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This episode includes a discount code for my 1-2-1 creativity coaching.

(**The discount code expires at the end of 2020! **)

There may never be a better time to start putting pen to paper and starting on your writer’s journey.

Writing is a creative journey that many come to later in life. 

You may have loved writing at school and just forgotten about it.

You may never have enjoyed writing but now have a burning desire to put pen to paper.

Do you keep coming back to an idea for a book but feel scared as you have no qualifications?

This episode includes a discount code for my 1-2-1 creativity coaching.

(**The discount code expires at the end of 2020! **)

I’m on a mission to get people writing.

If You Prefer To Read Your Content

This one is something that is really close to my heart and I’m totally passionate about. I built my whole coaching business around, which is about getting people to write their book. So this podcast episode is focussed on why midlife is the right time to start writing that book.

If you don’t do it now, when will you do it, is one of the reasons, but there are quite a few reasons why midlife is the ideal time to take up this creative passion of mine, writing. 

Something that if you’re not already passionate about, you will become passionate about. 

In midlife you’re open to change a little bit more. You’re not as naive as you were when you were a little bit younger, but you’ve also not got cynical, as you may get when you get a little bit older (maybe?)

I know that’s sort of lumping everybody together and I hate doing that, but I do feel that midlife is a real time of opportunity and change. 

You’re open to that change, or as you may be facing change in other areas, it’s something that you’re already open to. 

You may be questioning in the huge, big scheme of things, the meaning of life. You might feel a lot more creative and curious. 

I know that right now, currently in it’s 2020 as I’m recording this, we’re still in the middle of COVID and coronavirus, various global changes and shifts in political environments and everything else. 

It can be a time where you’re actually educating yourself more and being more open to other ideas. It can be quite stressful as well, which brings me onto my next reason. 

Why it’s the ideal time to write your book in midlife, which is getting a better life work balance.

I always put life first before work. It’s something that I’ve been able to do because I’ve been through all the stresses and strains of redundancies, forced redundancies, forced restructuring, forced career changes, optional career changes. 

I’ve been through the whole lot and whilst not extreme poverty, but struggling to pay my bills, wondering where I’m gonna get the next tin of beans from, you know, I’ve been there. I know what it’s like, and it can be awful. 

You might be thinking, well, the last thing I’m thinking of doing while I’m trying to pay my bills is writing a flipping book, but that’s exactly why writing can help you. It’s a really good leveller, a really good way of escaping from the stresses and strains of everyday life. If you think well I haven’t got money to study, to go out and do loads of study or a degree and qualifications.

‘I’m struggling to pay the bills and educate the kids.’ 

It’s OK because writing, if you don’t want to take it all the way to publication, can be free. 

Even publication can be really accessible and really low price nowadays. So don’t believe that you’ve got to have an agent and a publisher, that you’ve got to have a degree. 

I’m lucky. I have got a degree in literature. I worked very hard for it, and it might be something that you want to do later on, or it might be something that you want to do tomorrow. 

If you’ve got the opportunity, but don’t make excuses about why you can’t do it. If it’s something you’re passionate about, you’ll find the time. I’m here to reassure you that you don’t need qualifications. You don’t need to have gone to some ‘highfalutin’ school that taught Shakespeare in your spare time.

That’s not something that you need, midlife is really, really an excellent time to take up writing, if you haven’t done it already. It might be that you’re going back to writing. 

It may be something that in college or at school you were really good at and you really enjoyed it. You might’ve made up characters when you were small. I know with my grandchildren, we make up stories all the time and it might be something that you’ve actually forgotten the pleasure of. It’s like colouring,  colouring books came back in fashion and suddenly everybody was remembering the joy and the escapism of just sitting down and colouring in a book. I still enjoy doing that. I know it’s difficult at the moment if you’re in lockdown and things like that, but people in midlife are often opening up to having more time.

It may be that you’re getting your empty nest, looking forward to your empty nest, or maybe not looking forward to it as the case may be. 

Midlife is a time where you kids might be growing up. You might be finding more time, considering dropping to part time working, or maybe even working from home now that the lockdown has reassessed everybody’s priorities. 

You may have time, instead of that two hour commute, why not use that time to start writing and take up that hobby at last and get that book written. 

I’m not doing a podcast on how to write your book. I can do that in one-to-one coaching with you, but I want you to be encouraged to just pick up a pen, go and buy a lovely journal, or get your iPad and your pen.

Just start writing. 

If you want to write a book and you’re serious about actually completing it, I’ve just got a few tips to start you off on your journey. 

