504 - Everything You Need to Know About Writing Amazing Content

22:10So I avoided sort of that work in my field, if you will, for a good, the better part of a decade. And then, you know, I tired of waiting tables. It made me feel diminished and sad. But, you know, it was a great way to earn a living for a while. And I would write when I wasn't waiting tables and I would go back to work. But then I thought, you know, I need to do some more meaningful work. And I did a number of different things. I started, you know, teaching writing because I'd started to publish a little bit. I started also writing pieces for magazines because it was a way in some ways to begin to feel like I was a real writer to get published.

22:49One of the early decisions I made was to not focus on getting published, to rather focus on my craft, which I think was a very wise one. But there did come a time that it was time to start reaching out.

23:00Marie Forleo:I think that that's such an important distinction. So many people are in such a rush to monetize whatever the thing is that they are truly passionate about and that they feel is their art. And I don't think I've ever heard anyone articulate, you know, I deliberately held back and wanted to work on my craft. And how did that feel for you? Was it exciting to be able to just say, I'm not going to pressure myself to get this out into the world? Well, you know, so much about creative work and certainly about writing is, you know, the way you survive is by, you know, running along at the speed of your own engine.

23:38It's not going to be because somebody from out here validated you. Like it really… writing is very much generated from within. I think any kind of art making or any kind of creative work, you have to ultimately be doing it because you feel driven to do it, you feel passionate about doing it, you're engaged with something that feels important to you in your life. And, you know, certainly in the arts what I can say is if what you're going to rely on is that exterior validation, you're just not going to get it, you're not going to last long. And so, you know, that decision was about learning, really learning how to keep faith with my vision or my dream or my work.

24:19And then, you know, once that became like actually that inner strength is what I drew on to compel me every day forward through another day of trying to write something that meant something to someone else, you know, once I really developed that muscle within, then when I did go into the world and people said nice things about my work, it was thrilling, it was beautiful, but it wasn't the thing that made me keep writing, you know? And I think, you know, you're so right about this. I teach writing sometimes or I certainly talk to a lot of people on airplanes and so forth. How do I write a book?

24:52What's your advice? And the advice is always kind of depressing to people because the absolute only advice I really truly have for somebody who wants a life as a writer is write, write, and keep writing and keep writing and see what happens. It's not about like go to this party or go to this conference. And you know, those things come up along the way. Like I do think at a certain point it's important to start to meet people, meet your tribe, meet people who are doing what you're doing, put yourself out there. I think the most important thing is to learn how to make a home with the work that you're doing, because then you have something to offer the world, you know?

25:33A lot of people want to make that offering before they've created anything.

25:37Marie Forleo:Yeah. Let's talk about your rituals, because I'm always fascinated by people who create any kind of art, but especially writers. Do you, and had you developed a practice of writing every day? I've also read you binge write. I'm a binge writer. I'm not an everyday writer. You're not an everyday... Okay, so this is also fascinating. There's a book that I love called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and several other books. And some people that I know and they're great writers, they do. They have this discipline they write every day. So I'm curious. Tell me about your binge writing. Yeah. Yeah.

26:06It's really interesting because for a long time I thought, you know, I'm a renegade. Like, I'm a bad writer. I'm not a real writer because I'm not doing this thing that many times, you know, this is the advice that writers are given. Yeah. You know, if you don't write every day or most days, that means you're not a writer. And if that's true, I'm not a writer then, you know? And what I can say to you is what's to me really important is I used this phrase before, keeping the faith, which to me is connected to discipline, to say what really is meaningful for me, the work that's meaningful for me is writing.

26:43And so I'm going to find a way to do it. And for some people, what works for them is every day. There are certain stretches of my lifetime in my life that that's what I did. There are many times for three months in a row I wrote every day, but there are also many times for three months in a row I didn't write a word. And what I found is, you know, when, like, I make an appointment with myself and I don't look at each day, I look at the calendar ahead. And it's been really helpful for me actually also to decide when not to write because I can look sometimes at my calendar and say, I'm going to be really busy for the next month.

27:17Or I just gave birth to a child. Or, you know, I have to, you know, work really hard at this other project because that's important to me too. And then I just put the writing aside and know that I'm not going to feel bad about it. I'm not going to get into some sort of shame loop about I haven't written. I tell myself, you're not going to write now, and then you're going to write then. And then what I do is I make good on that promise. That's the other piece of it. This isn't about using lazy excuses. It's not using this methodology in order not to write. It's actually the opposite of saying, this is when I work best or when I can work best.

