Ep.04: Seasons of Writing: Spring! — TRANSCRIPT

Dave Hogan (Gina’s Pop!)
0:02
Welcome to Around the Writer’s Table, a podcast focusing on the crossroads of creativity, craft, and conscious living for writers of all ages and backgrounds. Your hosts are Gina, Melody, and KimBoo, three close friends and women of a certain age, who bring to the table their eclectic backgrounds and unique perspectives on the trials, tribulations, and the joys of writing. So pull up a chair and get comfortable here around the writer’s table. 

Gina Hogan Edwards
00:44
Hello, everybody, welcome to Around the Writer’s Table. I am Gina Hogan Edwards, one of the co-hosts of your podcast here, along with KimBoo York and Melody, A Scout. And today we are going to be talking with Melody, continuing a conversation that started in our last podcast when we interviewed her a little bit about her work. And we’re going to dive deeper into that now in talking about the five seasons. So Melody, would you like to lead us into this conversation? 

Melody, A Scout
1:20
Well, thanks, Gina. Yeah, I would suggest going back and re-listening to the previous podcast because it’ll flesh things out a little bit for you. But briefly, I wanted to go over some of the precepts of the structure that we plan to use when we’re talking about the writing process.

It actually comes from my book Soul of the Seasons, which is based on five element medicine, which is a part of traditional Chinese medicine. And in traditional Chinese medicine, the ancient masters who studied the outer world and reflected on how the seasons and the changes in the outer world reflect things going on in our inner world, and they noticed that each season – element, so to speak – had certain qualities. 

So for instance, in Spring, the element – fundamental element – of Spring would be wood, which signifies new growth, boundaries, emotion of anger. And wood represents the plant world, which is about being flexible, yet strong with also qualities of planning and good decision-making. 

Summer’s element with fire comprises warmth, the community, passion, and the maturation process. And it includes the emotion of joy. 

In Harvest, or what some call the Indian Summer, represents the element of Earth and offers us abundance, nurturing, the essence of mother, and the emotion of sympathy or the ability to have compassion and understanding for others on the deepest level. 

The season of Fall, represented by the element of metal, is sharp and brutal element, but it efficiently separates what is of value from what is no longer useful. It’s a season to both receive divine inspiration and to let go of what no longer serves us. And understandably, the core emotion of Fall would be grief. It’s about letting go.

Winter’s element of water is where we go to hibernate, to rest, to face death, and to gestate new life. This is the womb of creativity and it’s where the seeds of our new visions fall for Spring. The core emotion of Winter is fear, which keeps us alert to possible danger and also able to act when needed. 

So the Masters treated these as archetypal beings, a presence almost. And they talked about them in terms of beings, and we can draw on this in our creative process. We’ll learn what it looks like to move with and respond to each season and in both balanced and imbalanced ways. 

So that’s just a brief overview of the Five Element process. And if you want to learn more about this, of course, you can go to my website, Soul of the Seasons. It’s hyphenated between each word www.soul-of-the-seasons.com. I also have a blog post and you can read more about my book.

Gina
5:13
Thanks for that, for that overview that kind of gives a framework for what we’re going to be talking about over the course of a series of podcasts that we’re going to focus on each one of the seasons. And today, of course, we’re talking about Spring. And I have a confession to make, which is that I often tend to get stuck in this season. And our conversation today is going to kind of cover how Spring relates to inspiration and creativity. And you will learn more about that as we continue our conversation today. 

KimBoo, Is there anything that you wanted to say? I didn’t even give you a chance to say hello, this morning.

KimBoo York
6:00
Hello, this morning, it’s KimBoo. I am deep in the midst of editing one of my books. So I tend to be kind of brain dead a little bit right now, a lot. So thank you for putting up with me. But I was just listening to Melody as she went over these parts. Now, the book itself is not specifically focused for writers or creatives necessarily. It’s really excellent for encompassing conscious living. It’s just so important that it’s one of our focuses here on the podcast, but we love when we get together – when we’re not on a podcast and we’re just talking about these things – we really love talking about how it can apply to creativity and writing in particular for most of us. So that was really the genesis of this idea of taking the different seasons, as discussed in the book, and bringing them forward and, as Gina said, we’re going to be talking about each season, individually as the season happens. So that’s why we started with Spring, because we’re kind of sort of springing around right now. And I’m really excited to talk about this. Like Gina said, she’s got some issues with Spring. I’ve got some issues with Spring, so…

Gina
7:20
I didn’t say issues.

