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creativity planning & productivity writing

The Writing Road Trip – Update

April 3, 2022

Beth Cregan of Write Away With Me and I co-host The Writing Road Trip. Beth and I co-write together in the mornings virtually via Zoom. We’ve completed three books between us in 2021 and we’ve found community and partnership helps get writing happening and books written. So from this, we’ve shaped up exactly what helped us into an exciting new community writing program in 2022.

So join us. Get on our email list now and we’ll send you information and inspiration for your writing journey:

The Writing Road Trip is an exciting collaboration for Beth Cregan and me. We have created exactly what we found worked when we faced the task of writing and completing our books together.

The program has three components that we plan to keep cycling through so join us at any time. Join the email list to keep in touch with what’s available. Here are the three components!

  • We kick off with a free writing challenge focusing on writing identity, a two week challenge helps you explore your relationship with writing and your unique writing identity. Whatever stage you are at in your writing journey, this is a powerful foundation for your writing. 
  • Then we have a six-week Writing Road Map course that helps you zero in on your purpose and direction. We work on: creating your vision, getting in flow, mindset, creativity for the long-haul and sharing your work with the world. It helps you map the writing journey your way with the support of community.
  • The Writing Road Trip is a longer community program for extended support as you write featuring virtual writing retreats, community calls to check in on your writing progress and writing input as required based on what you need!

We are kicking off on the Writing Road Trip in May 2022! So get on the email list for the latest news as well as regular writing inspiration and tips from us.

Here’s a map of where the Writing Road Trip is going in 2022:

Watch us chatting about the program here on YouTube

The transcript of the conversation is below if you prefer to read or read along.

Transcript of our conversation

Beth Cregan: Now just waiting. I think we’re going to get Terri up on screen any minute. There we go. We did it. So welcome to anybody who’s watching this live. And also to anybody who might catch up on this, on the replay. We’re so thrilled to have you here and you can tell by our smiles that we’re really excited to be spending this time and telling you what we’ve been planning over the last weeks and months. So I’m Beth from Write Away with Me.

Terri Connellan: And I’m Terri Connellan from Quiet Writing and it’s fantastic to be on Instagram live together. This is our first time popping on together and we’ve had a lot of laughs getting connected and things organised, but it’s great to be with you Beth, and to be sharing our story.

Beth Cregan: Exactly. And I think what we’d really like to start with is to tell you a little bit about how this program came to be, because we have developed something that comes from our experience of writing successfully together and finishing our books. And we’re hoping it will really inspire you to join us next year and take out your writing program.

So if we zoom back to the beginning of last year, I had a draft of a book and a publishing contract, and I was just beginning to restructure that book when COVID hit. And of course, all of our lives changed dramatically. And I was at home overwhelmed and anxious and really wondering how I was going to make my commitment of finishing this book.

Then it really became important to me, or it became obvious to me that I needed support. And I put out a call to writers I knew in my circle to see if anybody wanted to write in the mornings together online. And that was how Terri and I first connected. We knew each other, but that was how we connected in terms of our writing together. And other people came in and out of that group, but we hung in there, didn’t we Terri?

Terri Connellan: We did.

I think the fact that we were both writing books, like we both had a long haul writing project really kept us engaged with that support for each other.

I know for me, for my situation, I was writing two books at once. And I think when we connected, I was well through the draft of one and the other, I still had to do quite a lot of work on. So it was actually quite a hard slog at the time when we connected, because it was working through the editing when you’re going over and over and over drafts. And when I went through that process, it was quite challenging. So to have people who you can connect with really helps with that and getting up early and writing with you really helped to get that writing done. It was so much more fun.

Beth Cregan: Absolutely. That was my sense of it too. And now end of if that was somewhere in the midst of 2020, now we’re at the end of 2021. And I have my book now finished and going through its final edit with the publisher and Terri, tell everybody your great news too.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I was able to get two books finished at once. So ‘Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition‘ and accompanying workbook, which I worked on in conjunction and they were published by the kind press in September this year 2021 and that’s after four and a half, five years of writing. So yeah, it was fantastic to have that support to be able to finish that work. So, yeah. Thanks for being there. And it’s great to share our story.

Beth Cregan: And I think that it is the things that we learned during that time that helped us achieve our goals.

And it became, I think really obvious to both of us that we’d cracked a code that really made the difference for us and that we could then offer what we had learned to others to help them on their writing journey, to guide and support them.

I know for me, that time in the morning felt really sacred. It felt like a safe space. It felt like a creative space and it wasn’t just the opportunity to work and, and know that somebody was holding space with you at the same time and offering you that courage but I think it was just our conversations. We’d have a break and it was our conversations that made all the difference.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And I think for me it was definitely that accountability of getting up early to write, but also very much the camaraderie around writing. So that ability to one, write together, but also just to stop and have conversations about what was hard, what was easy, what we were learning. We often think writing’s a really solitary process. Obviously there’s aspects of it that are, but there’s plenty of aspects of writing that are supported by being with other people. And, people talk about how lonely it is. It can be super lonely and I think having community on the journey can help us incredibly. So, yeah. So it’s like a magic sauce, Beth, that we want to share with others.

Beth Cregan: Yes, absolutely. And I know for me, it was the fact that there was somebody just ahead of me in the journey that made such a difference because the overwhelming part is that you don’t quite know. It’s an organic process and you don’t quite know how it’s going to come together. So just having you one step or two steps ahead meant that I had a path forming and it normalized what I was doing, the overwhelm, the fear that dealing with my inner critic, the resistance. It really normalized all of those things because I knew that you were feeling them too.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely.

That sense of, you’re not alone and it’s quite a normal part of the journey. Yeah, I think the idea of normalising, it’s really important. Also for me, I never went into any session or any times we were writing together without having a note pad or pencil beside me, where I was writing down a whole list: here’s a great podcast, here’s a great book.

And I know you recommended Anne Janzer’s The Writer’s Process. To me, that’s been such a fantastic inspirational book for my journey and for my sharing with others. So I think just sharing insights about writing and resources helped incredibly too. So it’s a whole lot of things, isn’t it?

Beth Cregan: Well, the combined resources was just an absolute bonus because I now have bookshelves and kindles full of things that I know you found helpful and no doubt you have the same experience because everybody finds their own, you know, they follow different people. They find their own magic in whatever resources they use. And then we had the chance to pull those together and share them, which was really fantastic.

Terri Connellan: So it might be time for us to share about what we’re thinking of or what we’re planning to offer all these great experiences that we’ve had. What we found was that from that we’re able to create a program that’s something that we wish we had while we were going through the process.

Beth Cregan: I think every time we’ve got together to work and dream up this program cause it’s been a Thursday afternoon burst of inspiration when we get together and do it. And every time I finish, I think, man, I wish I had this when I was writing or when I was doing this journey, because it’s exactly what I would have needed to help me along my way. So how about I start by just talking a little bit about the challenge.

The program will have three parts and we’re going to start with a live challenge. It will involve six free activities or workshops over two weeks. And that’s just to ride the energy of the new year, and get everybody thinking about what their writing goals might be for the year. How they feel as a writer, what is their writing identity as well as just inspire and spark imaginations and creativity. So that will involve lots of hands-on writing and interactive opportunities, which will be really fun way to start the program.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. It’s called The Writing Road Trip, the whole program. The first part is really a bit of way-finding, like getting a compass, getting all the travel books out and deciding where you might go. But again, having fellow travellers, even at the early stage of the journey to have a chat about what you’re thinking about, how you feel about yourself as a writer, as Beth said, and then we thought we’d build on that with a six week more intensive course, which is a Roadmap. And that’s really about creating the shape of your project and what it might look like. So in that program, we’ll have a look at things like, what your purpose is, what your why is, what the steps might be, what do you want to do with what you write?

