From Author to Authority Series - Building a Framework and Foundation

Hello aspiring writers! Today we are talking all about getting organized with outlines and systems. Everyone's best system will look different, but I am sharing what worked for me and why. Shout out to my all time favorite organizational tool...STICKY NOTES! Most importantly I share how I kept my focus on God to guide me to share His message.

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Transcript

Juli Wenger: 0:00

Okay, we're back for Episode Two and from author to authority. And I am so grateful you're back. If you didn't catch Episode One, make sure to pop back because we're talking about in that when deciding that you're actually going to write a book because that is where most people get hung up, and they just never start. Today, we're going to get into outlines and systems. And we're going to talk about that piece of the process. Because this is the thing that saved me. Now first, before we do that this is your gentle nudge, or maybe more aggressive kick in the butt to go get yourself on the presale list for the book. Because I want you to know first, about when it launches, how to get it and all of the fun things we're going to do with the book launch. Okay, deep breath. Let's go. This week, we're talking again, about the process of book writing. We're talking about the personal growth that needs to happen and has happened for me along the way. And we're talking about provision, how is God showing up? How is he guiding us through this process? So let's talk first about systems and outlines. This is something that I started to work my way through as I was in this book, writing boot camp that we talked about in episode one. And it essentially took you through this process of who's the book for what's the transformation you want to see in them? And then what are all of the main sections of the book. So if you're writing something that's a memoir, it might be broken down into I'm going to talk about different events. And I'm going to take people through them in a particular order. And then from there, I'm going to break that down into what are some of the key ideas that fall underneath each section. For me, it looked a little different because this was more of a content style. There's pieces of my story, but it's really more about what is the process that people need to walk through and that I've taken people through and that I've personally gone through, in moving from fear moving from dealing with non enoughness moving from dealing with what if I'm too much, and self sabotage into having a clearer understanding of who and who's I am, why I'm on this earth, and how to execute and walk out that purpose. So it turned into more of this brain dump exercise, where I started to look at. So what are all of the areas that I talk about all the time. And for me, the the PDF that came as part of our process, that wasn't the thing that wasn't the tool in my toolkit that I needed. What I needed was, guess what sticky notes, of course, because that's how I plan all things in life sticky notes, I should really own shares a post it. So I pull out the post it notes, the sticky notes, and I start just writing down topics. I started looking through what kinds of speeches have I given? What kinds of talks and workshops that I run? What kinds of self protective patterns? Do I like to talk about a lot? What Enneagram stuff might I tie in? What are the things I looked at social media, I started mining topics from there, I looked at just random whatever documents, I could find all the podcasts, what are we talking about. And then I started to piece it together into chunks. And how it looked early on versus, versus how it looked when it was done was actually quite different. But we were pulling together things like reclaiming too much ego, meet your critic pattern interrupts Who are you boxes, because we talk about boxes a lot in the context of identity shoulds and not goals, comparison, capability, gaps, success by other people's standards. And it just went on and on and on and on and on. And by the time I was done, I had a table full of sticky notes. So then it was this process of okay, how do I sort them into things that make sense together? Enter systems. Okay, I know people who and this is where we're just going to get anecdotal for a second. I know people who just talked out their entire book on their voice notes, and then had it transcribed it and edited it. I know people who built it out on a Word doc. I know people who used Google Docs, I know people who did transcripting of voice notes as they were going on their phone or otter AI. There was a lot of different systems that came into play here in watching people's experience and that was one of the benefits of this group writing adventure and a boot camp. But for me, I knew I needed something that had a little more flex. So enter screen Enter. Okay, now, Scrivener is specifically a book writing software. And what's cool about it is that it allows you to create folders and subsections. And you can drag and drop them and move them around, you can open up the folder is just like a folder tree on your computer. And you can just like shift things, I had entire chapters that shifted as I was going through the process of writing this book. So it started to filter down into more of a, okay, we're going to need a prologue. So I'm going to have a bucket for that. We're going to have a foundational piece, a chapter that needs to talk about fear, because we need to lay some foundation for that we're going to have something that talks about enoughness, we're going to need something that talks about ego, we're going to need to talk about purpose, which order do I want to do those in, right, so we're just playing around with this and holding it loosely, but capturing it somewhere where there's flexibility. And as we worked our way through all of these key areas, I take some of those big areas and things that obviously fit under them and just create these subcategories. So it started to build out into this beautiful tree. And what was really, really important about this is that when the book writing process gets overwhelming, to be able to sit down and say, Okay, here's where I left off, here's the next bucket, do I have the mental capacity to write about that too, as a passion for that right now, kind of just chunk it down to Okay, today we're going to talk about inner critic. And