KimBoo
7:23
Yeah, between the lines.

[laughing]

KimBoo
7:31
So I’m gonna hand it back to Melody so that, can you give us a little bit more insight into Spring since that’s the topic we’re having today? And kind of give us a look-see into what issues you think creatives like us might be dealing with. I know we’ve got a couple of examples on deck that we’ll talk about later. But let’s get to the meat of it. Talk about Spring, Melody.

Melody
7:50
Thank you, KimBoo. Yes, you are correct. It is not a book specifically on writing. But this system is a system of balance and harmony. And it works for any project, season, relationship. Everything in life has a season. And I got really excited about understanding the seasons that we move through in the writing process. And when I understood them better, it helped me understand my own writing process better. 

So in the season of Spring, this is the season of visions, as I reflected on earlier, planning, decision making, and good boundaries. So this is a season where we create outlines, we have first drafts, we get everything, those ideas that gestated in Winter season are popping. We pick one little sprout that came up that was calling to us to develop, and we start on our first draft writing like a crazy person and getting involved with our characters. And it’s a very exciting time. And the reason I feel we need the structure in decision making and planning when we come into this area is without it – and I am guilty of this – it’s like writing, writing, writing… squirrel! And I’m off on some other project or some other book or on something else. And I’ve lost track of my vision and my focus. I don’t know if any of you have ever had any of those problems?

KimBoo
9:39
No. Yeah,

Gina
9:41
Lots of pretty new shiny objects sitting on my desk.

KimBoo
9:47
And it makes me think, well, because I am somebody who has so many writing projects open at the same time. Like some people write one thing and then they go to the next thing and I’m totally not like that. In thinking about that, I think it’s important to point out, too, that when we say Spring, it’s easy to think about the time of year that we’re in. But this is also a metaphorical concept. You could be in Spring in the creative process at any time of the year. So I just wanted to make that clear, because I think some listeners might think I’m supposed to start my new book in June or, you know, April every year. And that’s not quite what we’re doing.

Melody
10:24
No. You’re absolutely correct. And it is the metaphorical part of the process. However, this actual season of natural world can help us draw on, reflect on, those qualities that we can employ, so bringing those in. Because not only does everything and every project, relationship, have a season, there’s seasons within the seasons. So there’s a beginning part of Spring, coming right out of Winter, that looks very different than the end of Spring when you’re getting ready to go into Summer. And these, they all work and support together. We’ll talk a little bit later about how you can support your work using the qualities and strengths of all the seasons. 

So one of the things I am personally challenged with in Spring processes, I tend to get all juiced up with a new creative idea. I see the big vision, I see where it can go, this is very exciting, my characters. But then this vision grows and grows and grows. And I can even get to the place where I get bogged down. When it comes to the long haul, putting that all onto the paper and getting a finished product. That means a book in print, finished, actually finished, edited and finished. And this slog it takes to make it through that finished product, you can get bogged down in the overwhelm of possibly. A lack of resources or depleting my passion for the excitement I once felt. And in the past, I didn’t know how to manage the steps of the creative process so well. So I’d tend to lose interest and go off on to, as we said, the next shiny object. I’d like to hear from Gina about her experience of this part of the process.