 My journey has been very much that, knowing what I want to do with it at the end, I needed to know a bit at the beginning or at least have some idea. Do you want to publish? How do you want to publish? And we’re talking in this, it could be a book, but it could also be blog project. It could be feature articles, series of feature articles, could be social media. It could be writing a course, any sort of writing. So in that six weeks Roadmap program, we’ll be looking at: what you want to do, where you might go, why it’s important to you, because one thing I’ve found, and I know you have too, Beth, is that knowing our why really helps us on the whole journey.

Beth Cregan: Yeah. And I love the imagery of the road trip because I think it was born out of a time when we were quite stationary with lockdown and road tripping was completely off the agenda.

But writing is a journey and creating any sort of project and finishing any sort of project, I think, is a transformational journey. So it feels so right to have that image as our starting point.

And then once we’ve done that six weeks together where we will really shape and map out where you’re going and what you want to do with your project, then we have a six month community. And in that community and program, that membership, you’ll have a chance to meet other writers, to work together, to be accountable to each other, to listen to other guest speakers who arecoming into that space, to share our resources.

So, not only will you have the opportunity to connect with our guests, but you’ll have a wide library of resources that we can share with you. And also, which I think will be really helpful because it’s what we have done. And we still do many mornings every week is to have virtual retreats where we come together and we’re online in our own space, but we’re working together and sharing what we’re doing, our goals and our intentions and carving out space, making that container to allow the writing to happen. So that to me is a really important part of this journey because I don’t think I realized until we started working together, Terri, just how I’ve given lip service to community, but I don’t think I really understood it. And now I really do see that that makes all the difference.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Yeah. I’ve often been envious of people who have writing groups and join together to to write. And particularly with the way things work now that we are perhaps not connecting as much or traveling across the world, or as you said, actually doing road trips as much, being able to connect virtually and write together, have community together and connect asynchronously as well as at the same time, it’s been absolutely perfect. And I know one of my clients said to me, I didn’t think I had time for a group program, I just wanted to get the writing done. And I think that’s, our tendency is to want to put our head down and just get the writing done.

But I think our experiences have taught us that to have connection to someone who knows what’s happening on the journey to talk through, when you get to the really difficult things, to be able to have a safe space to be heard, you don’t always have to solve the problems, but it’s just not having it rattling around inside your head can make a huge difference.

And I think we’ve both said without each other, we wouldn’t be where we are today with the projects that we’ve done. So that’s what we really hope to share with the community work. And yeah, that idea of being connected with creativity.

Beth Cregan: I think if you imagine writing as flow and we often talk about creative flow, I feel like community removes many of the obstacles. For me, it really allows the writing when you have that space to write, you actually use your time really productively, because you have a lot of your other needs met in that community space.

Terri Connellan: I think I’ve said to you before that, we’d get up early, six at the moment. If you’re not there and I get up early, I just faff around. It’s just amazing that having someone there, you know, we write for 25 minutes, we have a break. These are the sort of practices we can share with people. Another thing we’ve talked about doing is buddying people up potentially, if people are interested in this sort of experience we’ve had, because it’s made all the difference.

Beth Cregan: Yeah and I know we were talking this morning about the fact that we’re in the middle of a reno and our, Terri and my, writing time hasn’t been happening. And my rest of the day doesn’t feel the same and it is nowhere near as productive as having that regular routine. So it’s reminded me once again, that a writing practice is made up of so many elements that fit together. And once you get what’s right for you, what you need to move forward. So we hoping that you will be interested in joining us. We’re going to be kicking off at the end of Jan with our challenge, and you can be part of that free challenge and have the opportunity to come and work with us and see what it’s like to have that experience.

Terri Connellan: And so the first step today we’re opening the waitlist, which is really exciting. So inviting you to come on the Road Trip with us. So we’ve both popped the links in our bios and that waitlist information tells you about the program. There’s quite a lot of information there in that post if you have a look and then there’s an opportunity just to join our email list, which is a joint email list. Beth and I have our own businesses, our own email lists. This is a unique one, unique to Writing Road Trip. So we’ll just be sending information out about the Road Trip and, and writing inspiration tips to inspire you particularly about community.

Beth Cregan: And we would love you to join us and have an opportunity to be supported by the lessons that we’ve learned along the way to finish. You finished your two books and I think you’re nearly working on the third.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I am. Yeah, it’s happening in the background. So again, it’s whatever projects and it’s not genre specific. I think that’s something too we want to mention to people. We’re not going to be talking about say, novel writing specifically. But you could be writing a novel, it’s certainly a goal of mine next year. Mm. But whatever writing it is, we’re here to support you around the writing process generally, the community, the support. We’re both writing teachers by background. We’ve told you about ourselves in that landing page (waitlist page). I’m a coach and teacher and Beth also is mentoring and many years’ experience as a teacher. So together, we bring a fantastic skillset too. And of course everyone who joins brings their wisdom. That’s what I love about group programs. We met through a group program, didn’t we Beth?

Beth Cregan:

And we really feel like this will be a co-creation. We will set that structure up and use what we know in that space or share what we know in that space, but it really will be created with everybody and what they bring into that program as well, which is really exciting.

Terri Connellan: It is absolutely. So yes, we hope you’ll join us. So as I said, we’ll both put a post up today kicking off the waitlist. So any questions feel free to pop them in now, or we can pick them up on our respective Instagram profiles. So look forward to connecting with you and to going on a Road Trip with you, writing away.

Beth Cregan: Totally!. And have a great day and any questions, please shoot them our way. We’d love to answer them. And we’d love to see you on that wait list so that you can get more information as it comes into the world. Yeah. Bye.

We hope you’ll join us!

You can get on the email list here and find our more about us and the program here:

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
creativity planning & productivity writing

The Writing Road Trip – Share the journey

January 31, 2022

I’m joining forces with Beth Cregan of Write Away With Me to co-host The Writing Road Trip in 2022. Beth and I co-write together in the mornings virtually via Zoom. We’ve completed three books between us in 2021 and we’ve found community and partnership helps get writing happening and books written. So from this, we’ve shaped up exactly what helped us into an exciting new community writing program in 2022.

We kick off today 31 January! So join us. Get on our email list now and we’ll send you all the information and links to join in:

The Writing Road Trip is an exciting new collaboration for Beth Cregan and me. We have created exactly what we found worked when we faced the task of writing and completing our books together.

The program kicks off with a free writing challenge focusing on writing identity. This two week challenge helps you explore your relationship with writing and your unique writing identity. Whatever stage you are at in your writing journey, this is a powerful foundation for your writing for 2022. 

We want to challenge you, nurture your creativity and provide opportunities to connect with other writers in a positive and affirming community. 

Here’s what you need to know:

✍🏼 The Challenge goes from Monday 31 Jan to Friday 11 Feb.

✍🏼There are 6 x 30 minute live workshops Tues Wed Thurs each week.

✍🏼 Workshops are live at 7pm AEDT Sydney/Melb via Zoom + recorded.