27:56One of the most moving experiences I had, you know, I give so many talks about my books, usually about wild or tiny beautiful things, you know, the Dear Sugar column. And so often people, the response they have to that is about the stories they tell me about their own losses or their own struggles or how the book helped them in one way or another. But I will say one of the most moving comments I got after one of my talks is just during the Q &A afterwards, somebody had asked me what my writing process was. And I said about this binge writing. And I said, you know, I don't write every day and sometimes I write once a month.

28:32And this woman came up to me afterwards and she said... she was crying. And she said, thank you so much. She said, I have always felt like I wasn't a writer. I'm a single mom. mom, I have four kids, and I can write once a month, the day my mom takes my kids. And think you're the first person who told me that I can still say that I'm a writer, even though I only write once a month. And I just grabbed her and I was like, you are absolutely a writer. Because if you write once a month, guess what happens by the end of that year? You've written 12 days. And I know you can do a lot of beauty in 12 days because I've done it too.

29:09Marie Forleo:It's a relief for me. I'm one of those people, my audience knows this. Because I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself and that is the writing everyday thing. You can start to hear. I can hear the voices in my own head like you're not really one. Or I've even beat myself up over this one. I wrote a book years ago, but I haven't written one in a while, but I write and produce this show and I can sometimes hear the voices in my head going, oh, I'm not a real writer because I'm not writing books like everyone else is. So I will echo that woman's thank you for that. And I know there are thousands of people watching this right now who are also thanking you for that.

29:45You know, it's interesting to me this idea, you know, what happens when we're gentle with ourselves? Like that voice that you just talked about in your own head, that's about shame. Yeah. That's about, you know, do you work well from a position of shame? Absolutely not. I don't think anyone does. But what about, you know, I think sometimes we've associated gentleness or tenderness with a kind of slack or a kind of letting you off the hook.

30:11Marie Forleo:Yes. And actually, what I've found is only when I'm gentle with myself can I actually really let go and do the work, you know, to say, okay, it's been hard to sit down at the computer. I'm going to forgive myself and move forward now, you know. And it's not about shame. It's about forgiveness. It's about gentleness. I think that's really important when you think about a creative endeavor. And that goes back to this idea I said about like how – if you are the engine, you know, of your own dreams, if you are the only one who's really going to propel you forward down the path in those ways, because you are.

30:49Yeah. Like nobody's going to come to you and say, please make a show. Please write a book. Please make a song or do a dance for us or paint a painting for us. Nobody's – especially at the beginning. You know, nobody for years did that for either of us. Right. Right? And so, you know, you have to find, you know, you have to find like that way to do it yourself. And so, you know, maybe in some ways what I sort of subconsciously did is like, you know, how do I give myself the gift of that? And one thing I realized early on is I have to let shame out of my life. Like I cannot make shame part of my writing life.

31:27Marie Forleo:So powerful. So you've said, which is a perfect way to follow up with this conversation, writing is hard for every last one of us, straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig. That's right. So much of writing. I mean, I love... The reason that that metaphor came to me is that I think of writing... The word I use all the time is excavation, and it feels like a literal excavating to me. You know, we begin with the empty computer screen or the empty page, and we are creating something out of absolutely nothing.

32:09You know, even if you're writing nonfiction, even if you're writing about your life or something that happened or something you know or think, you know, you're creating something out of nothing. And almost always that process entails then, you know, going beneath what you thought you were going to write, and then beneath it again. And then you show it to somebody to read and they say, well, what's this about? And then you have to dig. You know, when I teach writing, I make this, I put on this butcher paper in front of the room what I call my kind of literary lasagna. And it's like, you know, up here is the top layer, the lovely cheese.

32:42And then, you know, so you're looking at a lasagna sideways. And like, you know, you have to get all the way down to that bottom layer to really do your work.

32:53Marie Forleo:So speaking of your teaching, I noticed there are two questions that you pose to all of your writing students, and I think that these questions are incredibly important for all creatives. Would you like me to read them? Yes, you read them. Okay, great. So what's the question at the core of your work, and what question are you trying to answer for others? Yeah, that's right. Because I think especially... This is true in fiction too, but it's literally true when you're writing about your own life or your own experiences, is that, you know, I think we almost always begin out of that place, like that thing that we're seeking for ourselves.

33:31Yeah. And, you know, when you write memoir, when people talk about memoir in negative terms, it's almost always that they say it's the form of narcissists. Like, who would be interested in you? Who would be interested in my childhood? And the answer to that is kind of nobody. And the artist's job is to make it interesting. And the ways that we make that interesting is that you can read about my childhood and see your own in it, even if it's totally different. Even if you came from a different place or lived in a different time or inhabit a very different reality. And I think that that's what I'm always striving for as a writer and a teacher when I say, what is that personal question at the core of your work and how does that translate to the culture?