First, and this sounds a little bit contradictory, instead of writing read loads of books and you might think, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, one minute, she’s saying that I’ve got to make time to write. And now she’s telling me I’ve got to make time to read as well.’  

Well, yeah, Stephen King says, if you haven’t got time to read you, haven’t got time to write and become a writer. It’s a bit harsh, but if you love something and you’re passionate about it and you want to do it, you’ll make time. 

It’s like going to the gym, cooking, making a cake, whatever it may be, you will find the time whether that’s getting up 10 minutes early, going to bed quarter of an hour later, you will find the time and reading loads and loads of books, importantly, in the genre that you want to write.

So if you want to write a nonfiction book, read lots of other bestselling nonfiction. If you want to write about Dungeons and dragons or thrillers, police procedurals, whatever it may be, read loads of books in that genre.

The second tip is even more simple. 

Just start writing. 

Don’t worry about the rules of writing or grammar or the neatness just do no rules at this stage. Just put pen to paper and start writing. There’s no right or wrong answer at this stage. It’s really early doors. 

You just get it into the writing habit. 

The third tip is even more subjective. 

Just be brave, have fun and join some groups. You might need to have someone to encourage you, still be brave and start writing. You don’t have to share it with anybody.

You can put it in a journal, on your computer, wherever you want it to be. I would try and get into the habit of typing, because then you can keep your work electronically. If you hand write things one way of backing it all up and not losing it is to take photographs on your phone. Take photographs so that if you do lose them, you’ve at least got your notes written down somewhere.

The fourth tip.

There are two sort of philosophies on what you can write. Well, there’s hundreds of philosophies about writing. You could read until the end of your life about all the different rules and regulations around writing. Most of which you can chuck in the bin after you’ve read it, because you’ve got to find your own path.

I am certainly not going to tell you to throw books in the bin, read as much as you can about the craft, about writing. Write about what you love or what you know.

If you know and love romance books, write romance books, the other option, and this is especially with nonfiction, write what you want to learn about. 

If you don’t know about something, writing a book about it is a really excellent way of getting your head around the topic, because you’ll need to sit down and do the research. You’ll need to go places, do whatever. So that’s the second option, you can either write what you love and what you know or write about what you do want to know.

And you don’t know about yet, which might be a bit difficult to get your head round. I’m not going to go rambling on about all the different ways you can start. All I want is to reassure you is that midlife is exactly the right time to start writing that book. 

If you want to do it, you can do it. 

Don’t listen to anybody going ‘well, you can’t write, I can remember when you wrote that story and it was rubbish.’ 

Just don’t share it with that person, get a person who’s really keen to share your enthusiasm for creativity. It might be that you do revisit that old story that keeps coming back. 

That at some point might be part of a memoir. Maybe you’re actually beginning to realise ‘memento mori’ that you may have lost someone recently. As people get older, you know, you might be more aware of the meaning of life as big as that sounds and it might be that you want to write their life story. 

That’d be a great way of developing a relationship with an older family member or researching the family history. So whatever it may be, pick up a pen, don’t be scared. Don’t be intimidated. There’s no rules.

If you think that you can’t make the time, then I do have a course called No More Excuses because I do believe no more excuses, just start writing. It’s available on Teachable. On my website where I put my show notes, I’ll drop that link. If that’s something that you want to do. 

It takes you on a 28 day journey from not writing at all to having the writing habit, because it takes about 28 days to settle a habit in. Then you have to use less brain power to do the job, if you’ve heard of that before. 

Another thing that I’m offering as an extra in this podcast, and I’m happy for you to share the podcast episode with other people, try and share the podcast, not the code that I’m going to give you. 

I do one to one coaching, creativity coaching and there’s various other packages on offer.

But on my creativity coaching, I would be able to DM you everyday, if that’s something that you wanted. We can talk every week. 

We can get you on your journey and you will have my one to one support for a whole month. 

That is priced to 297UKP for the full month because it involves one-to-one connection and lots of resources

I’m doing this for podcast listeners, quote podcast 8, when you get in touch with me or by DM, then I’m offering that months support at 250UKP instead of the 297. 

So for 250UKP, you’ll have contact with me for the month. I’m happy to send you more details, so drop me a line. 

Don’t forget midlife is the right time to start writing your book. 

You’ve got no more excuses start writing. 

If you’ve got any questions, get in touch. 

If you’re not going to do it now, then think about it. When are you going to do it? 

Okay. Stay well, catch you next time. Bye.