✍🏼 Each workshop has a key focus, writing prompt & time to chat.

✍🏼 The private Facebook group is open for further connection & exploration.

✍🏼 The Challenge Workbook is ready for you to download.

Don’t forget to add us to your contacts so our emails land in your inbox.

The Challenge is free so connect with us, to get writing in 2022.

Sign up to get the info – link in bio or head to https://www.quietwriting.net/writingroadtripwaitlist

If you are already on our email list, then check out today’s email with all the Go Live links. DM us if you haven’t received it for any reason! We don’t want you to miss out.

Watch us chatting about the program here on YouTube

The transcript of the conversation is below if you prefer to read or read along.

Transcript of our conversation

Beth Cregan: Now just waiting. I think we’re going to get Terri up on screen any minute. There we go. We did it. So welcome to anybody who’s watching this live. And also to anybody who might catch up on this, on the replay. We’re so thrilled to have you here and you can tell by our smiles that we’re really excited to be spending this time and telling you what we’ve been planning over the last weeks and months. So I’m Beth from Write Away with Me.

Terri Connellan: And I’m Terri Connellan from Quiet Writing and it’s fantastic to be on Instagram live together. This is our first time popping on together and we’ve had a lot of laughs getting connected and things organised, but it’s great to be with you Beth, and to be sharing our story.

Beth Cregan: Exactly. And I think what we’d really like to start with is to tell you a little bit about how this program came to be, because we have developed something that comes from our experience of writing successfully together and finishing our books. And we’re hoping it will really inspire you to join us next year and take out your writing program.

So if we zoom back to the beginning of last year, I had a draft of a book and a publishing contract, and I was just beginning to restructure that book when COVID hit. And of course, all of our lives changed dramatically. And I was at home overwhelmed and anxious and really wondering how I was going to make my commitment of finishing this book.

Then it really became important to me, or it became obvious to me that I needed support. And I put out a call to writers I knew in my circle to see if anybody wanted to write in the mornings together online. And that was how Terri and I first connected. We knew each other, but that was how we connected in terms of our writing together. And other people came in and out of that group, but we hung in there, didn’t we Terri?

Terri Connellan: We did.

I think the fact that we were both writing books, like we both had a long haul writing project really kept us engaged with that support for each other.

I know for me, for my situation, I was writing two books at once. And I think when we connected, I was well through the draft of one and the other, I still had to do quite a lot of work on. So it was actually quite a hard slog at the time when we connected, because it was working through the editing when you’re going over and over and over drafts. And when I went through that process, it was quite challenging. So to have people who you can connect with really helps with that and getting up early and writing with you really helped to get that writing done. It was so much more fun.

Beth Cregan: Absolutely. That was my sense of it too. And now end of if that was somewhere in the midst of 2020, now we’re at the end of 2021. And I have my book now finished and going through its final edit with the publisher and Terri, tell everybody your great news too.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I was able to get two books finished at once. So ‘Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition‘ and accompanying workbook, which I worked on in conjunction and they were published by the kind press in September this year 2021 and that’s after four and a half, five years of writing. So yeah, it was fantastic to have that support to be able to finish that work. So, yeah. Thanks for being there. And it’s great to share our story.

Beth Cregan: And I think that it is the things that we learned during that time that helped us achieve our goals.

And it became, I think really obvious to both of us that we’d cracked a code that really made the difference for us and that we could then offer what we had learned to others to help them on their writing journey, to guide and support them.

I know for me, that time in the morning felt really sacred. It felt like a safe space. It felt like a creative space and it wasn’t just the opportunity to work and, and know that somebody was holding space with you at the same time and offering you that courage but I think it was just our conversations. We’d have a break and it was our conversations that made all the difference.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And I think for me it was definitely that accountability of getting up early to write, but also very much the camaraderie around writing. So that ability to one, write together, but also just to stop and have conversations about what was hard, what was easy, what we were learning. We often think writing’s a really solitary process. Obviously there’s aspects of it that are, but there’s plenty of aspects of writing that are supported by being with other people. And, people talk about how lonely it is. It can be super lonely and I think having community on the journey can help us incredibly. So, yeah. So it’s like a magic sauce, Beth, that we want to share with others.

Beth Cregan: Yes, absolutely. And I know for me, it was the fact that there was somebody just ahead of me in the journey that made such a difference because the overwhelming part is that you don’t quite know. It’s an organic process and you don’t quite know how it’s going to come together. So just having you one step or two steps ahead meant that I had a path forming and it normalized what I was doing, the overwhelm, the fear that dealing with my inner critic, the resistance. It really normalized all of those things because I knew that you were feeling them too.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely.

That sense of, you’re not alone and it’s quite a normal part of the journey. Yeah, I think the idea of normalising, it’s really important. Also for me, I never went into any session or any times we were writing together without having a note pad or pencil beside me, where I was writing down a whole list: here’s a great podcast, here’s a great book.

And I know you recommended Anne Janzer’s The Writer’s Process. To me, that’s been such a fantastic inspirational book for my journey and for my sharing with others. So I think just sharing insights about writing and resources helped incredibly too. So it’s a whole lot of things, isn’t it?

Beth Cregan: Well, the combined resources was just an absolute bonus because I now have bookshelves and kindles full of things that I know you found helpful and no doubt you have the same experience because everybody finds their own, you know, they follow different people. They find their own magic in whatever resources they use. And then we had the chance to pull those together and share them, which was really fantastic.

Terri Connellan: So it might be time for us to share about what we’re thinking of or what we’re planning to offer all these great experiences that we’ve had. What we found was that from that we’re able to create a program that’s something that we wish we had while we were going through the process.

Beth Cregan: I think every time we’ve got together to work and dream up this program cause it’s been a Thursday afternoon burst of inspiration when we get together and do it. And every time I finish, I think, man, I wish I had this when I was writing or when I was doing this journey, because it’s exactly what I would have needed to help me along my way. So how about I start by just talking a little bit about the challenge.

The program will have three parts and we’re going to start with a live challenge. It will involve six free activities or workshops over two weeks. And that’s just to ride the energy of the new year, and get everybody thinking about what their writing goals might be for the year. How they feel as a writer, what is their writing identity as well as just inspire and spark imaginations and creativity. So that will involve lots of hands-on writing and interactive opportunities, which will be really fun way to start the program.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. It’s called The Writing Road Trip, the whole program. The first part is really a bit of way-finding, like getting a compass, getting all the travel books out and deciding where you might go. But again, having fellow travellers, even at the early stage of the journey to have a chat about what you’re thinking about, how you feel about yourself as a writer, as Beth said, and then we thought we’d build on that with a six week more intensive course, which is a Roadmap. And that’s really about creating the shape of your project and what it might look like. So in that program, we’ll have a look at things like, what your purpose is, what your why is, what the steps might be, what do you want to do with what you write?

 My journey has been very much that, knowing what I want to do with it at the end, I needed to know a bit at the beginning or at least have some idea. Do you want to publish? How do you want to publish? And we’re talking in this, it could be a book, but it could also be blog project. It could be feature articles, series of feature articles, could be social media. It could be writing a course, any sort of writing. So in that six weeks Roadmap program, we’ll be looking at: what you want to do, where you might go, why it’s important to you, because one thing I’ve found, and I know you have too, Beth, is that knowing our why really helps us on the whole journey.

Beth Cregan: Yeah. And I love the imagery of the road trip because I think it was born out of a time when we were quite stationary with lockdown and road tripping was completely off the agenda.