Gina
12:49
Oh, yes. Yeah, so like I mentioned, I love Spring. I love the birth of new ideas. I tend to birth them often. And so it is a real, concerted effort for me to stick with something for the long haul, like a book. I was working with my creativity-coach trainer a number of years ago, and I’ve been working on a novel, off and on for quite a long time. And I had probably two thirds of it written from the front. And then I had four different endings, four different possibilities. And then I had a little chunk in between that I needed to connect those, and because I couldn’t decide what I wanted that ending to be, I couldn’t write that missing chunk. I couldn’t even approach it because I didn’t know what I was shooting for. And I’m the kind of writer that needs that, I have come to learn. And so the best advice that I have ever received in terms of writing coaching was when Dr. Maisel said to me, “Would you just pick one? All you need to do is pick one. There’s no right or wrong answer here. Any of those endings could potentially work. And if you write, if you pick one, and you write toward that ending, and you find you don’t like it, then you can go pick another one. But you’re never going to move forward unless you pick one.” 

So that whole idea of making choices and decision making that has to go along for us to have some balance in Spring is something that apparently I’m challenged with.

Melody
14:31
I think, from talking to a lot of fellow writers, you are not alone in that challenge at all. Remembering, the element of Spring is wood – strength with flexibility. I created certain boundaries for my writing process when I was in the middle of my eight-year journey writing Soul of the Seasons. And I was lucky enough to be gifted a retreat out at a farm in rural Maryland. And so I created a schedule for my writing process. I had nothing to distract me. I’d get up, I’d eat, I’d have a meal. I would settle down from this hour to this hour and do some writing and take a break for lunch, possibly a nap, and get up and I’d write further. 

Well, one day, I woke up and it had snowed a foot the night before. And the new snow – it had all cleared off, and it was bright and sunny out – and the new snow was just gorgeous out there. And I kept getting called to come out, to go outside and play in it. I love walking in the snow. But I would say, “My schedule,” which I had dutifully printed out and put on the refrigerator. “But my schedule doesn’t allow for me going out and playing in the snow.” And I remembered the strength and flexibility that I need to support myself on all levels. And this is something that I’m passionate about and have fun with. So, I got my boots on, went outside, went for a walk in the woods and just was being in that season of Winter, and recognizing the life that still lives within Winter, and the things that we have to die to, in our writing process, or within us personally to move on to the next level. And you know, it opened things up so much for me. I was able to write a whole chapter in my book on it. So being too attached to your planning and your boundaries and decision making can have its drawbacks as well.

Gina
16:51
Well, the things that I have learned from talking with you about Spring and from reading your book, in terms of, the ideation-creation stage versus the actual doing, and the hard work, and how sometimes that work may not look like we think it’s gonna look and what you told us about going out in the snow, that fed your creative process and your movement forward in a way that you didn’t anticipate. And so being open to those kinds of things. And like you said, not being so strict about a given schedule. Having the devotion to our writing process, yes, but not being so rigid, that we end up missing opportunities that could move us forward in ways that we don’t anticipate.

KimBoo
17:49
And I really liked the way that these two examples compare and contrast. Because for you, Gina, it was an example of having to dial in and marry yourself to something that you were resisting: pick an ending, pick any ending, and write towards it. Whereas for Melody, it was don’t be tied to the schedule that’s stuck to the refrigerator, and instead go out and explore the natural world and be inspired by that. It’s two versions of inspiration and being motivated by that inspiration. And yet they’re so connected in regards to being flexible and respecting boundaries and knowing when to apply those boundaries. So it was just something I was thinking of when you were both talking.

Gina
18:39
And the self awareness that it takes to recognize which path is best for you.

Melody
18:45
That’s a big key in all of this is becoming more self-aware of yourself, not only as a person but your writing process. Because how else would you know what you really need if you’re just married to your to-do list, and I have to really be generous with myself because discipline has been a dirty word to me for a long time. And oooo, structure, eh, outline. Speaking of which you had a really interesting story about outlining, which is a form of structure and the writing process. KimBoo, can you tell us about that?

Gina
19:32
Yeah, KimBoo, the pantser.

KimBoo
19:34
That’s me. I’m a pantser. I’ve been a pantser for most of my writing life. I talk about in one of my own podcast episodes, a situation where I had, where I kind of learned that I was a pantser. And I’m going to intro with that because I think it fits into where we’re going with this conversation, and me learning about boundaries and reframing boundaries, and being creative. 

