale is going to be the next big thing is really sitting down with the book and taking time to kind of rewrite it. You know, I was recently told that the editing portion is just as hard if not harder than the writing portion, so I'm putting on my belt and getting ready for it.

 

Massiel: Yes, totally. Actually that was going to lead me to my next question. So the editing process, it can totally feel like a different beast, you know? And something that we also talk about is like, sometimes if you need help, it's totally cool. Right? You have that editor friend that you said, like you have a circle of people you trust also the editors that are available to you. That is awesome. And just like you said, you said you're going to put on your seatbelt. And I love that because sometimes we have to prepare. We're like, okay, how am I going to do this? So like, what are you doing to prepare them? What's your seatbelt? Are you doing like affirmations or are you telling yourself, okay, I'm just going to like buckle down and listen and jump into this? How are you bracing yourself for the editing?

 

Leah: Yeah, I think that's a great question too. So right now, I'm trying to stay a little more present. Because right now this presale launch is kind of the main goal right now is to focus on this. And there's a lot that goes into it, I think a lot more than people can ever imagine, a lot more than I thought that there was; sharing with your network, reaching out individually to people, sending texts, DMS, putting it on social media, sending out newsletters. I mean, it's a big job to just share about the launch, presale launch of the book. So that's where I'm really focused right now because I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, kind of one step at a time in order so that I don't get overwhelmed.

 

As far as getting ready for the editing process, I'm kind of a little bit at a standstill at this point because my acquiring editor is still looking through things. So I'm just being patient and waiting until I get that feedback back. And then once I get that feedback is when I'm really planning on diving in kind of taking that jump, which is why I need my seatbelt on is to make sure that I can stay grounded during that time so that I can get the work done that needs to be done because I'm sure that there'll be plenty of feedback that I then need to adjust. And also just thinking about like who's in my network that are really good writers that might be interested in this book, that might be interested in helping me so that I then have a support team along the way? Because I'm always of the belief that no matter how good of a writer you are, we still miss things. Like we're not perfect people and no one should expect anybody to be perfect. So the more eyes that can get on to the book before it actually published onto Amazon and into the bookstores and the libraries and all of those types of things. It's just thinking about who in my network might be willing to support and help me edit along the way.

 

Massiel: Yes. And that really, I think, is going to resonate really well with the listeners, which is like you said, so editing is down the road. So right now, focusing on what's going on right now and for a lot of listeners, it's writing the book or simply doing their research. So I think that's going to be really helpful. So instead of looking at that mountain far away, you're just trekking on this one. That is, yes, totally beautiful. I love that.

 

Leah: Yeah, because, you know, I think otherwise, I mean, I don't know, I don't want to speak for everybody, but for me, especially when I first started this process, it seemed really big and daunting. So I think breaking up, you know, writing your book into steps, into small measurable, achievable goals so that you can feel and find that progress along the way that can continue to propel you forward. Because I think if you would try to do everything all at once, it's much easier to get stuck, feel defeated, and maybe just not finish at all. So when you can find little achievements along the way, I think that it makes it much more realistic and doable to actually getting to the end goal, which is publishing the book.

 

Massiel: Yeah. Yeah. And I agree, and that's exactly what we tell our listeners. It's like, you know, just a little bit at a time and checking a little bit at a time and you know, actually, this leads me to a question before we wrap up. You said here that you're helping Girls Inc. So the book is helping Girls Inc. Now how is it doing that exactly?

 

Leah: Yeah, that's a great question. So a portion of the profits from the presale campaign is going to go to support Girls Inc. And the reason that I decided to partner with Girls Inc, is because I strongly believe in their mission. It's very similar to that of Empowered and Poised and to everything that's being shared in the book. And considering we had Stephanie Hall interviewed, who is the CEO, as you had mentioned earlier, of Girls Inc, we felt that it only made sense to partner with them and give a portion of the proceeds back to a charity that's doing such good for the community and helping underserved young women who might not otherwise have the chance to experience some of the things that are mentioned in the book. And it's organizations like Girls Inc that really give them the opportunity to learn more about themselves, to expand their horizons, and to be able to grow into confident young women. So we're really excited about this partnership, and we hope that we can raise more than enough so that we can give back to the community of Girls Inc. 

 

Massiel: That is awesome. And it's such a great mission, such a great organization because they've done a lot. I know some of my listeners would love to set up proceeds for an organization or charity. So I mean, how on that technical level, how does that work? Does it do like an automatic type of like split so that they can know like, this is how I want to contribute once my book is published?

 

Leah: Yeah. So actually, again, just being transparent, the way that it's working with them is once we raise our complete funds, then anything after, you have the opportunity to kind of put that in your pocket or give that to a charity. And so we've decided to get 50% to Girls Inc. once our goal is raised. And then also the other 50% is likely going to go to Empowered and Poised to help with that mission, which is not public but since it's my organization, I have a feeling that's probably what we'll end up doing so that we could then serve more girls in that way and that can help to reduce the cost for the girls and pay for some of the art supplies and different things that we need for our programming.

 

So I guess on the backend, a lot of it is reaching out to the organization that you'd be interested in partnering with to make sure that they're open to it, that they're okay with it, that you're following any of the guidelines that they offer to you about engaging with their platforms. Obviously, it's a partnership, so you want to be respectful of that. Now, logistically, on the backend the publisher is helping 50:20speechfreeze] coping with all of, necessarily speak to that in this circumstance. But I know that there definitely are ways that you can do that through websites where you raise donations or through other fundraising sites as well, similar to Indiegogo where if you wanted to raise funds to then give back to the community that you could certainly do it in that way. I don't know, did that answer your question well enough on how people can kind of go about partnering with an organization?

 

Massiel: Yeah, absolutely. I think cause sometimes we will look at an organization and we might feel exactly as we're talking about overwhelming, how do I contribute? But you laid it out. It's really straightforward, you know, to start the communication. And I love that because I think that a lot of listeners will be like, okay, like that's a step forward that they can take to writing their books, finishing them, and then also donating their proceeds to an organization or a charity just like you're doing, and also going back into your LLC, I mean, which is fantastic because you guys are doing so many great things. That is awesome.

Leah: Thank you. Yeah. And I mean, I think it was also important too that we highlighted this organization in the book. So that's part of the reason why we decided to partner with them, was not only because of the interview from Stephanie, but we also spoke about a young woman who went through the program and then her confidence was kind of increased because of the opportunities that she was granted, which I believe that that's in the exposure chapter. And then we also had a Girls Inc Alum speak about her experience working with the organization. So there were multiple different individuals within this book who highlighted the importance of Girls Inc. 