But writing is a journey and creating any sort of project and finishing any sort of project, I think, is a transformational journey. So it feels so right to have that image as our starting point.

And then once we’ve done that six weeks together where we will really shape and map out where you’re going and what you want to do with your project, then we have a six month community. And in that community and program, that membership, you’ll have a chance to meet other writers, to work together, to be accountable to each other, to listen to other guest speakers who arecoming into that space, to share our resources.

So, not only will you have the opportunity to connect with our guests, but you’ll have a wide library of resources that we can share with you. And also, which I think will be really helpful because it’s what we have done. And we still do many mornings every week is to have virtual retreats where we come together and we’re online in our own space, but we’re working together and sharing what we’re doing, our goals and our intentions and carving out space, making that container to allow the writing to happen. So that to me is a really important part of this journey because I don’t think I realized until we started working together, Terri, just how I’ve given lip service to community, but I don’t think I really understood it. And now I really do see that that makes all the difference.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Yeah. I’ve often been envious of people who have writing groups and join together to to write. And particularly with the way things work now that we are perhaps not connecting as much or traveling across the world, or as you said, actually doing road trips as much, being able to connect virtually and write together, have community together and connect asynchronously as well as at the same time, it’s been absolutely perfect. And I know one of my clients said to me, I didn’t think I had time for a group program, I just wanted to get the writing done. And I think that’s, our tendency is to want to put our head down and just get the writing done.

But I think our experiences have taught us that to have connection to someone who knows what’s happening on the journey to talk through, when you get to the really difficult things, to be able to have a safe space to be heard, you don’t always have to solve the problems, but it’s just not having it rattling around inside your head can make a huge difference.

And I think we’ve both said without each other, we wouldn’t be where we are today with the projects that we’ve done. So that’s what we really hope to share with the community work. And yeah, that idea of being connected with creativity.

Beth Cregan: I think if you imagine writing as flow and we often talk about creative flow, I feel like community removes many of the obstacles. For me, it really allows the writing when you have that space to write, you actually use your time really productively, because you have a lot of your other needs met in that community space.

Terri Connellan: I think I’ve said to you before that, we’d get up early, six at the moment. If you’re not there and I get up early, I just faff around. It’s just amazing that having someone there, you know, we write for 25 minutes, we have a break. These are the sort of practices we can share with people. Another thing we’ve talked about doing is buddying people up potentially, if people are interested in this sort of experience we’ve had, because it’s made all the difference.

Beth Cregan: Yeah and I know we were talking this morning about the fact that we’re in the middle of a reno and our, Terri and my, writing time hasn’t been happening. And my rest of the day doesn’t feel the same and it is nowhere near as productive as having that regular routine. So it’s reminded me once again, that a writing practice is made up of so many elements that fit together. And once you get what’s right for you, what you need to move forward. So we hoping that you will be interested in joining us. We’re going to be kicking off at the end of Jan with our challenge, and you can be part of that free challenge and have the opportunity to come and work with us and see what it’s like to have that experience.

Terri Connellan: And so the first step today we’re opening the waitlist, which is really exciting. So inviting you to come on the Road Trip with us. So we’ve both popped the links in our bios and that waitlist information tells you about the program. There’s quite a lot of information there in that post if you have a look and then there’s an opportunity just to join our email list, which is a joint email list. Beth and I have our own businesses, our own email lists. This is a unique one, unique to Writing Road Trip. So we’ll just be sending information out about the Road Trip and, and writing inspiration tips to inspire you particularly about community.

Beth Cregan: And we would love you to join us and have an opportunity to be supported by the lessons that we’ve learned along the way to finish. You finished your two books and I think you’re nearly working on the third.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I am. Yeah, it’s happening in the background. So again, it’s whatever projects and it’s not genre specific. I think that’s something too we want to mention to people. We’re not going to be talking about say, novel writing specifically. But you could be writing a novel, it’s certainly a goal of mine next year. Mm. But whatever writing it is, we’re here to support you around the writing process generally, the community, the support. We’re both writing teachers by background. We’ve told you about ourselves in that landing page (waitlist page). I’m a coach and teacher and Beth also is mentoring and many years’ experience as a teacher. So together, we bring a fantastic skillset too. And of course everyone who joins brings their wisdom. That’s what I love about group programs. We met through a group program, didn’t we Beth?

Beth Cregan:

And we really feel like this will be a co-creation. We will set that structure up and use what we know in that space or share what we know in that space, but it really will be created with everybody and what they bring into that program as well, which is really exciting.

Terri Connellan: It is absolutely. So yes, we hope you’ll join us. So as I said, we’ll both put a post up today kicking off the waitlist. So any questions feel free to pop them in now, or we can pick them up on our respective Instagram profiles. So look forward to connecting with you and to going on a Road Trip with you, writing away.

Beth Cregan: Totally!. And have a great day and any questions, please shoot them our way. We’d love to answer them. And we’d love to see you on that wait list so that you can get more information as it comes into the world. Yeah. Bye.

Here’s a map of where the Writing Road Trip is going in 2022:

We hope you’ll join us!

You can get on the email list here and find our more about us and the program here:

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
planning & productivity writing

Author – my 2021 Word of the Year check-in!

December 30, 2021

My word for 2021 is AUTHOR.

Here’s what I wrote on Instagram about what that meant sitting on the threshold of 2021:

  • stepping into the identity of author
  • embracing life as an author and learning new skills – publication, launching, author platform.
  • keeping writing front and centre in every way
  • completing, beginning and progressing writing projects
  • being visible as an author and talking about my books and writing
  • helping others embrace writing and being an author
  • helping women be the creator of their stories and the active author of their lives through enhanced self-leadership.

Here’s how that shaped up over the year and some tips for applying this learning in your life!

Stepping into the identity of author

What’s the difference in identity between writer and author? That’s something I’ve pondered this year. For me, WRITER is more focused on the process and act of writing. AUTHOR is more about what we shape and produce through writing: a finished book, something published and out in the world in some way.

I love writing especially the writer’s process so have always aligned myself to that identity. Stepping into the identity of author feels more public. It meant committing to completing my book Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition and the Wholehearted Companion Workbook. After four plus years of writing, it meant moving through the long haul of creating a book – or two – and finishing them. Receiving my books in print for the first time. Having them sold by book-sellers. Seeing them in online stores. Working in partnership with editors and publishers like the wonderful the kind press. These were thrilling milestones and I’ve loved stepping into AUTHOR as my writing identity in 2022. Thanks to those who have read Wholehearted and supported me on my author journey!

Tips for you:

If stepping into the identity of author is a priority in your life for 2022:

Embracing life as an author and learning new skills – publication, launching, author platform.

This has been a huge focus this year and I have learnt so much through a combination of doing, reading and listening. Working with the kind press as my publisher has been a wonderful introduction to independent publishing. I deliberately choose the indie author path. This is because I want to keep control of my work as much as I can and have creative freedom. Learning the skills to independently publish has been something I’ve invested time and money in over the long-term for about 10 years now. So to go through the process was so exciting.

I chose to work in partnership with the kind press because even though I had some knowledge, I didn’t have the practical experience. It felt overwheling to do it all on my own. Through this partnership I achieved two goals:

  1. I independently published my books in a way I am totally delighted with, and
  2. I learnt about the independent publishing process; information I can use again and again on my journey.