It was back in the ’90s before the internet was a thing and when you wanted to learn how to write you would go to a Borders Bookstore, Barnes and Nobles, and you’d sit down in the writing section. You’d pull the books off the shelf, all of them, and then go through them looking for advice. And of course, there was a lot of advice on how to outline your book. So I had a great epic fantasy story idea. I took my notes, I outlined the whole thing; it was like three to five pages of an outline. And at the time that it was done, I was done with the story. My brain considered it written because I had written the whole outline and it was a very intricate outline. 

I learned my lesson the hard way, which was that I couldn’t do things the way other people were telling me to do them. Fast-forward 25 years and I’ve been a pantser most of the whole time. I will eventually do outlines, usually in the post-process when I need to figure out where the beats are in the story, if I’m fixing and editing. But I just sit down, I have an idea. I have an idea where I want it to go and I start writing. 

And what Melody’s talking about is that, recently, I switched over to learning dictation for my writing, both for productivity and also ease on my joints as an accessibility issue. I am getting older and typing a lot can get painful. So I wanted to explore dictation. And it’s very different. It’s not sitting down at the typewriter. One dictation coach that I talked to was very helpful when they said, “Well, do you remember how long it took you how to learn how to touch type? Well, that’s not going to take as long to learn how to do dictation well, but it’s still going to be a learning curve.” So it has been a learning curve. And the most shocking thing to me about it is that what I learned is that I need to outline for dictation. Gina was there the day that I really realized this, I think we were at our co-working thing at Domi. And I was basically putting my head on your shoulder and crying about it because I’m like, “I don’t know how to outline. What is this boundary thing you’re talking about? What is this making a list of things that happen? And I’m supposed to know beforehand how it goes?” 

But for dictation, as a completely different type of activity for my brain, I had to be open. And this kind of circles back around to the flexibility idea and the importance to that to the creative process is I couldn’t do it the way I had been doing it. If I want to dictate a story, I have to maybe not have the whole thing outlined. But I need to know what that scene is going to be. I need to know who the characters are in it, what they’re talking about, where they’re going, where they’re going to get to, and the setup for the next scene. And that has been a really tough learning curve for me. But when I do it, I can dictate a scene very well and very fast, which was kind of the goal. So it’s definitely been a learning process. Yeah.

Melody
22:57
Oh, my gosh. And I learned the same thing myself because writing fiction, it’s like all the characters and the scenes, and they’re just moving. And it’s like, how fast can my fingers go? Don’t trouble me with some foreign thing called an outline. I won’t be having any of that. However, the novel I’m working on now is (a) roughly based on the life of my grandmother and great grandmother. So I want to have some of that as a sort of the bones of the story. And also, it’s a bit historical. So I really did have to create an outline and a timeline of when things were happening and how that influenced the characters. There’s just no way I could have kept that all in my head as I move my story forward. So in that way, structure was my friend, my friend.

KimBoo
23:55
Mmm hmm. I do that with worldbuilding, because I do a lot of fantasy and science fiction. And you can’t keep it all in your head. You can’t. I’m sure Gina is just laughing at us because her novel is entirely historical for 20th century. God, what century are we in? So you’ve been doing a lot of similar things on research and structural and building the bones of the story around those facts.

Gina
24:20
And as I’m listening to both of you talk about your challenges and experiences, my brain is going off in a million different directions. You’re talking about worldbuilding, you’re talking about character development. Just the storylines in general that we, that pantsers, tend to just let flow. And I’m thinking about all of the places where there are opportunities for us to spark new ideas that can take us down rabbit holes. The research that we need to do. All of those things are things that we need to create boundaries around or we just end up going off on these tangents that prevent us from doing, from getting done, from getting to the finish line,

KimBoo
25:13
Let’s not even talk about TVtropes.com. That’s just a dangerous place to even go near.

Gina
25:21
Don’t even tell me. I don’t want to know.