 

And you know, I really think when we talk about community, this is a collective effort. How can we all work together to support the same mission? So I think that some people might see like, Oh, doesn't your organization kind of do something very similar to them? Why would you not just give all the money to your organization, if it's basically the same goal? And it's like, well, they're on a much larger scale than we are now cause we're still kind of in that startup phase. So they have the connections and the opportunity to be able to immediately impact young women. And so, yes, and... it's a yes, and; yes, we can support Empowered and Poised and support somebody else. Because at the end of the day, there are so many young women out there that could utilize these services and need this support and I can't do that all alone, they can't do that all alone. So like let's work together, right?

 

Massiel: Yes, totally. Totally. Just like we're doing here, right? Like, I mean, showing up and doing the podcast or doing YouTube and sharing each other's message. I mean, it's about growing together. We grow exponentially when it's done together so I think you hit the nail on the head. That is amazing. Thank you so much.

 

Leah:  Thank you. 

 

Massiel: I mean, all day I'll be like, thank you so much cause I'm so excited for your book. And so, for the listeners who are listening, where can they find you, Empowered and Poised, and also your book? Where can they go to find more information to keep up and also to donate, to contribute to your goal as well?

 

Leah: Yes. Thank you. Thank you for asking that question. So if they want to follow me on my personal pages, it's @itsLeahbee. And that's on all social platforms. Feel free to connect on LinkedIn as well. And then for Empowered and Poised, the handle is Empowered Poised; there's no 'and' in between because it's too long of a handle to be Empowered and Poised. So just Empowered Poised or you can check it out at www.empoweredandpoised.com and there's information about the book on most of these platforms. So definitely check it out on Indiegogo to be able to support and thank you, everybody, who's taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hopefully, you have some great tips that you can use in developing your own book. And thank you again for your support with Conscious Empowerment and Empowered and Poised.

 

Massiel: That is awesome. Thank you so much, Leah. That is 'Conscious Empowerment: A Guide to Helping Girls Build Self-esteem and Confidence.' Everyone who's listening less than 21 days to reach that first goal. So everyone, jump on in there and support this message. Thank you, Leah, for joining us and we're wishing you luck and we're looking forward to seeing the launch of the book. 

 

Leah: Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it.

 

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Overcoming Dyslexia and Other Writing Obstacles with Author and Editor Josh Kelley

 

He's been a pastor, bartender, and adjunct Biblical Studies professor. Josh is also a traditionally published author (“Radically Normal,” Harvest House), novelist, writing coach, developmental editor and ghostwriter. 

  After writing his own books, he now helps others write theirs. Josh offers free consultations on my website. https://www.joshkelley.ink/
 
It isn’t a sales call—you can tell him about your book idea and he'll give feedback. Based on past experience, you can be confident that you will walk away with something useful.   TRANSCRIPT

Massiel: All right, everyone, welcome to How to Write a Book Podcast. I am so excited to meet with author, writer, development editor, ghostwriter, book coach, Josh Kelly. Josh, welcome to the show.

 

Josh: Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here.

 

Massiel: Me too. Me too. You know, just reading your bio, going over your book, your message is inspirational and especially kind of like your interesting story and your background. I mean, a little bit of everything. So before we kinda dive into your writing your process and everything about you, I'll give a little bit about you for our listeners in case they don't know who you are yet. So, Josh Kelly is a pastor, bartender, husband, and adjunct biblical studies professor. You are a traditionally published author of radically normal harvest house, a novelist writing coach, developmental editor, and ghostwriter. And you love communicating life-changing truths in an engaging way in helping others do the same, which is something that we do on the podcast. And even more about you is that you've been married for over 20 years. You have two teenage daughters and you've spent eight months driving around the country in a minivan; saw 40 States, two provinces and Tijuana. Wow. Oh my gosh.

 

Josh: Yeah, that was quite a trip. So the story behind that is, you know, I was a pastor for about 15 years. And then we had to close my church, which sometimes it happens; it shrunk down to where this just didn't make any sense to continue. And, you know, so like many people we'd always like joked about driving around the country; at that point, it's like, you know what, what do we have to lose? So a little more to it than that, but we kind of packed up our girls in the minivan and drove around. At that point, my first book, Radically Normal, just come out and, you know, you think that if you get a traditional publisher, like all your dreams are gonna come true and it's all gonna be awesome. And so I, you know, it was very like...  and go do kind of a book tour and speak at churches and do signings or whatever. And there was a little bit of that, but more than anything that trip ended up being more of a sabbatical for me.

 

 After 15 years at being a pastor, I was really ready for that. But it was an amazing thing. I mean, it's hard to comprehend how big and how diverse this country is, you know, so I'm in the Northwest and you're in So Cal, right? 

 

Massiel: Yeah. 

 

Josh: Actually, you're not terribly far from Montebello, right? 

 

Massiel: Yeah. 

 

Josh: That's where my great grandparents...what's that?

 

Massiel: Oh, you're just a couple of minutes, not minutes, but a couple of hours. I mean, right.

 

Josh: So yeah, I actually did my undergrad down that area. My family's kind of from that area and my great grandparents lived in Montebello, down there, I think just yeah, kind of in that area. And so that to say, you know, traveling the country is really cool. It's a great perspective. I came back from that and just really didn't want to be a pastor anymore. I mean, being a pastor, I enjoyed it, but it's not the sort of job you do because for the money. There's plenty of jobs if you're just out there and need to earn a check, that's great, nothing wrong with that, but you don't want a counselor, you don't want a pastor, you don't want some of these politicians to be doing it for the money.

 

And so, at that point, what I really realized, I love to write and that's what I wanted to do. And as a pastor, I do a lot of writing as well, as well as having my book published. So I became a bartender instead and which was a lot of fun. I really did enjoy bartending. And during that time, that five years I wrote my novel, which I've got finished. I've been trying to shop around. Haven't had great luck with it, you know, it happens a lot. But then COVID came along and that kind of changed everything pretty substantially for a lot of us, well, just for the entire country, but, you know, over the past 7 months I've used that to kind of pivot away from the service industry into now being full-time freelance, ghostwriter developmental editor. And we can talk later, you know, if people want to know kind of with the different types of editing are and I'm starting to make a living at it. You know, certainly being a freelancer, it's a little scary but I've got some great contracts. And so I've been able to work with a couple of great people. And yeah, so that's kind of, I guess, the short bio

 

Massiel: That is awesome. That is awesome. And you know what, you probably know more about LA than I do because I'm actually from North Cal so then I just recently moved.