Another valuable process was working through and creating my Author Business Plan with the help of Joanna Penn’s book Your Author Business Plan. This helped me to gather together what I already had created on my Quiet Writing business journey as a creative. And to work out the next steps to focus more on my author platform.

Key players in understanding the launch process as an author were my publisher Natasha Gilmour, editor Penelope Love, publicist Sian Yewdall and Jessica Tutton who I have worked with over 2020-1 on launching.

This Book Launch Checklist shared with me by the lovely Amanda Rootsey helped a lot too. It feels overwhelming at times as launching anything often does. But strengthening my skillset around launching generally helped immensely.

The other part of embracing life as an author was learning new writing skills especially around long haul writing. Editing, especially editing two books at once, was a challenging process. I was so grateful for the partnership and support of my editors, Penelope Love and Dr Juliet Richters, as well as my publisher, Natasha Gilmour and my co-writing buddy Beth Cregan!

Tips for you:

If embracing life as an author and learning new skills is a priority in your life for 2022:

  • Read Your Author Business Plan by Joanna Penn. It’s short but powerful and then do the work to create your Author Business Plan.
  • Join Beth Cregan and I for the Writing Road Trip in 2022 where we will talk about all aspects of the writing journey and support you including writing your Author Business Plan.
  • Listen to The Creative Penn Podcast.
  • Make a list of all the skills you want to work on and possible paths to learning these skills in 2022.

Keeping writing front and centre in every way

Co-writing with my buddy Beth Cregan of Write Away with Me most week mornings is a crucial element in keeping writing front and centre. I start the day with Morning Pages and Tarot as anchors for the day. The accountability with another writer helps me show up to the page regularly. We talk about writing too which keeps it centred and supported in my world.

Honouring the place of writing in my life as an author has been so important this year. To see my work published in the world is affirming and a goal of many years. Continuing to write and make space for writing as a wholehearted self-leadership skill that supports all of my life is so important. It’s the piece that holds everything else together and makes sense of it all. So I honour its place in my life including writing first thing most mornings.

Tips for you:

If keeping writing front and centre in every way is a priority for you for 2022:

Beth Cregan

Completing, beginning and progressing writing projects

I like the energy of this one. And it captures the idea that writing is an ongoing process and one that has many parts: including getting ideas, researching, drafting, editing, publishing. This year I have worked on the mindset to have writing projects going at different stages. Anne Janzer’s book The Writer’s Process has helped me with this through getting clearer about the different cognitive gears and tools used at different stages of writing. We can use knowledge of the writing process and our personal preferences to juggle multiple projects:

…stagger the start times so the projects are in different phases: research, drafting, incubation, revision. Create the right work environment and conditions for each type of work. If you are freshest mentally in the morning, do the drafting first thing. Schedule research and revision for the other parts of the day, and remember to leave unstructured time to ponder what you’re learning in the research.

Anne Janzer, The Writer’s Process p.142

As I completed both books ready for publication, I also worked on combining the Wholehearted Stories on Quiet Writing into a single draft. It helped manage my energy and keep me motivated to have a new writing project to work on as the others were completing. This idea of managing multiple projects is one I want to work on more in practice.

Tips for you:

If completing, beginning and progressing writing projects is a priority for you for 2022:

The book The Writer's Process by Anne Janzer sitting on a weathered table next to a Traveller's notebook and pen with a spiralled shell and an anemone shell.

Being visible as an author and talking about my books and writing

This has been a big one this year. As writers, we often operate behind the scenes. The work happens in relative privacy and sometimes no-one else sees what we are writing for a long time if ever. But the writing is one thing and the being visible and talking our books via Instagram or Facebook Lives, Masterclasses, virtual or in personal book launch events and on podcasts is another. It’s been new territory for me to be so visible as an author and I’ve embraced it.

I stepped up into talking about my book via Instagram lives. I’ve enjoyed speaking about Wholehearted and the writing process on the following podcasts:

The more you do it, the better you feel. Taking the time to prepare speaking notes on questions provided or brainstormed ahead helps immensely to be clear in what you want to say.

I also started my own Create your Story Podcast launching on 29 October 2021 and have enjoyed sharing conversations on my Wholehearted book with key connections. I’m loving podcasting and the deep conversations shared. I hope you find inspiration in there too – there are many gems!

I held two virtual book launches of Wholehearted given we were in lockdown. You can catch them on the podcast as Episode 2 and Episode 3. I also had a live event with the lovely Anna Loder.

You can join a Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club where we will do a year long community walk through the book with me as your guide and coach. It’s not too late to join. Our community call on Section 1 of the book is in mid January. So head here to join up now – there are still a few spots available.

It’s been a time of stretch talking about my books and writing in all these different ways but I’ve loved it and I hope it’s been helpful. I have so much more to say and share.

Tips for you:

If being visible as an author and generally is a priority in your life for 2022:

  • Send a pitch to me to be on the Create Your Story Podcast. I’d love some new author guests!
  • Listen to podcasts to see how others talk about their books, writing and authorship. Check out my interviews above.
  • Prepare speaking notes for answering questions on podcasts and author interviews so you are ready. Do this even if you don’t have any podcasts booked as yet! This helps you get clear on what you want to say about your writing.
  • Check out Joanna Penn at The Creative Penn for lots of author books and podcasts including her book, Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives & Other Introverts.

Helping others embrace writing and being a new author

As I’ve gone on my writing, authorship and publishing journey, others have reached out to me for advice and support. I’ve helped them in various ways – through my coaching and more informally. I’m a writing teacher by background and helping others to write and create their story is a consistent thread in my life. I found as I committed to writing in a deeper way and stepped more fully into the author role, it’s natural for me to help others.

Throughout my transition journey, I’ve offered women the opportunity to share their wholehearted story and step into being a guest writer on Quiet Writing. Over 20 women have taken up the offer. I’ve helped each of them to craft and share their story so they can feel proud and empowered. You can read the Stories of Wholehearted Living on Quiet Writing. Women have found this to be a healing process that helped them share their deeper, more personal story, sometimes for the first time. Each wholehearted story helps others to write theirs. Readers feel inspired and not so alone in their journeys to living more fully. I collated these stories into one volume for potential publication in 2022. It reminded me of all that I have done in this space as a writing teacher and coach and the powerful voices shared.

For a long time I’ve felt called to offer a program to create community, inspiration and connection for people while writing. This is especially for longer pieces where you need support and tenacity. In partnership with my morning writing buddy, writing teacher and mentor, Beth Cregan, we’ll be kicking off the Writing Road Trip in early 2022. So if writing is high on your list of priorities for 2022, get the support, mindset insights, skills, community and conditions to help you write. You can get on the email list for the Writing Road Trip program now. We are sending out writing inspiration via our newsletters. Working on this partnership and community with Beth is a real joy and I look forward to shaping a supportive writing-focused community in 2022.

Tips for you:

If embracing writing and being a new author is a priority in your life for 2022:

Helping women be the creator of their stories and the active author of their lives through enhanced self-leadership.

All of my work is about helping women to be the active creator of their stories. It’s the focus of the Create Your Story Podcast, my Wholehearted Books, my 1:1 coaching and my group coaching programs. I have a mindmap here of my planned creations when I kicked off my business with ‘Create Your Story’ firmly in the centre of that map of ideas. Create Your Story and Wholehearted Self-leadership are aligned concepts. And 2021 was the year in which many of these ideas came to fruition especially with the podcast and books being launched into the world to share inspiration and strategies with other women.