KimBoo
25:23
I was listening to an author recently, he’s like, “Yeah, if you get stuck on ideas, just go to TVtropes.com and you’ll get some great suggestions on tropes for your story.” I was like, “No. Don’t do that. You’ll never be seen again.” You know, it’s just the rabbit hole. But you’re right, as far as, and I’m certainly prey to that with my fictional worldbuilding, which I almost love more than actual writing. I could just write encyclopedias for fun about places that don’t exist. Sounds like a good time. But it’s easy, easy to get, you know – and I’m thinking of Spring, and I’m thinking of the burst of energy and life and excitement. And it’d be like, wow, things are popping up all over the place, and I’m just gonna dive right in and then you know, six hours later, you haven’t eaten and you haven’t written. It can, it can come back and bite you is what I’m saying?

Melody
26:21
Absolutely. You bring up a really good point. So how do we sustain that enthusiasm and excitement into our first visions, and when we first started on it, and I’m glad you brought up the point of being fed because food is only one way to nourish ourselves. We need to be nourished intellectually. We need to be nourished with friends and family, joy and laughter. We need to be nourished with downtimes. We need to be nourished by remembering beauty and those things that inspire us. What do you draw on for nourishment? Let’s start with you, Gina. I’d like to know what you draw on for nourishment during your writing process.

Gina
27:14
As much as it sounds like it might be a distraction, the thing that I have found that works the best for me – and I’ve mentioned this in a lot of different ways over time – is walking outside in nature by myself. You know, specifically being by myself so that I can go inside, so I can hear myself thinking. Just giving myself that space and time sometimes is either a necessary break from the creative process, or a change in my physical venue oftentimes will bring about other ideas that if I’d stayed behind the computer screen wouldn’t have come to me.

Melody
28:00
Yeah, that’s a good one for me, too.

Gina
28:02
And fresh air, you know, the physical aspects of it too, the movement, the fresh air, so it serves me in a lot of ways.

Melody
28:11
How about you, KimBoo? 

KimBoo
28:13
Sounds awful. Fresh air. Being outside. I’m like, you two. Weirdos. Obviously, going for a walk is not what I do. I walk my dog. But that’s about it. I was thinking as you were asking this, and Gina, as you were answering, what is what is the cycle? What is the process for me to stay engaged in the creative process, right? And I realized that for me, it kind of comes out of my fanfiction background. And this is something I learned when I was writing a lot of fanfiction, back in 2008 or 2010, or 2012. And that is to have multiple ideas generating at the same time. And I kind of touched on this earlier, where I’m somebody who likes to have multiple projects going. And I know that some writers absolutely can’t do that. So I’m not advising that this is a solution to your problem. 

But for me, if a story, if I’m coming into the drudgery aspect of a story, or I’m feeling the creative spark dim, I don’t fight it. I go and I actually just work on a different story, one that does excite me, and it sounds kind of like the squirrel chasing the nut around the yard. And then there’s another nut and then there’s another nut. But what I found is that engaging with the creative process encourages the creative process. And even if I’m working on a story and then I work on a different story, at some point, I’ll circle back around to the story that I had been working on and had lost interest in or had found difficulty with and go, “Oh, that’s right. That’s what I needed to do with that story. Oh, this is great. It’s gonna be so exciting. I can write the next scene now. I know what’s gonna happen.” 

And so for me, it’s just constantly engaging in that cycle and that process, and keeping that alive. I think that’s what I do the most. I mean, there’s a lot of other small things I do. I love reading nonfiction. It’s a great resource for ideas about the natural world, as opposed to out walking in it, in the sun and the heat and that sort of thing. No, but I’ll listen to books about it. You know, I’ve really love listening to things about nature.

Melody
30:22
Well, I personally do a bit of a combination of the two. And sometimes I do need to be out in nature and just completely step away from the whole writing process for a moment and have some downtime. But I also need to engage with what you’re talking about, is engage with community at times. And talking to other artists and writers who inspire me, encourage me, support me, I think is really helpful. Get my juices flowing, my ideas sparking again. So I kind of draw on both of those. To help keep me going.

Gina
31:12
I’m glad you brought up the community aspect, Melody, because I think we don’t give that enough credence. I think that we’re introverts, a lot of us by nature. Not everybody, of course, who writes is an introvert. But I think that for the most part, we think of writing as a solitary experience. And we don’t give the way that a community can nourish and nurture us enough credit sometimes. So I’m glad you brought that up.