 

Josh: Where in North Cal?

 

Massiel: So close to San Jose. So like Hollister; we're like known for like the greatest biker rally, well, before COVID times, that used to be a thing. So in that area, so I've just recently moved down to LA just a couple, like literally weeks ago. So, you know, the map way more than I do.

 

Josh: I wont ask you any trick questions then about in and out burger and, you know, on which locations and all that.

 

Massiel: Right. You're right. Or people were already asking me like, Oh, like, so is it the I-5 or just I-5? And I'm like, Oh gosh, where am I going? Because the So Cal slang and the Nor Cal slang, and I'm like,

 

Josh: When I did my undergrad down there, I know this is so irrelevant, but the thing that's so weird for me is up here, every freeway is simply known by its number. You have a I-5, 405, 520, that's all you call it by and back in this day...so this is about 25 years ago, I went to college in Southern California, they never called any freeway by the number, ever. I'm now seeing where you're starting to hear it called by that but at the time you listened to the traffic report as well, Okay, traffic's heavy on the golden state freeway. You may want to take the, I can't remember the name, but you have to actually know the names of all these freeways. And they have names like from here to here would be this name. Then once you got past this point, change the name and then it drove me crazy.

 

Massiel: You never know. Yeah. There might be a writer out there who needs to know what highways were called a couple of years ago versus now. So it's like, all right,

 

Josh: Which kind of that's an interesting thing. So the novel that I wrote takes place in roughly 1982 Southern California Azusa actually, it's not terribly far from where my college was. And so I knew the area and I don't know why, but that's why I placed it. But it involved the frame of research for me to find out which freeways are still where, even that amount of time ago. And you know, when it comes to research for novels, because my theory is that you're never looking for a hundred percent accuracy. The goal is not accuracy. It's I can never pronounce this word, verisimilitude  something like that. You want it to feel real. And so that's always my goal. So there's some things I know aren't accurate, but in general, just doing those...  that my book felt accurate and included things like yeah, whether they call freeways by names, numbers, that's just a useful, sometimes you have to visit a place or else call someone from there and kind of just chat.

 

Massiel: Yeah. You know, and that is awesome. That's actually one of the questions I was going to ask you was research. And I do want to get back to talking about radically normal, but let's just, while we're on this topic, research and you as a development editor, when we go to into research, sometimes it could feel like a rabbit hole and sometimes it can feel like it's not enough. And just like you said verisimilitude, where's like the line in that like, well, how do you know if you're in the sweet spot?

 

Josh: You know, there's a certain extent to which for me now, of course every person is very different. And so the way I'm wired, ADHD, dyslexia, I'm great at taking a ton of information. That's what makes me a good developmental editor as I can very quickly read a lot of stuff and keep it all in my head and then kind of help organize it. But I suck with detail. So you'd never want me to proof...I could proofread your book, but it's going to be painful for me and I'm going to miss a lot of stuff. But I'm also naturally curious person. And so there's an extent to where I just kind of follow my fancy. The trick is, I think, I understand what mode I'm in.

 

When I come in solid writing time, you know, we all know how hard it is to get to that spot where your words are flying and you're in the groove. The worst thing you can do is to be in a groove and interrupted to research something. So in my mind is I have a couple different, you know, mode, so to speak, you know, writing editing research. And at my best, I'll come to something and instead of like, Oh, I need to look that up. I won't...when I'm behaving, I'll just jot a note and just put like a, you know, research here, note in my manuscript and then in the afternoon. So mornings are when I write best. So I'm always going to do any interviews, anything like that in the afternoons.

 

So what I did, I would then come back where I'm in kind of unproductive time, where I'm more likely kind of click my way around the internet and just kind of let it go. And sometimes I'll find out some detail. This was like, well, I'll be darned, I never thought of that. And so again, that's why I say about in terms of letting your fancy, I just follow my fancy and just take notes. And I don't know if I'm going to use it, I may or may not. This is something from years of being a pastor. You know, for me, it'd be common for me to skim  when I'm getting ready to write a sermon - about a hundred pages worth of material commentaries, biblical studies, other sermons, and then kind of choose the best 10 pages worth of those notes, and then go write my own with all that in my head. But you have to kind of know almost sometimes it's giving yourself a time limit, you know, it's going to vary for each person but the trick is, I think, is to make sure you schedule your time. So you're not giving yourself unending research time. Does that answer the question? I'm not sure, I kind of went a lot of places.

 

Massiel:  yeah, it did. Actually, I think that ties in a lot to a theme that we have going on this month within the podcast, which is kind of following your muse, or like you said, your fancy and kind of knowing like where you're strong at and what times of days that you're actually like really on versus off. So totally, I think that was going to really resonate well with writers, especially because I think that right now we have this kind of interesting stigma that our writers should be a certain way. And we're trying to like, develop like, Hey, you know, you can be this kind of writer or this kind of writer or this kind of writer, and every writer is different and just kind of like exploring and trying to find that.

 

Josh: And it really is a big thing of know thyself. You know, you have to really be a student of yourself and to know how you work. So for me, I write from a coffee shop. I'm in a coffee shop right now, and they know me very well here. And so, for me, if I don't have a certain level of distraction, I'd get distracted. Home is typically the worst place for me to write that's me. And my best times are writing in the morning. When my daughters went to bed earlier, I could write in the evenings a little better but now by the time they're finally in bed, it's kind of late and I'm not going to be productive. You know, you have to know yourself and work with that. There's no good beating up yourself like, Oh, so-and-so does this, you know, Stephen King writes every single day, except for, well, no, every single day. Well, that's not you, that's okay. You don't have to do it someone else's way, you have to figure out how you work.

 

Massiel: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I totally get that and I understand that. I think that's super great that you said that because that's literally what we're talking about in this podcast. So based between the two books, cause you have the Christian book, then you have the non-Christian book, did you find what you were working differently or because you kind of know yourself, maybe you had similar patterns of writing; what did you discover?

 

Josh: Well, the second book, the novel, because it was a novel that did make it a very, very different thing. And I had to kind of teach myself how to write fiction. It's actually, I was reading one agent who said that in his experience, very few non-fiction writers transition well into fiction because there's such different things. The purpose of nonfiction is typically to tell, the purpose of fiction is typically to show, you know, show don't tell. And I took that quote of his and paste on the top of my document and so, I always kept on coming back to it. So it's more than, you know, Christian versus non-Christian. It was more just the type of stuff I was writing. You're going to change your language based upon your audience. If you know that the people you're talking to are writers, you are going to talk a certain way.