34:13And, you know, just an example I can give you, in Wild, you know, for years it's my memoir that's about my hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, but it's also very deeply about my grief. I went to hike that trail because I honestly didn't know how to live without my mother. I really felt I couldn't live without my mother. And I think that all those years later when I wrote the book, I was still there. I was like, I was still wondering, how do I live without my mother? How do I live without my mother? You know, asking that over and over again. And what I realized in the course of Writing Wild, actually what compelled me to write wild, is by examining that question in my own life in a memoir, what I was really examining is how is it that we live with our losses?

35:02How do we bear the unbearable? How do we endure our suffering? Because, you know, one thing I know about that is we do, and also we all do. And so right there that translation goes from me and my loss about my mom, which is a very particular and individual thing, and I'm going to tell you a story about it. But what I hope to tell really in that telling of that story is that larger universal struggle that we all have about how we figure out how to bear our losses.

35:32Marie Forleo:And I'd also want to thank you for this because I still have my mom. I'm going to totally cry. You're making me cry looking at you. I just love her so much. And your work has given me like an even deeper appreciation for the time I have with her. So thank you for that. Yeah. That's one of my favorite things, people telling me, you know, people who have living parents say, you know, I finished your book and I called my mom and I said thank you. And let me tell you, there's also an entire tribe out there of people who don't have their moms. They either don't have them because they died or they don't have them because they lost them to drug addiction or mental illness or incarceration.

36:15And those people come to me and feel recognized in the work too. You know, that has meant more to me than, you know, all of the glorious, glamorous things that have happened in response to that book.

36:27Marie Forleo:And I think that's the beauty of art and that's the beauty of words and that's the beauty of vulnerability and sharing what is in your heart with others. So thank you for that. Thank you. The power too. Yeah. I mean, beauty and power. When we say that art has power, that's what we mean. We mean your tears right now. Yeah. I want to talk about something that you mentioned at your Super Soul session, which is the paralyzing pressure that we can often put on ourselves to do something great. Right. Especially when it comes to writing or art or our businesses and how there was that time when you were in Massachusetts where it was almost...you couldn't do it.

37:09Marie Forleo:Yeah. I was paralyzed by my own dream. Yes. Can you talk to that? Yeah. It's a really...so much of the interesting stuff in life, I think, you know, there's so much contradiction inherent. On one hand, I want to say, you know, dream big, you know, aim high. I'm an incredibly ambitious person, and I always have been. You know, I was the person, I said in that talk, like I was the kid at five who was like, no, I'm going to be the first woman president. You know, I'm going to just like always go for, I'm going to reach really, really hard and really high. But there came, you know, which I think is wonderful.

37:43I mean, it is in part what brought me here, you know, it's how I got here with you today, right? That ambition. It also was the thing that I had to turn away from for a time in my life. And what I've learned periodically, turn away from it. I'm in a different moment in my life that I'll explain in a moment, that I also have to turn away from this ambitious side. And that is to say, you know, when I was sitting there in Massachusetts at my little cottage in Massachusetts trying to write my first book, I suddenly felt like I can't do this. And what that was about is realizing, like, I can't sit here and make greatness.

38:22What I can sit here and do is write one page and then another page and then another page. And I don't really know what those pages are going to be in the world beyond me. And maybe there'll be nothing. And for me to have to surrender this vision of me being like the great American novelist was painful. But it's the thing that allowed me to actually write my book. You know, it was, I realized I had to a certain, you know, set aside those big dreams and those ambitions and all of those things I'd internalized and be humble. And to just say, I'm going to do my best. I don't know if anyone will like it.

39:03And it's absolutely none of my business if they do. I mean, it's just like, I'll do my best. And I'm just going to say, here's my best world. You know, take it or not. And that's what we always are doing. I mean, we think, we like to think otherwise. That's about like, you know, thinking that we can always control the outcome of everything. But we don't really know. You know, when I was writing Wild, I had no idea that it was going to become a bestseller. I wouldn't have written it any differently. You know, I wrote the same book I would have written if it were still in my drawer right now at home.

39:35Okay? And so I think that's a really important thing to remember. are. And when I said earlier about how I'm kind of in this moment now in my life, here I am for the first time writing a book that people are like waiting for. When I wrote Wild, I had published a novel, I had a nice little fan base, but it wasn't like there was some great clamor like, when's your next book? And now I do have that feeling of people being present in my mind as I write. And I've had to just let it go. I've had to say, I don't know if this next book is going to be as good as Wild. I don't know if people are going to love it.