KimBoo
31:42
I totally agree with that. 

Melody
31:44
Absolutely. Gina and KimBoo and I get together on a regular basis. And we always have some new ideas that pop up or fresh ways to look at old ideas. And I just find that so helpful. In Five Element, it’s recommended to draw, when you get stuck or in a difficult part of the process, to draw on the qualities of all of the seasons, all of the elements to help support you and move you forward. So we talked about the things in Spring that helped us move forward in the season. 

And the other seasons – so if we’re talking about the writing process – this season of Winter covers new characters, new worlds maybe, new story ideas. That can be kind of exciting, but it’s also a quiet time, a downtime. Not a time for doing, but let things bubble up for you. You can literally sleep on it. And when I finished my manuscript, I don’t know how many drafts that was. But when I was in the place, before I send it off to the final edit with Gina, I literally printed out my 400-some page manuscript and put it under my mattress and slept on it for three weeks. I just…

KimBoo
33:27
You literally slept on it. That’s adorable.

Melody
33:30
I literally slept. You know, I needed to let it go from the conscious mind, because in that season of Winter, there’s a lot that goes on under the surface of our awareness. This is where curiosity and creativity bubbles up. And if we knew everything, there would be no reason for writing. There would be no reason for romance or the curious mind, because how boring. We would already know it all. There would be no exploration of new worlds and creating fantasies and all the fun stuff that goes on with it. 

So our downtime is really important. In the season of Summer, a lot is happening during that time. We’re pounding our work into shape. And we’re trying to mature it so to speak, to get it out from the first draft. It’s like throwing everything out on the table including the kitchen sink and the dog and the cat and whatever else landed, and then putting it in a way that it is cohesive and it flows. and it makes sense. And that’s also the season of our passion and joy. And included in that is our sense of community. And we can draw on our community to help support us, as we just talked about, and to remember why we got excited about our vision or our story idea in the first place. 

And the season of Harvest is kind of this season – it’s short. Short, in the natural world and it’s often short in our inner worlds because it is a stage of completion, where everything’s done. The last edit has been done; the last revision is done. And it’s this place of sweet satisfaction in knowing we have put our heart and soul into it. We’ve created this work, and we can be nourished by it, and we can send it out where it can be offered for nourishment for others. 

The following season of Fall is important during this process, because this is – I talked about the metal, that knife. This is the thing that cuts away. So this is when we need to let go of something to separate what’s really valuable in our writing process. I had a hundred and some thousand words in my manuscript and feared my readers would get carpal tunnel just trying to lift my book. So I had a lot of cutting to do during that process. And this is also the season where it might be good to bring in a trusted friend and I emphasize trusted friend, somebody who understands the writing process, and your genre would be helpful too. If it’s closer to the final draft, it may be the time where you might ask a beta reader to help with that. So these are all the things, and we’re going to talk about all these seasons in coming episodes. And we’ll talk with each one more fully, so you get a better understanding of them. But to remember, they’re all supporting us all the time,

KimBoo
37:25
I’d like to jump in because you just downloaded a lot of information there. Melody, that was a lot. But we will have a worksheet. Yeah, we’re gonna to have a little worksheet for each one. When we do these particular episodes, there’s going to be something for you to download that’s going to give you a description of the season. In this case, it’s going to have a description of Spring, it’s going to ask you some questions about either challenges or things that you appreciate for that season in your writing life. Again, this is going to be a worksheet focused on your writing life. And then we’re going to have Melody – not we, that’s definitely going to be from Melody because I wouldn’t know what to tell you – but she’s going to give you just like she went over the seasons right now about different aspects of it. Helpful prompts, questions you could ask yourself that come from the other seasons, and bring it into the season that you’re currently dealing with or that we’re talking about and can help you maybe get a better focus on the issues that you’re having, or even find the right questions to ask to find solutions to the problems that you’re having. So we will have that available. It’ll be a download on our website AroundTheWritersTable.com.com for the page for this particular episode. 