 

And actually, with my first client, I made things unnecessarily complicated cause I talked to her as if she were a writer and she's not. But when you're talking to other writers, you talk a certain way. If I know my audience is largely gonna be Christian, I'm gonna make statements that I expect a Christian is gonna understand. When I wrote my novel, one of my beta readers was an atheist with a PhD in psychology and I loved her perspective. Because there's times where within whatever your tribe is, it doesn't matter if you're talking 4H or, you know, Muslim, Christian you know, writer versus, you know, meat packer. I don't care. You have phrasiology, you have things that you just assume everyone else knows. And so like, she'd keep on saying things like, wait, Josh, wait, what's the difference between a evangelical and a fundamentalist again? I always think they're the same thing. Well, no, they're not; here is why. And I realized, okay, I need to clarify this in my book because a lot of people aren't gonna understand this stuff. Again, I'm not sure if I answered your question or not.

 

Massiel: No, totally. And so, first the mindsets were different because of novel versus nonfiction and, you know, it's so interesting that your mindset shift had to change, especially with what the editor was saying. And I'm curious, so were there specific things that maybe you did differently? So like say right now, like you're in the coffee shop do those like small habits change between the two books?

 

 Josh: First of all, when I write nonfiction, I'm still using a lot of stories because stories work, I don't need to try and sell you on that. Just stories work for communicating truth or communicating information. So even like with my nonfiction, I remember at one point once I got through a certain level, like my third draft or whatever it is, I would just like do a red line or wall along in the margins, wherever there was a story. And I would just flip through and say, oh, wait, this red line is too long. It's time for a story. So let's say storytelling is already, I get it's power but being a novelist, you definitely have to be more playful. You have to really pursue much more of a what if and I think John Cleese did this really great thing about creativity, and I know he is borrowing someone else's research, but basically you're talking about these modes of editing versus creativity; open and closed basically.

 

And when you're in that open mindset, you're just letting everything run and then close it when you're okay, you've got your ideas; now you're dealing with them and you're implementing them. Fiction writing is going to involve a lot of that open what if, what if, what if, and just allowing things to play. I think what comes to developing fiction, that's something that's so different from person to person so for me, I'm not, you know, use the term outliner versus pantser or, you know, outliner versus organic writer. I'm definitely organic. I remember, you know, on Facebook writing one day that today I'm writing the scene where my female protagonist meets up with her black sheep, little sister, and I can't wait to write it so I can find out what happens. I walked through it that day; no clue. I knew they're going to meet up at... Burger on Grand Avenue. That's all I knew. And I just couldn't wait to find out. But that's how I function. But I do think that when it comes to novel writing, you just have to have a playfulness. 

 

Massiel: I totally agree with you. And I might be biased because I am also a pantser. So I'm like, Oh yeah, let's just find out what's going to happen. And I love it. It's fun. 

 

Josh: It is. You end up miswriting a lot of stuff because you don't always know where to go.

 

Massiel: Exactly. You know, you're like, Oh, that one dark cave that I went down; never mentioned it again. I'm just going to have to do something else with it or throw it away or something. Yeah. That's amazing. And that's such a great answer to that question because we do get a lot of questions on the podcast that people are just struggling again, like with this idea of, they have to write a certain way, they have to show up a certain way and if they don't do it that way, then they're messing up and then quote unquote, messing up. And I love what you've said here, which is, you know, not only are you getting to know yourself and that has its own nuances, but also between your two different, you know, books, that took two different types of thinking and approaches and that's totally normal.

 

Josh: Yeah. And it's always changing. You have to really give yourself permission that early on, you're figuring out how to do things. And yeah, you really have to have a lot of grace with yourself. I think back to some of the earlier stuff I wrote and I read it and like, Oh man, that's so bad, man. There's exhibition all over the place and I'm telling, not showing and all this stuff, but you know, that's where I started. And of course, this is where it comes in. You know, then you get into this later stuff about, you know, having beta readers, editing, killing your darlings and all that stuff. That's absolutely vital, but you never want to start there. You have all of Anne Lamott's shitty first draft, how important that is. If you can't write crap, if you can't just give yourself permission to go wander wherever, you're never gonna have anything that's any good. 

 

Massiel: Right. And for those listeners who don't know Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird. That one talks about that first draft and just having at it and giving yourself, like you said, that grace of saying, you know, you have to work with something. So no matter how terrible it sounds at first, you know, at least you have something.

 

Josh: Yeah. I think it's in that book she said, but it's not unusual to end up writing something, and the thing that even inspired you to write in the first place ends up getting cut. And that's what happened with my novel, of my whole opening; the whole place the things started, the conversation that started it, one day, I just realized I had to cut it. Okay, there it goes. But you don't do that until later in the process during, you know, you have to, again, just playful versus work, you kind of go back and forth.

 

Massiel: What was your initial inspiration? And then at the end of your book, you know, how did that inspiration change or morph into what the end result was?

 

Josh: Basically for so many authors and this isn't all by any means, but you hear several authors who say that a book starts with a novel, starts with a picture, some sort of mental image. For CS Lewis, it was seeing a lonely lamp in a smooth forest and a font. That's a language in the order of started. When you have these different people say, this is the story, this is the picture. For me, it's a picture of a washed up or a disgraced pastor working as a bartender. And that's how it started. Now, at that point, you know, I was working as a former pastor working as a bartender, but I hadn't had an affair. I hadn't done any of the bad things that my character had done, but it's just an interesting, Hmm. What would this look like? And then just from there, it really wasn't playfulness. I didn't have any story. I just had this image of this guy. And then I say, well, what if the son he didn't know he has walks into his bar? Would that be interesting? Let's write that, let's see what happens. And then I just kept on trying things and the concept's all still there, but the nature of the story changed quite a bit.

 

Massiel: Wow. That's awesome and this is the book that you're currently still pitching out there, right? 

 

Josh: Yeah, exactly. 

 

Massiel: That is awesome.

 

Josh: In terms of like, and I don't know how helpful this is, but I guess this has to do with the kind of openness you need to have. It started as one book, you had this opening scene with the pastor, realizes that this kid is a son and just drop some expletives and kind of takes off. And then I ended up coming back to like 32 years earlier where he first meets the girl that becomes his wife and then the more I wrote, the more I started writing, I was doing third person POV because that's just what works for me, but close to third person POV, then I realized as I started to interact with this girl who had become his wife, Leah, I realized I really liked this gal. In fact, I think I like her better than I like Dave and so I made her become a POV character too. So now I have two POV's and so I'm writing their story and initially I just going to try and get through this the earlier part of the relationship fairly quickly, then move on to where it started. Then the book turned into two books because I realized there's too much of a story to be told, and that turned into three books and it stopped there. 