The place where I work most intimately with women is 1:1 coaching and this is the quiet undercurrent of my work which continued in 2021. Women set goals and moved through blockages; they dealt with unhelpful mindsets and they put practical strategies in place to help them achieve their desires. Coaching has been a bedrock in my own transition journey and I invite you to consider coaching with me if wishing to make change need support on that journey. We all can benefit from such guidance. Sometimes there’s only so far we can go by ourselves. Coaching is via 1:1 or group programs including the Book Club and Writing Road Trip in 2022.

Tips for you:

If creating your story and being the active author of your life is a priority for you for 2022:

So what was your Word of the Year and how did it manifest?

So take some time to reflect on your word of the year – or intentions and goals – and see how it played out. It’s not always as we plan. Sometimes it’s more conscious as it was for me this year. Other times it is more subconscious and we forget our word or focus and then find it has manifested anyway. But take the time to reflect! There are often buried jewels there and important realisations to take forward.

Let me know in the comments here on social media how this played out for you!

I’ve got my Word for 2022 ready to go! it came pretty easily this year. I’ll share more about it in the first week of 2022. So stay tuned. Love to hear what’s coming up for you as a focus for 2022 too.

planning & productivity work life

Online tools for living, working and connecting

April 1, 2020
online tools

In this time of COVID-19, attention shifts to online tools for living and connecting. Here I share the online tools I use for working and communicating virtually so you can get some ideas for your situation.

As a life coach with an online business, I work globally from my home office in a coastal village on Sydney’s outskirts. With 3+ years experience of developing my online coaching business and 10 years blogging experience, I have spent many hours honing my skills and wrangling technology.

Time is of the essence now as we shift rapidly and out of necessity to online tools and ways of working. So here are my tips and the online tools I use for living, working and connecting from home. I hope they are helpful for your creative business and life at a time of physical distancing. We can still be social and connect – just in different ways. And it is a fabulous time to upskill and try new things in this environment where so much is changing and we are all having to do things differently.

Zoom meetings + webinars (free + paid)

Zoom uptake is going through the roof now – adding 2.2 million monthly active users this year compared to 1.99 million in all of 2019. It has been my preferred online videoconferencing platform for three years. Zoom aims to keep under 150 milli-seconds of delay ensuring an immediacy and naturalness in conversations.

It’s easy to download and use without needing an account. You can also sign up for a free account which enables you to host unlimited 1:1 video conversations and group conversations for up to 40 minutes.

I choose to have a Pro Account because I offer longer online group coaching sessions where women connect across the world. You can record sessions for those who can’t get there or want to watch back afterwards.

It is great to see so many people embracing Zoom for virtual book clubs, online yoga classes, family catch-ups and online orchestras and choirs. I have been heartened by the creative ways people are coming together via Zoom and other similar platforms.

I have just stepped into Zoom Webinar and ran my first webinar this week on Living, Working and Connecting Online in Times of Change. It was exciting to test out this new option for my business and extending my reach. Zoom is definitely worth looking at as a webinar platform. One big advantage is if you are used to using Zoom meetings, you have a great base for easily shifting into webinars via Zoom. It also has a good free premium option.

To find out more about Zoom meetings + webinar options:

Getting started : Zoom has plenty of help available in video + text

How to get started with Zoom – a good step by step guide

I want to have virtual drinks! – Step by step tips on House-party, Zoom and other options for connecting online.

17+ best webinar software platforms – a good overview of webinar platform options

online tools
Conducting a webinar via Zoom this week

Teachable ecourse platform (paid)

You may also see this as a time to develop and offer courses online. It is an opportunity to see how you can offer and monetise your skills in new ways. There are plenty of online course platforms to choose from.

I choose to use Teachable and currently offer Personality Stories Coaching and Sacred Creative Collective group coaching (in part) via Teachable in Quiet Writing courses. And I have plans for further ecourses via the Teachable platform.

The advantages of Teachable are: flexibility, comprehensive structure and options, integration, great support and community. Pricing starts from $29US per month billed annually. I choose the Pro plan because of what it offers me as a platform now and for the future. But the Basic plan offers good value for getting started.

It’s a perfect time to explore converting what you know into an online form to share with others. People are looking for support, information and skills via online options now more than ever. Even before the impacts of COVID-19, it was predicted that e-learning will grow to $325 Billion by 2025. This will only step up further now as people have a greater need for online learning and are more accepting of it.

There are a range of online course platforms available at different price points. You can always use email as a low-cost, low-tech course delivery option too.

To find out more about Teachable + other platforms:

Teachable Knowledge Base is a fantastic resource to find out how to develop your skills with their platform

10 steps to creating a wildly successful online course – via Thinkific – another great online learning platform

13+ best online course platforms (Ultimate Guide for 2020) – an excellent, comprehensive round-up of online course and learning platforms

How to create a self-paced email course – tips for using email to create a self-paced ecourse.

Personality Stories on Teachable – click the image to find out more!

Facebook Live for connection (free)

Facebook Groups and Facebook Live within your private groups is a great way to connect with your family or community. Groups can be private, limited and controlled. Using Facebook Live within such a group means it is viewable only by that group.

I currently use this option for my group coaching program and use FB Live to connect within our closed group. This enables me to share content live and connect with the group. You could also use it for families and other groups.

I use OBS – Open Broadcast Software to stream to Facebook enabling me to flip between speaking and sharing my screen and presentation. OBS is free and powerful for shifting between streaming yourself and other activities or presentations from your desktop. You need to invest time to learn OBS but I was able to master it via help from YouTube.

Facebook is focusing more on the live-streaming aspects of its business so expect more to evolve in this space. Zoom meetings or Webinars are an option for this functionality too using the share screen option.

To find out more:

Tips from Facebook on using Facebook Live – good introductory tips

Facebook focusing on live streaming as usage spikes during COVID-19 lockdown – recent developments on FB Live and why people are using it.

How to use Facebook Live – the ultimate guide – a good overview with step by step guides

online tools

Loom for short feedback/how to videos (free)

Another tool I use in my online teaching and coaching that has many applications is Loom. Loom enables you to film your desktop while talking about it. You create a video combining yourself speaking with the ability to film a document or task. I use it to provide feedback on coaching goals and actions to individuals within a group coaching program. Clients send their plans to me. I then review and mark them up on Word or Adobe pdf. Then I film from my desktop via the Loom app as I talk through my feedback.

Loom is useful for demonstrating how to use technology as you can film your desktop. It is excellent for walking through a document or creative work and providing feedback so potentially useful for coaches, teachers, parents, editors and virtual co-workers. You can also use it to create videos for online courses.

Loom is available free with pricing plans for advanced recording and editing. The advanced plan (usually $4US per month billed annually) is currently free for parents and teachers and students given COVID impacts. The limit of recordings on the free plan has also been removed till 1 July. So the time is right to try out Loom and see how you can use it!

To find out more:

Loom Featured Use Cases – find out ways to use Loom in different situations

How to use Loom video for your online business – a good introduction on its many uses

How to use Loom video-recording – a valuable step by step guide

The Loom Blog – fun for exploring how to’s and applications

online tools
The Loom Blog has plenty of useful tips and ideas for building connection

Trello for organising and planning (free)

Last but definitely not least, I use Trello as the umbrella planning tool for where all the pieces of my business fit together. Trello uses boards, lists and cards for your planning, project management and list-building. It’s where I keep track of the whole, so important to me as an INTJ personality type.