So definitely, if you’re hearing, listening to this podcast on one of the many distribution channels that we’re available on including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play or whatever, go to our website, check it out. The download will be available there for you to explore and learn a little bit more along with links to Melody’s book, which is again, as we’ve talked about before, it’s just an excellent tool for exploring your life as a whole, not just as a writer.

Gina
39:15
I love the idea that we’re going to do this worksheet because it is a lot of information, and that’s why we’re talking about one season at a time, in each episode. We’ve given you this overview though. And so, focus now on Spring and then we’ll do the other seasons in future episodes. But the application of this process, this methodology to the writing and creative life has just been fascinating for me to explore, and it was so enlightening to work on the book with Melody and not only apply it to my writing life, but to my life in general. It’s a real treasure trove for, for personal development.

Melody
39:59
Thank you both. And it really helped make so much more sense for me about the process, not only writing process, but process of life. So yes, we’re going to include a few exercises in it and some outline of the material that we talked about today. I’m honestly super grateful, actually, for this information, because we were having a little discussion before we started our podcast today, and to be frank, all three of us had just kind of had a rough week so far. I know it’s only Tuesday. KimBoo had a day and Gina had a death of a family friend that was really weighing on her, and I had a knee injury I’m having to deal with. And, but the structure that we created coming together, and the outline that we’ve worked to put together gave us a comforting structure to be able to pull together and work together. So this stuff works. It works.

KimBoo
41:14
It does, it does. And I remember you were saying a little something earlier about, you know, the important part is kind of the meta aspect of it of being able to pull back and know thyself. And that’s very valuable for me and my writing. And I admit, I spend a lot of time trying not to do it.

Gina
41:34
We all do, it’s so much easier just to ignore it.

KimBoo
41:38
Oblivious is such a nice place to be. Sometimes it has a certain appeal. Well, are we wrapping up now? Are we, got anything else?

Gina
41:51
Unless Melody’s got something to add, I think we are.

Melody
41:55
Don’t get me started. 

KimBoo
41:59
Okay, moving right along.

Melody
42:01
We didn’t even talk about the emotion of anger. That’s a whole other chapter. And maybe we’ll talk about it in character development, because it’s actually quite fascinating, really interesting.

KimBoo
42:15
And that’s the interesting part of this whole system is how it can apply to different aspects of the writing process, not just as a whole. So I am looking forward to our future podcasts about this. We’re good. Next one up is going to be Summer, which we’re not doing next month. We’re going to be doing the month after that. So in July in the Summer.

Gina
42:36
In the Summer.

KimBoo
42:38
Right. Definitely in July in Florida. It’ll be Summer, for sure. I don’t know, we haven’t decided on what our next podcast is actually, the topic is. We’ve had a couple of ideas we’re floating around. But don’t worry, y’all. We’ll be putting that information out there as soon as we’ve got it. So any other parting words for our writer community out there, ladies,

Gina
42:59
Just appreciation for listening and letting us come into your ear for 45 minutes or so.

Melody
43:07
I wanted to just add that we would love to entertain your questions about this or any other podcast. I believe there’s a link on our webpage where you can submit your questions. And we’ll take a little time in our next podcast to answer any questions that people have dropped in.

Gina
43:30
Yeah, there’s actually a comments section at the bottom of the main page.You can just scroll down and put your questions and your comments in there. AroundTheWritersTable.com.

KimBoo
43:39
Yep. Tada! All right, ya’ll. Well, I really appreciate the conversation as always, and I guess we’ll be seeing each other on the flip side, so to speak. Thank you for joining us.

Gina
43:53
Thank you, ladies. Bye, everybody.

Dave (Gina’s Pop)
43:59
Thanks for joining us around the writer’s table. Please feel free to suggest a topic or a guest by emailing info@aroundthewriterstable.com. Music provided with gracious permission by Langtry. A link to their music is on our homepage at AroundTheWritersTable.com. Everyone here around the writer’s table wishes you joy in your writing and everyday grace in your living. Take care, until next time.