 

But basically realizing that I have a good story to tell, but I knew what the story was and it just kept on evolving, but eventually I've kind of went on this first book is going to take from basically from when they meet to when they get married or shortly after they get married because I haven't had my final conflict and then the second book would deal with basically when things go South and then the third book would deal with he's been off running away from her all this time later. So I mean it's a fun process, it really is and at the points where I didn't feel pressure, I really enjoyed it.

 

There was the other part of me, it's like, well here, I'm making my family, I have this bartending job, it's not necessarily the best for family life that certainly it's a struggle and so the pressure to perform both worked for and against me in that I was driven, I am very driven. I think that sort of comes from ADHD, there's a lot of things with ADHD, especially feeling like you're never accomplishing anything and so you feel like you have to work all the harder to get it done. That works for me in times because I am incredibly driven, but also works against me relationally because it's very hard on my wife and we've had to really figure out a lot of that stuff out. But also sometimes I didn't enjoy the fun of it may be as much as I should have

Massiel: And that's a really a good point, I think we were talking about this and in an earlier episode, which is that sometimes you do find these places, you have a lot of joy in the process and then there are these places where you're like, oh, this is really tough, I kind of don't want to sit down and do this. So how did you push yourself to finish it? Because you're talking about your drive, in those moments, what were you thinking? What were you doing to say I'm going to get it done?

Josh: I treated it as a job. So I would actually say that I'm going to write, I'm going to work now. So I would have from this time to this time on certain days I would go and write for three hours and then I would go bartend and come home and it was my job. If you're going to be a successful writer, you have to treat your writing as a job. Because there is always going to be something to pull you away, always. Whether it's a well-meaning family or a leaky gutter or whatever it is, you have to treat it like you're punching the clock. So initially for a while, I actually kept track of how many hours I wrote and so I was treating it as a clock. Now, again, there were some levels of unhealth in there, that this ambition that was not entirely healthy, but it got me to the place where I developed the habits and once that habits formed, then it becomes more natural. So that's what worked for me; here's one of my big theories about so many things, but writing, especially is why are you doing it? What's your purpose? Why does this matter to you? And that's one of my first question is when I'm working with authors is why are you doing this? Why does this matter? Because if you don't have a strong reason, you need a strong reason to carry you through the resistance.

 

Now, if your reason is you just want to kind of have fun writing and that you enjoy doing that, that's awesome, there's nothing wrong with that. Then you can just kind of puddle along and that's fine. So for me, I don't think of myself as a creative first and that sounds kind of weird to say, I think myself as a communicator, I use creativity to communicate. Because of that I can be ruthless with my own editing because it's not about my creativity, it's about saying something, about telling a story that means a lot to me. So I'm ruthless with that because I know how much it needs to be. My life purpose is to communicate things, things think are important. Number one, I'm a father, a husband, my family, my relationship with God, those are like the center of my life, although a lot of times I get unhealthy and kind of walked away from that. But professionally communication is why I'm here and it's that drive. So an author needs to know again, why they're writing and if it's that important to them, that will keep your button on the seat to keep on writing and you have to keep that that in front of you.

Massiel: Yeah. And I think that that is so important because on those downtimes, that's going to spark you and help push you forward and so I'm curious, so regarding your clients, since you do developmental editing and you do ghost writing, what are some of the most common reasons, the why's that you find? 

Josh: The why's why people write?

 

Massiel: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah, I don't know; I would say for some it's a business, like having.... So like a buddy of mine, he has a small publishing group and he and I are co-writing a book on writing, writing a book, publishing and promoting it and he's the guy who knows how to get things out there. He wrote a book on public speaking, he's actually the one turn me on to to Pod Match but this book he wrote it by himself, he self-published it, wrote it in like three months and all these things... whatever. I mean, the material it's solid stuff, it's not one of these for the ages type books. It's not like a, How to Win Friends and Influence People or An Element of Style but he sold more copies than I did of my traditionally published book, he's made more money than I have. So he's really good at that approach and also again promoting stuff. So he and I, that book we wrote for business purposes and...for writing for business purposes.

 

One of my clients, he's a pastor, he wants to teach people how to lead a church, specifically if you have a church that's been around for a while, how can you help kind of light a fire underneath it rather than still letting it stagnate. So he's writing to first of all, pass on these principles, but also because he has a consulting thing that he does. So he wants to kind of build the reputation for that. Another one of my clients, she had a really awesome life and she did some really cool stuff and founded churches and all this and she wants to be able to teach people about faith and money for her is not an issue, she's doing just fine for herself. So a lot of people though, the message is important to them. There's something that they're wanting to say that they feel it needs to be said and so that is the most common thing I hear.

Massiel: Yeah and that's awesome and that's something that we talk about in the podcast is what is the message? And just like you said, it's going back to the why, why you want to do this. Speaking of messages, so I just want to talk about also your book Radically Normal, so Radically Normal you don't have to live crazy to follow Jesus and it has an amazing amount of stars, some great reviews. So for our audience, can you tell us about this book, it just sounds awesome. 

Josh: So I grew up, I'm reluctant to use the term evangelical because it's been so tainted lately, but in short, an evangelical is kind of in the midway in between like a fundamentalist who is like super conservative and a more liberal Christian who's like anything goes. I mean, that's really speaking very broadly but basically tried to take the Bible seriously, really loves Jesus and trying to do the right thing, tend to be more on the conservative side politically, but not always. But anyways I'm writing within that world, that evangelical world that people take their faith seriously, they really love Jesus, but what happens so often among Christians is that you get this mindset that if you're not like a full-time missionary in China, you're not really a good Christian. If you just have like a day-to-day job, that's okay, follow the 10 commandments, tithe to your church, do all this stuff, love your neighbor, but you're not really doing what you're supposed to be doing. And so that's a lot, what I'm trying to do is talk about how you can be a fully committed Christian within an everyday life and this story, this book was written while I was a bi-vocational pastor, which meant I was being a pastor who also had a job, in this case in Starbucks. 