40:13But the only thing I can do is write page after page after page. One of my favorite quotes by Margaret Atwood, who's writing I love, she says, a word after a word after a word after a word is power. And I always try to remember that. You know, that my work, my job in trying to create power is just putting one word after another word after another word.

40:39Marie Forleo:Greetings from Dubai. If there was one tip you could give me to improve my writing besides practicing, what would you suggest? Smooches! Dr. Nasrin. I love that she wrote smooches. Thank you so much. Smooches right back to you. So I never can give just one tip because I'm the kind of girl that likes to give a lot of tips. I just like to talk a lot if you haven't figured that out yet. But I've got two tips for you today and the first one is one that has improved my writing dramatically and I love when I do this. Josh gets very happy when I do this and it's all about reading fiction, right? Most of us, especially if we're in any kind of like academic setting or we're very driven and we're always wanting to do self-improvement stuff, we kind of forget about the whole world of fiction.

41:28Marie Forleo:And when you read fiction, it improves your writing dramatically. Why? Why? Because fiction is all about storytelling and the best writing of every type tells stories. Last summer it was really funny, Josh was telling me about, he's like, you know, you read so much as far as business development and self development, he's like, you just need to get a good fiction novel. And I said, you know what, you're right. So I pulled down my Kindle and I was just looking around, there's samples on Kindle, and I really wasn't paying attention to what I hit the sample of and it was called Night Night of Pleasure, K-N-I-G-H-T.

42:03Marie Forleo:I didn't realize it but I got myself hooked into some kind of trashy erotica. It was awesome. It was so freaking good. I tell you, I was like, whew, should I be reading this? Like it was just amazing. And then that same summer I got myself hooked into the whole Twilight series. And I don't care if you think it's cheesy, I absolutely loved it. I watched the movies and then I read and then watched the movies and then I read. But I'll tell you, it absolutely improved my writing ability. It's just new words were coming into my vocabulary and I just started making pictures in my mind and I found that that absolutely translated to everything that I write.

42:38Marie Forleo:Now the second tip, and this is one that requires a little bit of courage, what I would suggest if you're really committed to improving your writing is to gather some of your friends together, friends that are smart and ideally are writers as well, and have a little bit of a writing feedback party. Now, the way I would do this is I would send out my friends pieces of my writing beforehand. So send them some articles, you know, maybe a half a chapter of a book, depends on what you're working on, and have them really give you their honest feedback. Tell them to be compassionate. You gotta be gentle, but you do want the truth.

43:14Marie Forleo:Find out where they're getting lost. Find out if they just feel like your sentences are, you know, just a little bit awkward. Maybe you're not being very clear in how you describe things. And if you don't have friends that you can do this with, I would highly recommend you hire someone to give you feedback. I've gotten feedback on my copy, best thing in the world. People point out, you know what, I got lost here, this headline isn't working. It's fantastic. So those are two really good tips to improve your writing that have nothing to do with practice. Wasn't that good? I thought it was good. Smooch is back to you.

43:46Marie Forleo:Hi Marie. I'm working on writing a book which will fill a serious void in the market. it. However, I find myself spending my days doing more immediate things – social networking, answering emails, taking on new clients, etc. The half-finished book keeps getting pushed to the back burner even though I know it's a thing that's going to have the biggest impact on my career and be the most helpful for my audience. Any suggestions for putting the other stuff aside and getting the book done without losing momentum with my audience in the process? Great question, Crystal. Very very important one and I know millions of people are in your situation right now.

44:26Marie Forleo:In fact, I was talking to a young lady this morning, someone here, hello, who completely relates to this question. Here's what I mean. Most people have a book either in their head or it's half finished or it's done and it's sitting in a drawer collecting dust. So we're gonna handle this once and for all right now. Now, here are three easy strategies to help you get that sucker done without losing any momentum in your business. Strategy number one, schedule it girl. You may have heard me say this before and I will say it again, if it's not scheduled, it's not real. You need to schedule clear writing chunks in your calendar and treat it like a meeting where you don't answer emails or take any phone calls.

45:06Marie Forleo:You also need to be super hardcore about eliminating any distractions that could interrupt your writing time. So, quit out of any applications that ding or beep like Skype and TweetDeck and Facebook and… Like that. Now, if I were you, I would work on writing first thing in the morning. This way, the rest of your work day is free to be with your clients and also continue building your audience. Strategy number two is to use a site called 750words.com. This site is awesome because it's a free online tool that helps you continue writing without stopping each and every day. You can even set it up to send you email reminders, which is awesome to guilt you into finishing your book.