It is also a way of working collaboratively as you can create group projects or give access to specific boards to others. I primarily use it as a personal tool but am exploring co-operative use for the non-profit work I am involved in with AusAPT. Creative business owners often use it as a way of communicating with their virtual assistants.

You can get loads of functionality free, but there are also pricing plans for businesses and enterprises for multi-users.

To find out more:

Mastering Trello for Business is highly recommended as a place to start. Only $29USD, it’s jam-packed with valuable tips and beautiful boards you can copy to get started.

How to use Trello like a pro – Trello’s tips for getting started

20 creative ways to use Trello and organise everything – ideas for how to use Trello to organise and track things

How to organise your entire life with Trello – life hacks for working with Trello to get organised

Using Trello for Project Management – an easy, step by step guide – using Trello to manage projects

Teams in Trello 101 – a look at how to work with teams with Trello

online tools
Trello Boards + working through Mastering Trello for Business

I hope these tips for online tools and how I use them are helpful. Let me know if you find them useful or have any tips for me and the Quiet Writing community! All best wishes for negotiating ways of positively living, working and connecting online now and into the future. And good luck too with managing all the beautiful companion animals who always seem to want to get in on the action!

online tools
Azzie loves the computer!
planning & productivity reading notes

12 books I’m planning to read to consolidate and grow in 2020

January 30, 2020

2020 is my year for consolidating my efforts of the past few years and being strategic about how I work and learn. There is a big focus on consolidating practice and building on my skills and knowledge in new ways. You can read more about my plans for consolidating in 2020 HERE.

One key area of consolidating is reading what I own. I have many books recommended to me and purchased or received and not read. Whilst I still plan to buy new books in some cases, I want to limit this. In 2020, I want to be really mindful of what I am buying to read and working out where it fits in my business and life.

Here’s a list of 12 of books I plan to read this year and why they are important in my year of consolidating and growth:

Thrive by Ariana Huffington

Published in 2014 and a gift from my dear friend Di, this one is high on the list. It is time to get to it. Focused on getting in touch with who we are, it encourages practical responses to what is important. These are around the ‘third metric’ of measuring thriving and success in terms of well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving. A useful personal read, it aligns with my work in encouraging women in transition to connect with what matters.

This is for you by Ellen Bard

Subtitled, ‘A Creative Toolkit for Better Self-Care’, this is a very practical book of self-care tips by work psychologist, writer and digital nomad, Ellen Bard. There are 101 creative exercises to help make incremental changes and flourish in day to day life. I am looking forward to working my way through them to be more present each day and sharing the practices with clients.

The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll

I first came across this book via Caroline Donahue’s Secret Library Podcast conversation with Ryder Carroll. It was so inspiring as I listened, I stopped as I was driving to seek out the book straight away! Getting more organised and strategic with my list-making is an ongoing search. I have long been interested in bullet journaling practices. Focused on tracking your past, ordering your present and planning your future, I can’t wait to learn more and activate the principles in this book.

Speaking Out by Tara Moss

Published in 2016, it also time to read Tara Moss’s Speaking Out. This is a guide for women and girls on managing being in the public eye and speaking out. Contexts include public speaking, social media, writing and other public spaces. A guide to speaking out safely with confidence, it emphasises the need for women’s voices to be heard. I am keen to speak out more in 2020 in various ways so this will be an important read.

Power vs Force by David R Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

This book was a recommendation from speaker Alex MacFarlane at the 2019 Australian Association of Psychological Type Conference. In a session on Holistic Mental Health, Alex encouraged us to read Power vs Force for scientific insights into higher levels of consciousness. Subtitled ‘The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior‘, it looks at theoretical concepts from particle physics, nonlinear dynamics, and chaos theory and uses applied kinesiology as a research tool. I am keen to learn more about this field where science meets spirituality.

How to Write Non-Fiction: A Companion Workbook by Joanna Penn

I have read How to Write Non-Fiction by Joanna Penn. This is the accompanying workbook that I have started working through to apply the learning. This year, I am working on bringing my non-fiction book with the title of ‘Wholehearted: Self-leadership for Women in Transition‘ into the world. Working through this companion book will be a powerful and practical learning guide for this process and for writing future books.

The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke

This book by Maxine Beneba Clarke – recommended by Bek Ireland, friend and Quiet Writing Wholehearted Stories contributor – is a memoir of growing up black in white middle-class Australia. I plan to read this book and also Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Dr Anita Heiss as part of a commitment to looking at bias and privilege more deeply in 2020.

White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad

Sharyn Holmes, Founder of Formidable Voices, leadership coach, consultant, speaker, artist and writer, recommends this book. Described as “a confronting reality check for the privileged position of the white woman,” White Tears, Brown Scars is another key read for me in looking at privilege in more personal and practical terms this year. Sharyn’s story features in the book. She is hosting a Formidable Book Club in her Membership space with this book featured in February 2020.

Your Dream Life Starts Here by Kristina Karlsson

This book was recommended by Kate Morell so I sought it out, inspired by the changes this book and the accompanying Dream Life Journal encourages in her life. Kate says that:

Reading these instil in me the importance of continuing to share my dreams and vulnerability and remind me of the magic that happens when I do.

Dreaming with Sunsets for Kate

And don’t we all need reminding of that?

Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey

I have been a fan of Charlie Gilkey’s Productive Flourishing and its practical tools and tips for a long time. This new book is about ‘how to go from idea to done’. With a deep interest in productivity and planning, skills I share with my coaching clients, I hope this book will help me to finish more things in my life as well as encouraging that spirit in the lives of others.

Authorpreneurship by Hazel Edwards

I was lucky enough to be the winning bidder for Hazel Edwards’ wonderful offer in the recent Authors for Fireys fund-raising effort for bushfire support in Australia. As well as a brilliant and practical 1-hour Skype chat with Hazel, I received an ecopy of her book, Authorpreneurship: The Business of Creativity. I look forward to learning more about the business of creativity from this highly experienced mentor and author of more than 200 books.

Aligned and Unstoppable by Cassie Mendoza-Jones

I am planning on limiting new book-buying in 2020 with my focus on consolidating and reading what I have. (Hello local libraries and my existing collection!) But Cassie Mendoza-Jones‘ just-released book, Aligned and Unstoppable calls strongly. I had just posted the below quote by Beau Taplin on Instagram when Cassie’s new book popped up. There’s a sign! Cassie’s podcast chat Joyfully Completing Creative Projects with creative Nicola Newman late last year is fabulous! Her focus on joy, completion and working in alignment is inspiring.

Plus some fiction reading!

Balance is important, so of course, there will be fiction reading! I was lucky enough to win a brilliant stack of new/recent books by mostly Australian women authors at the Heroine’s Festival. I recommend Bruny by Heather Rose, The Blue Rose by Kate Forsyth and The Naturalist’s Daughter and The Woman in the Green Dress by Tea Cooper. I’m currently reading The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. Let me know any of these you have read I should bump up the list!

Be in action:

SHARE YOUR CONSOLIDATING READS: Love to hear more about what you are reading for consolidating and growth in 2020. Do you have a word for the year? What are your priorities? What are the reads you are planning to align with those priorities? Share in the comments or on social media: Instagram or Facebook.