 

So I told a lot of stories about Starbucks and the struggles that I had being a pastor, now having a regular job and things like that. But the purpose is to help people realize, help Christians to realize how they can love Jesus without being crazy, but kind of the theme of it is, it's like, so I grew up, again, in a good church and in youth group, they would always talk about things like; the image you're given is like there's this path of life that you're walking down and on the side, there's this cliff and this cliff is things like sleeping with your girlfriend, listening to bad music, smoking, drinking and you have to really avoid this cliff. And I did that, I was really good at avoiding that cliff. I was the good kid in church let me tell you, there are really no skeletons in my closet and it's embarrassing, frankly. They didn't tell me, because I don't think anyone really understood that on the other side of the path is another cliff of self-righteousness of being judgmental, of thinking that you're better than other people. That's the cliff that I was cannonballing off of. 

 

Massiel: Oh, wow. 

 

Josh: And so what I really tried to do in this book is try to present this balancing picture of on one hand don't do all the dumb stuff, I believe in Christian moral..., if you've ever selfish, if you're unforgiving, if you're sleeping around, all these things are bad for our soul, they're bad for our life, avoid those things by all means. But also being self-righteous thinking that you're better than everyone else, that's also really bad for your soul. And one of the stories that Jesus tells, the parable of the prodigal son, which is most people have heard that term, but in that story, you have the prodigal son who is going off and doing all the bad stuff and by the end of the story, he's starving and he's feeding pig slop and wishing he could eat the pig slop and he comes back home to his father and his father forgives him.

Well, he has an older brother who definitely is much more of this the legalist self-righteous side who was like, you shouldn't forgive my brother because he was so evil and Jesus is really telling the story, not to the prodigal sons, but to the older brother. Just speaking in terms of story craft, this is something you and your podcasters will understand, the story ends with the father saying something to the older brother, basically why don't you come in and celebrate your younger brother returning home, but that's where the story ends. So we all know if you end a story early, you're really driving a point home and you're basically saying when the older son is given that question, but it doesn't answer it, you as the reader, as a listener are being asked the question.

So his listeners were the Pharisees and he was asking them all these other people they're coming into the kingdom of God, but you're not approving that because of all the bad stuff they did. Why aren't you coming in and rejoicing and being part of the family? Which is all another way of saying that the prodigal son when he was starving, he knew his life was messed up. If you have someone who's losing their teeth because of crack cocaine or meth, they know the life's messed up. You have the old lady at church who never smoked, never swears, but is just self-righteous, she thinks she's fine, but biblically speaking, her soul is in just as much danger, but she doesn't know it. So that's a long ramble, but that's basically, I tried to find ways to help Christians walk between that medium path. It's funny as one of my friends, he and his wife they're post PhD people doing work with lasers and MRIs and all this stuff in Atlanta and she's a Christian, but he's not. He's kind of like agnostic, Buddhist, but super cool guy. He said reading your book, it made sense to me, it's the stuff we got along semi track with, but it really made sense to me of avoiding these two extremes. So that's kind of the short version, I guess, as short as I can get it.

Massiel: Yeah. That is awesome. I mean, just based also on the reviews and I mean, getting almost like five stars on Amazon, because that stuff, as all people might come to understand, it can be difficult, but it speaks to the message. And I'm curious, so then at what point were you like, I need to write this book?

Josh: It's one of these things that I had this idea kind of fermenting in my head. So now I said that like my novel started with this picture, Radically Normal started just with the title. I like that term Radically Normal and you kind of knowing that I had the sense that we need to find kind of this middle way and then now being a pastor, that means I preach a lot and so some of these ideas are coming out in my sermons, but basically a lot of us have been at this place where we keep on saying we have something in our head and we keep on joking it out, I'll write a book about that someday, I'll write a book about that someday. For me, the transition was when I read Stephen King's book on writing, which probably most of your listeners have read; it's one of the best out there. What he did for me was basically he didn't make writing sound easy, far from it. When he talks about his mail with all the rejection slips on it, but he made it sound possible, that basically writers aren't this special breed that are hand-selected, writers are people who just go and finally get off their butt and do it and that's where I kind of challenged myself to get off my butt and do it. 

 

I don't want brag about this, but for me initially, I would go to Starbucks and I would spent a little extra on a coffee drink, so I was kind of treating myself and I started to write and when you first start writing there, it's that whole thing that it sounded so good in my head but when I try to get it on paper, it sounds like crap. And so I do that for about half an hour maybe, and then scroll around on Facebook and then finally give up. I did that a handful of times and then I would also try to write back at home in the evenings, after my family was in bed, because my wife goes to bed relatively early, at this point, my girls were fairly young and I had a big old bottle of Jim beam and I would drink a double or triple of that and as I sipped on that, it quieted the voices that said, this is stupid, you can't write, what are you doing? What made you think you can write a book? And I just start writing without really caring and then what happened is I come back to it and I just had fun. There's a power to routines by the way, sometimes how your routines just going to kind of get you in a mood.

So I had a playlist I always used and Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons, my playlist always started with that song. So that song, when I heard the starting of that song, it said it is time to get to work and then I'd drink my whiskey and I'd write away and then I'd go and edit the next day and a lot of it was terrible, but there was enough of it that was good that I kind of built off of. I'm not advocating alcohol is a necessary tool for writing, the necessary tool is getting the voices to shut up and just write and again, that shitty first draft principle, you just have to get writing and so that's what I did. I did that enough, you kind of hit a place where it feels like critical mass, you feel like you're halfway done and so man might as well continue. In reality, it's actually closer to 10% done, but I thought it was halfway done and so at that point, once you get certain enough through project or kind of invested that that kind of provides momentum, it's when you're getting started with any project, that's the hardest. Did I answer your question there?

Massiel: Oh yeah, totally, totally and going back to Stephen King's, On Writing, the nail with all the rejection slips, I'm like, wow, that is brave because I know I don't have the guts to look at that pile just going up and up and up. I'll be like, no, let's just put it away, that's what I would have done. So, I mean, you're so right about him just showing up consistently and creating that habit, as you said and then of course quieting that inner editor which I think is huge and you're right and there are different ways to do it, but really just trying to get words onto the page, which you did and that's awesome. So I like to talk about also, because you're a developmental editor, were you your own developmental editor for your books or did you go seeking out others and how was that process?