that's it, we're just going to write the section of the chapter on the inner critic. That's the focus, I'm not going to worry about the rest of these folders, I'm not going to worry about word count, which was some really good advice that I got early on in the process, but I'm just gonna focus in on this one specific little area. Or maybe it's something that's way further down in the process. I talked about in my writing up leveling your people, way before I got to that chapter. Because book writing for some people needs to be super linear. And for some of us, it's you're going to bounce around. Now, that system for other people, it didn't work for them, it didn't make sense for them, because we had those conversations within this group. But for me, this was everything. This was my lifeline. Because once I had that initial brainstorming done, I needed something that could move as God moved, that I could just get this feeling of No, I don't actually want you to include that section, you don't actually need to include that part. When I look at the bucket of archive ideas, there's a lot in here, I had thought I would write an entire section on energy vampires, I thought that I would talk more about being in flow. And this context of a river that I talk about a lot in my work, he was like, Nope, I thought that I would talk about victim and empowered mindsets, and scarcity and abundance mindsets as their own sections. And he was like, nope. So there are pieces of this, that when I was doing the mining of all of the different places actually didn't make it to the book, talking about them in maybe higher level context or in passing may have hit but as a whole entire section, not so much. So I could just pull them out where I wasn't deleting them or deleting their context, just in case I needed to come back. But they still existed. Okay, so this is the tangible piece. This was the key system early on piece systems. Later on, we got into moving the whole thing into Word and using Grammarly to do a first run through but this was the big one. This was the lifeline personal growth in this process. When we talk about the actual mapping and building the outlines. This was really about tuning into my own passion areas and really being honest in my analysis about what am I enough of an expert in to be able to speak to it? What do I have enough life experience in to be able to speak to it? Are there things and these questions were really important? Are there things that I feel like I'm supposed to write about? Or that I'm supposed to include? Because people have heard me talk about them before or because I've seen other people talk about them and they seem interesting, or some other reason? Where are the shoulds showing up? And then taking those out of play and focusing in on On a tighter narrative, a tighter story, a tighter set of tools that are really foundational and fundamental. And saying this, this is the target, not some broad catch all people pleaser book. But where are we getting really intentional. And sometimes that like, prints up some of your stuff. And you have to just breathe into it and say, Okay, we're just going to move forward anyway. And I mean, that's where God would show up, right? We blend in the provision there of, but I want to talk about this helped me to know what you want me to talk about, helped me to know if this lands within the context of what you want me to do. And sometimes it was early in the process was like, Nope, this isn't showing up. And sometimes it'd be, I would write half of a section of a chapter and it would be nope, or go back and redo that. You just needed to write that to get it out of your system, but it's not going in the book. So that happened. And the other piece of personal growth, honestly, is just in the completion. Because when we're getting through this really nitty gritty, trying to organize things, it can either be a, for me a hyperfocus, I'm excited about it, or it can be I'm leaning in energy, and I don't want to finish this and it feels hard. And so my ego is going to throw up some overwhelm. And some I can't and some I don't know house. And here's the trick with I don't know, how is you probably do. So you have to ask yourself the question again, in a different context. Because our subconscious is wired to not give the same answer to the same question asked differently. What's the what if I did know? What if I did have some idea where to start? Where would I start? Then? What would I say? How would I frame this? How would I build this and just choosing to step through the overwhelm, choosing to see it for what it is choosing to see my ego going? Nope, I don't want to do this. I don't, I don't want us to go here, because I'm firmly attached, with my little death grip to our existing way of being. And if you write a book, if you actually follow through on this, that could mean some major change to our life. And change isn't safe to our ego. So it's going to throw up all of the things that it knows work with us. Because it's part of us. And it's been building these patterns, these self protective patterns forever. So it knows it knows what to do to stop you. My knew what to do to stop me. And I just had to dig my heels in and say, Nope, ego. We're not doing this today. And like God, give me strength, that I will not be moved on this and we will finish it. So that's the section two systems, outlines. And what's shown up. Here's where we're going next week. Next week, we're going to talk about the environments you put yourself in and accountability on the journey to get this thing done. Because when we try to roll through this stuff up on our own, here's what happens, your ego will stop you. Your ego is going to have so much power if you don't put yourself in the right environments, and build the right accountability. So that's what we're gonna dive into. I hope that you'll join us again for that. And if you know someone who's had a book on their mind, share this series with them because it could be the thing that shifts their perspective and gets them off their butts. They'll actually go write the book and create the impact and the change in the world that they're capable of. So consider this an invitation to empower somebody and kick them in the butt. Also, this is your reminder, just like at the beginning. If you're not in the presale list, get on the presale list so we can keep you posted. Until next week. All my love and Virtual hugs, Julia