JOIN SACRED CREATIVE COLLECTIVE GROUP COACHING: Like to join in a creative community filled with rich reads, productivity and alignment this year? The Sacred Creative Collective kicks off 17 February for 3 months of group coaching around. It is focused around transition, creativity, personality and self-leadership. Work with me and a community of women on goals sacred to you for a more purposeful life.

BOOK A Discovery Call NOW for the Collective or to explore other ways to work with me in 2020.

inspiration & influence planning & productivity transition

CONSOLIDATE: My word for 2020 + tips for consolidating in your life

January 7, 2020
consolidate

It’s 2020 and as always I choose a word to capture my intentions for the year. This year my word is CONSOLIDATE.

This word has been arriving for some time in 2019 through my monthly intention setting, morning pages and tarot practices. It came through a sense of appreciating what I already have and also through feeling overwhelm at having many things on the go. Books I’m not getting to, clothes I’m not wearing, courses I’ve invested in that I haven’t fully honoured.

Part of this overwhelm is a symptom of starting afresh and trying ALL THE THINGS to make it work. At a time like this, we can grab on to so much to help us but over time, we realise selectivity and focused effort is going to be far more effective in the long run.

My partner Keith and I also have a rental property business. We have worked on this together for nearly 20 years now and both have 25+ years of experience in this area. It is a key part of our income stream. I need to skill up and be more active in our partnership. With opportunities to combine my property and coaching skills, I want to promote a positive mindset and practical skills for property as part of a ‘multiple streams of income’ strategy.

The personal and beyond

Personally, it has been a huge transition time over the past three years, a big learning curve and time when my whole life pretty well changed in some way. Having set up two new businesses – Quiet Writing and our property solutions business – it is time to review where I am and look at how I can most productively and sustainably build on what I have created.

Currently, too we have terrible bushfires raging in Australia that have burnt out more than 5.9 million hectares (14.7 million acres) and resulted in immense loss of all kinds – lives, wildlife and homes. A national disaster that defies description and breaks my heart, it was sadly predictable. It has sharpened reflection for many on living more sustainably and appreciating what we have. With so many losing so much, it brings home what is of value and what matters. How we act, protect and look after what we have as a nation and as an individual. Head over to this page for more on what’s happening, responding and taking action including in creative ways.

The intention to consolidate

My intentions from around November 2019 on have been around the urge and desire to consolidate:

I consolidate my learning and effort, making connections in support of others and to grow.

This intention will stay with me as my mantra for the year. As always when we choose a word of the year, we never know how it will unfold. I look forward to learning from a spirit of consolidating this year.

What CONSOLIDATE looks like for me

My Morning Pages notebook is an integral planning tool in my life. On 3 December 2019, I did a page list of what CONSOLIDATE looks like in my life. Here is that list updated to now, noting those completed and in-process as I write:

  • Working on finishing the first round of the Sacred Creative Collective strongly with clients ✅
  • Sharing experiences from the SCC first round, gathering testimonials, sharing them (in process)
  • Crafting experiences from the first round of SCC and building on them for the next round. (in process)
  • Building client connections further, including connecting with SCC clients for mid-February 2020 start. (in process)
  • Working further on my website and funnels, applying learning from Soulful Sequences with Ellie Swift (in process)
  • Providing feedback to my editor on my Wholehearted book draft and thoughts as we progress the editing process.
  • Independently publishing my Wholehearted: Self-leadership for Women in Transition book
  • Working on property skills and upskilling on renovation, interior design and managing AirBnBs. (in process)
  • Upskilling in coaching mastery and mindset through working with a master coach. (in process)
  • Consolidating my work as a property business owner and coach.
  • Following up from the Australian Association of Psychological Type (AusAPT) Conference in November, sharing reflections, resources and learning.
  • Organising my AusAPT volunteer social media, website and state lead roles in a more sustainable and structured way.
  • Reflecting on 2019 via December Reflections on Instagram ✅
  • Reading, finishing books, getting to books I have been meaning to read that I already own.
  • Working on resources and courses purchased to maximise the investment and outcome.
  • Creating an inventory list of these resources and scheduling time to work on them and implement the learning.
  • Learning about Trello and using it for 2020 planning and action tracking. Thanks to Nicola Newman for sharing her experiences to inspire me including recommending Mastering for Trello for Business which is fantastic! (in process)
  • Organising and decluttering inboxes.
  • Organising and decluttering photos.
  • Tidying up electronic files/desktop so I can find things.
  • Organising and decluttering office and workspace.
  • Organising and decluttering my wardrobe.
  • Getting back to self-leadership via Morning Pages and Tarot Narrative as anchors. ✅
  • Writing a piece for Julia Barnickle’s What if life were meant to be easy? project. Join in for this community project in January! ✅
  • Sharing pieces already written in new ways.
  • Finding new markets for my writing.
  • Consistently writing inspiring content on the Quiet Writing blog and social media, streamlining ways of working.
  • Reviewing blog post categories; refreshing, reviewing all blog posts.
  • Finishing my Body of Work page. ✅
  • Working out how best to share Wholehearted Stories in ebook and other formats to inspire others. (in process).
  • Making Quiet Writing a more inclusive, representative space and community including looking at my own biases and privilege.
  • Becoming more informed about climate change and being more vocal about its impacts and the impact of non-action.
  • Look at where I can recycle, reduce, reuse.
  • Starting a podcast on personality and personal stories.
  • Getting back to playing the guitar.
  • Getting back to writing poetry.

“Phew!” I have written in my Morning Pages notebook next to that list. A big list, but it is great to get it down and share it with you as a form of accountability. It can feel overwhelming but getting ideas out is a great first step to organising them and being in action. Trello is going to be super useful in organising my projects and time this year to action these steps to consolidate. And I keep reminding myself I have ALL YEAR to work on these consolidating actions.

Tips to consolidate your life

So from the above, here are a few tips to consolidate your life:

  • Make your own list like mine of what a consolidate strategy might look like for you.
  • Embrace lists generally as your friend to keep track and also celebrate the wins and progress.
  • Learn about Trello or other tools to structure your desires, be in action and keep track.
  • Group your ideas into projects that can help connect and align them.
  • Work with a coach to help you be accountable and in action in consolidating your energies and shaping sustainable ways of living with deeper purpose.
  • Tune into what is worrying you or feeling incomplete in your life as a way to let go, move on and tie up the loose ends.
  • Honour your body of work over time and seek to build on it.
  • Look at what you have already done and see where you can reshape, reorder, repurpose existing material eg blog posts, guest posts, ecourse material.
  • Make an inventory of what you already have and make it able to be easily found.
  • Ask yourself, “What have I already got?” before you purchase or do something new.
  • Look at where you can recycle, reuse, reduce.
  • Explore links between existing skills and areas of your life to make new connections.

So how will you consolidate in 2020?

I hope my ideas have inspired you to look at where you can consolidate in 2020. Love to hear how you plan to make the most of what you already have and upskill, repurpose and make connections in your life. Share in the comments or on social media.

And if you would like to consolidate your life in more meaningful ways in 2020, the Sacred Creative Collective Group Coaching program kicks off mid-February. Join with me and a community of women as we explore sacred creative life skills for deeper purpose and intention. Especially if you are going through a time of transition or feeling isolated in your creativity, this is for you. Limited to 10 participants and value-packed, we work globally across group and individual dimensions to ensure your needs are met in an enriching online environment. Bookings for Discovery Call to learn more HERE.

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