Josh: So I did it all myself when, well, I use a lot of definitely beta readers, that's huge, but when it came to developing the material I did it all myself. It is again, we all have different strengths and weaknesses and [Inaudible19:58] dyslexia and all that and basically in short version, I'm really good at the big picture, just the way my brain is wired, I can see the really big picture, really well, find details I miss. I mean, to this day, if you show me a B or D just by itself, out of context, I'll have to think for a second to know which one it is, the fine details just are super tough. So between that and that whole process, I talked about Ryan Sermons of going through all that information. I just developed the ability to kind of find order in things, that's just the way I'm wired and unfortunately, there's a good book on being a developmental editor that I'm reading right now, I wish I could remember the name of it, but basically called how to be a developmental editor that can be very helpful, but as I read it, I realized most of the stuff that talked about I'm innately doing. But I'm a little weird in that most people become developmental editors start as proof-readers and copy editors and work their way to being a development editor, I did the other way exactly. 

 

So more that I realized that this is something I'm capable of doing is holding a ton of information in my head and then being able to organize it. So one of my current projects, this guy this pastor, he paid someone 15 grand to ghost write his book and on a sentence level, the writing was fine, but on the paragraph level, it was a mess, it was all over the place. Things would be repeated, he'd have stuff that really should be in this chapter is in that chapter and I was trying to land the clients, so I basically said, hey give me three days on new book on oh, it's way too long. So the pastor knew that the book was way too long and it just didn't feel right and so I said give me three days and I will cut the content by 25%, because after skimming through, I knew I could do that. So that's what I did, which I don't really advocate working for free, but in this situation, I thought I had, it seemed like a good idea and also I had the time at that point. So by doing that, I was able to cut all that and kind of rearrange it and that's where he could really see the value of hiring me. 

 

Unfortunately I didn't get nearly the amount that he hired the original guy for but I was able to go in there and just kind of go through and figure out, wait, this goes with this, this goes with this and again, you have to know whether or not that's, this is more of a writing non-fiction, but you have to have a sense for whether or not you are the one who can kind of make sense of it, or you could ask someone else. When it comes to story, developmental editors, they have the old mental editors for fiction as well, but that's a different thing. That's going to be more, just a sense of whether or not a story works, knowing arcs and things like that and that's good for me, that's going to be  more by feel and less by any sort of structure, just like, yeah, this story just doesn't work and I think this is why.

Massiel: Yeah, yeah. That is awesome that you're talking about the different types of maybe like mind, not mind-sets, but some people are more attuned to proofreading, some people are more attuned to developmental editing and it's talking to your strengths and actually, so one thing that I hadn't mentioned, but you have been touching on it is your dyslexia and ADHD. Now I know some of our listeners, they are going through some other things like similar to that or really similar to that, can you talk about that? When did you find that out and also how has that played into your writing? Because it also sounds like it's as if you're using it as like, hey, I'm going to use it as a strength and pop up this way.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. So when it came to ADHD that I figured out, gosh, I'd say about 10, 15 years ago, I was probably 35. So about a little over 10 years ago, which was kind of weird to learn that so late in life because this is what I do, this seems normal. I mean, isn't everyone this way, doesn't everyone panic when they have to put their shoes on because literally getting my shoes on can send me into panic because I get really flustered about which shoe and do I do this first and all these thoughts are going through my brain. But I joked about it enough and I basically got my leadership team, I'd have them give me annual reviews because I really believe in learning and growing. And they gave me some stuff that I finally said, you know what, I'm going to stop joking about this and just find out. So I talked to my doctor and he said I can ask you questions, but there's no like medical blood tests to see if you're ADHD, tell you what I'll give you a subscription, I'll give you some Ritalin and if it calms you down, then you have it. If it sends you a higher than a kite, then you don't and I'll never forget that. 

 

First time I took it and driving on the street, realizing I wasn't having to look at every person that walked past me and I went to this church and there was this marriage video thing and about halfway through the day as the Ritalin started to wear off realizing, wait, I don't know what this room looks like. Because typically when I walk into a room, I check everything out and wait, I'm feeling the chair on my fingertips again, these are always things I normally do, I normally feel all these things, see all these things and so that's been a challenge just trying to learn how to work with my waves of the hyper-focus that comes with ADHD. If I can get on a wave, man, I can ride that thing; at the same time, it has huge relational issues, ADHD can be a huge cause of divorce, quite frankly and without people realizing it. Because my focus is so much on everything that I have a hard time paying attention. So the number of things my wife tells me that I just simply don't hear is huge.

It sounds funny, it makes for some good jokes, but the reality is if you felt like your spouse was never listening to you, it's actually not that much fun. So that's on a personal level I've been working with that, but then in terms of a writer, just trying to know my cycles, I have to, again, write in the morning, knowing what works for me. The dyslexia is a much more recent thing, this was gosh, less than a year ago, six, seven, eight, nine months ago, my daughter, my youngest daughter comes up to me and says, dad, I think I have dyslexia. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I did some research like crap, I think I have it and it's actually massively hereditary. And because I always had dyslexia defined to me as like words moving around on a page, that doesn't happen to me. So I just never even dawned on me to even ask the question and because I'm a good reader, I thought, again, didn't even enter the question. Well, I'm actually not really a good reader, I'm a great skimmer. When I read a book, any book, whether reading Harry Potter or Elements of Style or whatever. I'm probably only reading roughly a third of the words and picking up about two-thirds of the content and being quite happy to miss that other third, I don't care about it. 

 

So that does mean, again, it's the ability to take in a lot of information, but miss a lot of fine details. So I've learned to work with it. I've learned tools, one of my most important tools is Microsoft Word products have a read aloud feature and I have a short cut on all my programs and so when I write an email, if it's a mean email, then it's sort of significance like, when I wrote to you or a potential client, after I write it, I will listen to it because it seemed much easier to pick things up listening to it than reading it. And the number of errors I could either feel really stupid for the stuff that I miss and I fight with that sometimes because I mean, just the errors that I make are like, good Lord, you look like a ignoramus, but the reality is that's the way my brain works, it's going to miss stuff. So mostly, I'm good with laughing at it, there it is. That's become one of my most important tools is using that read aloud feature and there are some websites that do that without having to actually have office three 65 because there's a lot of stuff there. Did that capture most of what you're asking?

Massiel: Yeah and even this in itself, I could see this being a whole other interview because you're talking about your strengths and you're talking about the obstacles that you have really like faced or didn't even know were going on and yet you still used that to say, okay,  maybe this is not super strong, but this is strong and I'm going to go ahead and help people and use that to see the bigger picture, like you said, and get them organized and just really have that as a huge strength. I mean, that's fantastic, especially because some of our writers they do feel like, oh, well, if I have this or I don't have that, then might as well not be writing and that's not the case.