45:50Marie Forleo:Number 3 is my favorite strategy of all. You need to pony up and pay somebody. Here's what I mean. If you find it hard to discipline yourself, you may need to actually outsource your discipline. Here's what I did. When I was in the middle of writing Make Every Man Want You, I was also teaching about five hip hop classes a week. I was choreographing fitness DVDs and I was also keeping my coaching practice going. So I had a lot going on, so I can completely relate to what you're going through. I knew that the only way I was going to actually get the book done was to hire a book coach. I needed someone whose only job was to ride my ass every single week to get her chapters, to review things that I was working on and to make sure that the thing actually got done.

46:31Marie Forleo:Trust me, if you're serious about getting your book done, it's the most powerful and fastest way to ensure it actually happens. Before we wrap this up, I want to share a great quote with you from Mr. David Campbell who is the founder of Saks Fifth Avenue. By the way, it's a tweetable.

46:50Marie Forleo:Discipline is remembering what you want. Ooh, doesn't that one get you in the gut? Got me in the gut. Did it get you in the gut? Yes. Yes. If you find yourself distracted or checking email or doing client work when you should be writing, ask yourself, is what I'm doing right now getting me any closer to getting what I really want? If not, you better stop and get back on track. Hi Marie and team. Each week I turn on MarieTV and I must say, every episode is an eye opener. Thanks for all the inspiration. You're welcome. Here's my cue. I've recently discovered how much I love writing. It's a way to share my knowledge with other people, but as a designer I've never had any education in writing.

47:32Marie Forleo:So often when I'm writing an article, I'll start thinking, who am I to share this knowledge? Who am I to pretend I know it all? And who am I to write this article? These thoughts can make me feel tired, take away my enthusiasm, and turn it into fear. Is there anything I can do to make these thoughts go away? Do you have tips that I can practice the next time I write an article? Thank you so much. Lots of love from the Netherlands, Aline. Great question. Whether you're a beginner or you're a more seasoned pro, I think all of us can have that thought, you know what, who am I to write this? That's called resistance and it's probably why Ernest Hemingway drank so much.

48:08Marie Forleo:You know what, he probably knew this MarieTV. First let's cover the insecurity that you have because you're not a trained writer. We gotta know something, neither am I. I am a writer because I write. I've never actually had any formal training. I've just been doing it for years and when I first started, I gotta tell you, I was pretty darn bad. But there was one thought that really helped me out that I want to share with you right now. Writing is just talking in text form. And most of us don't ever get talker's block, right? When we've got something to say, we just say it. So that's tip number one.

48:42Marie Forleo:I want you to think about writing as just talking in text form and write how you talk. Second thing I want to address is this destructive association that you have between writing an article and that meaning you're a know-it-all. That's the worst idea ever if you want to create anything and share it with the world. Look, the people that we trust the most are people that are just honest about their learnings and their experiences. They give us research and statistics when it matters, and of course, they cite their resources. So when you share something in the form of, hey look, here's something great I learned and I think you'd love to know it too, just say that.

49:18Marie Forleo:It's awesome. And don't ever pretend to know it all because you don't. None of us do. Instead, use tip number two, which is the LSC method. It stands for learn, share, and credit. So when you learn something, if you wanna share about it, that's awesome. If it was based on your own experience, that's all you gotta do. But if you learn something from somewhere else, maybe another author, a website, a research study, just cite your sources. That's all you gotta do. So this way you're not like, hey look, I invented this, these are all my ideas. you're like, hey look, I found something cool for you and I really think you'd appreciate it and here's why.

49:54Marie Forleo:Finally, let's address the real heart of this. You said that you love writing and when you love doing something and it brings you energy and you wanna do it more, you should do it more. That means it's one of your gifts, it's one of your strengths and you never know. It may be one of the reasons that you're here on Earth. Think about it this way. If you don't share all of these ideas in your writing, you're actually keeping your gifts from all of us. Another way that I like to say it is you're stealing from those who really need you most. So remember this last tip and yes, it's a tweetable. When you're afraid to write, don't think, who am I to say this?

50:33Marie Forleo:But who am I not to say this? Hey, it's Marie. If you're working your tail off and your revenue still isn't moving, listen up. Revenue on Repeat is six AI tools built on my$100 million frameworks. They nail your voice, sharpen your offer, and write your copy for you. One payment, instant access. Get started at marieforleo.com.