Josh: There's such a thing to come to just appreciate, it's definitely a biblical value and that is grace which is basically recognizing roughly God loves you no matter what, and that your value doesn't come from what you do, but from who you are, that you're a child of God. And so from that, on my best days, I can see my weaknesses and just be fine with it, try and improve where I can, but this is who I am, God still loves me, my wife and my kids still love me and I'm just going to do my best and I'm going to, this is the other really important thing, find people who can shore up what I can't do. That's just so crucial that you can be asking for people to make up what you're not good in. You just have to be able to do that and for that, you need to know you're not good in, and you have to be honest enough and that takes a certain level of humility, but also it takes a great deal of strength to say, yeah, I suck at this. Can you help me? 

 

And if you can't do that, gosh, I know writers who don't want anyone to read their stuff before, the things you are going to submit to an agent, huh? No, everything I write goes through other people for multiple reasons, you have to bring other people in and that takes humility and like, again, just back to the main point. Don't freak out about it, find people who can help you there, it works great. And that now is a lot of what ghost writing is, I've spent 15 years honing my ability to write, between sermon writing, book writing, all these things, I've spent all this time and I can research the crap out of anything. I mean, my bookshelf has so many books about anything that whatever happens to be of interest to me. So I spend a lot of time developing this. Now you take someone like a pastor who spent all these years of being a pastor or a politician or athlete, an actor who has spent all this time honing that craft. Well, they have a story to tell or they maybe have some great business principles, whatever it is, but they're not great writers. So there's nothing wrong with that, there can be like the sense, well, you should write your own books.

Well, now I've spent a lot of time honing this craft and it's kind of silly for someone else to think that they can just pick up a pen or sit down on a computer and do what I do because I spent all this time doing it. So at best, ghost writing is a great partnership where it's like, you have the skills, you have the experience, you've lived this life, you have these principles, but now I have this ability to write and I also know how to interview, how to pull things out of you, I know how to craft stories, I know where to use stories and which stories work best to illustrate which things, so let's work together. And so that's kind of the ideal ghost writing situation.

Massiel: Yeah. That is beautifully said and it's beautifully said because you're talking about your value is outside of that, like you're a child of God, you are valuable and then saying, okay, now that you know that, go ahead and you can have the humility to say and the vulnerability to say I need help with this and that is fantastic. And it sounds like you, as a developmental editor and ghost writer, you are taking care of the story, you will have that love of story, you can totally tell that you're like, let me take this person's quote unquote baby and I'm going to take care of it and help you tell us the best way that we can.

Josh: I want make people shine. I mean, that really is what it is.

Massiel: Amazing. And I can totally tell, I could totally tell. Oh my gosh, this has been amazing and to be honest, I'm going to tell you, look, I had a list of notes that we hardly touched. So hopefully we can meet together again soon because I think this was fantastic. And so for listeners, you know, go ahead and tell us, where can they find you? Where can they find your services too?

Josh: Absolutely. So my website is Josh Kelley, and that's J O S H K E L L E Y. There's a second E on the end, that's what always messes people up, joshkelley.ink, I N K, like the stuff you write with. If you dot com, you'll get Josh Kelly, the musician, I don't play any instruments, you don't want me be on that. But so joshkelley.ink, again I N K and if you go there, you will find out a little bit more about me and something that I enjoy doing that offers like a free coaching session, because I've discovered this ability to very quickly be able to ascertain what people are doing and basically give them some really good content, add some value very quickly and if I'm able to help them just like half an hour, 45 minutes and give them something good to go with and that's it fine, I'm great with that. But also that may uncover some ways where like, we can work together. Like if you're needing a developmental editor, like you have all this information but you just know it's not fitting together and I do everything from like a full editing where it's like a per word charge and I go through the whole thing or do coaching, like hire me at just kind of on a shop rate basis, like, okay, let's do X amount of hours a month, I'll kind of work with you and I'll coach you through some stuff, I'll give you some assignments, you bring it back to me. 

 

I'm a line editor as well which means I do very good at crafting words. So I might be able to show you some tricks, like, hey, you keep on start with having this phrase at the beginning of statements, get rid of that or all these things that you write enough and you just get used to doing it. So there's a lot of ways I can help people kind of a lot of variety of price points, but if nothing else there is that free coaching session and seriously, no obligation, but I will let you know, hey, here's how I might be able to help you. But if nothing else, you might gain something new from it. So that's joshkelley.ink, that's going to be the best way to get ahold of me.

Massiel: That is excellent and for all our listeners go and take advantage of this because to have a professional writer share their knowledge, share their expertise and not just that, but to come from where you're coming from as a developmental editor and the ghost writer, I mean, that's a unique perspective. So everybody who's listening, jump in there, so that's joshkelley.ink, you will find him there and Josh, this has been amazing. Thank you so much joining us. We'll close out here.

Josh: It's a lot of fun for me to talk about the stuff, I really appreciate the opportunity.

Massiel: Excellent. Excellent. All right, everyone, thank you so much for joining us. Josh, thanks again and hopefully we're going to see you again really soon, so thanks.

 

-------

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NANOWRIMO DAY 30

 

 

 

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NANOWRIMO DAY 29

 

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NANOWRIMO DAY 28

WRITER’S BLOCK: 

What if my book doesn't make money?

 

 

 

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NANOWRIMO DAY 27

WRITER’S BLOCK: 

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Beating myself up is normal.

 

 

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NANOWRIMO DAY 26

WRITER’S BLOCK: 

THANK YOU, WRITER.

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RECOMMENDED DICTATION TOOLS & SOFTWARE

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Andrea Communications NC-181VM USB On-Ear Monaural Computer Headset with Noise-canceling Microphone, in-line Volume/Mute Controls, and Built-in External Sound Card and USB Plug

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OM Digital Solutions Voice Recorder WS-852 with 4GB, Automatic Mic Adjustment, Simple Mode, SILVER (V415121SU000) https://amzn.to/2YREHWi

For more information, go to www.nanowrimo.org.

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Email us at [email protected].

NANOWRIMO DAY 

WRITER’S BLOCK: 

I don't have time to write my book.

For more information, go to www.nanowrimo.org.

Need writing help? Get your 3 Free Writer’s toolkits at www.blackheartedstudios.com and click Resources for Writers (http://blackheartedstudios.com/resources/)

Email us at [email protected].

NANOWRIMO DAY 

WRITER’S BLOCK: 

I don't have the right credentials.

For more information, go to www.nanowrimo.org.

Need writing help? Get your 3 Free Writer’s toolkits at www.blackheartedstudios.com and click Resources for Writers (http://blackheartedstudios.com/resources/)

Email us at [email protected].