In this episode of Around the Writer’s Table, we discuss planning versus “pantsing” in the new-project creation process. We explore how different writers approach their work, whether by meticulously outlining and planning or by writing spontaneously and “flying by the seat of their pants.” We emphasize the importance of discovering one’s own writing style and being open to experimentation.

Gina shares her experience of transitioning from a planner to a pantser and how it helped her embrace her creative freedom. She also highlights the importance of balancing planning and spontaneity in the writing process, mentioning, “There are so many ways to approach it, and the best thing you can do is to be willing to experiment and find what works best for you.”

I discuss the obstacles I faced when trying to plan my stories and how I eventually discovered that planning can be both a boon and a hindrance. I underscore the importance of planning on one’s own terms rather than following someone else’s instructions.

Melody talks about the role of a writing coach in helping writers find the right balance in their creative process, noting the value of pushing one’s boundaries and trying new approaches to writing.

We also touch on the topic of our next episode, which will delve into Gina’s Creativity Cycle and its connection to the seasons of the writing process. We encourage listeners to join us as we continue exploring the different stages of creativity and finding a balance between planning and pantsing in their writing journey.

Overall, this episode serves as a valuable resource for writers seeking insights and guidance on finding their own unique writing process and striking the right balance between planning and spontaneity.

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

• Archive of Our Own
• Novlr
• Campfire
• Scrivener

Ep.17: Spring Redux: : Nurturing New Projects

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.

KimBoo York
0:43
Welcome back to  Around the Writer’s Table. We’re glad to have you with us again. It’s a really fun episode for us because this is our Spring Redux episode, which actually marks a full cycle through the seasons of what we’ve been doing here for the past year, is working through the seasons of writing, which is based on Melody, A Scout’s book Soul of the Seasons. And it’s really exciting that we’ve made it all a whole year. I’m pretty psyched about that. What– I know, right? We should have… you know, when I put this on the website, I’m gonna put a birthday hat animation somewhere on it, because I totally feel that that’s appropriate for us. 

But I’m KimBoo, and what we’re actually going to be talking about—we’ll go into a little bit more detail later, when Melody starts talking about Spring—is the season of new projects, of renewal and, you know, Spring. Green things growing up and happening, but what we’re going to be focusing on is the benefits of planning, things like outlines, storyboards. We’re gonna get into all of that. I’m a pantser, so you know this is going to be an exciting episode for me. As I follow along, clinging to the side of the car, we’re gonna get to it, and I think it’s gonna be really helpful for both seasoned writers and newbies. Wherever you are on your journey, we hope that we’ll be able to give you some new insight and information on when you’re at the stage of starting or planning to start a new project. 

I’m here with my co-hosts. And, of course, I’m KimBoo. I am a romance novelist. Got some new things coming in the hopper. We’re gonna be talking about that in some future episodes. But I’m also a former project manager. I help writers and solopreneurs find time, mojo, and motivation to fulfill their creative dreams. And I am here today with, first off, Melody. Come on, say hi.

Melody, A Scout
2:46
Hi, I’m Melody, A Scout, and I help my clients find their sense of home by restoring balance and harmony to their lives through plant spirit medicine and my book Soul of the Seasons.

KimBoo
3:00
Thank you, Melody, and that leaves us with Gina, our editor and creative wellspring, solopreneur. You’ve got so much going on, Gina. I don’t even know how to describe you anymore. Who are you? What are you? What do you do?

Gina Hogan Edwards
3:15
I have no idea. No. Hi, everybody. It’s great to be here this morning or this afternoon, wherever you happen to be listening to this. I’m Gina Hogan Edwards and I am an editor, a creativity coach, and a writing retreat leader and I am also a writer.

KimBoo
3:35
All writers up in here. I know. Moving on into our special topic, which is Spring and planning and outlining. I think it would be a good idea for us to do a little backpedaling and, Melody, if you could take us through Spring as a special topic and kind of lead us into what we’re going to be talking about. I know that the original episode where we talked about Spring was Episode 4. Give us an overview and give us some insight on where we’re going with this this year.

Melody
4:05
Thanks, KimBoo. Well, in Episode 4, we talked about Spring being this season of new growth. And in the writing process, that’s where all those little seeds that fell to the earth in winter time and started to sprout, well now they’ve popped above ground. Or story ideas, those ideas for books and manuscripts and screenplays, they all popping up above ground. And it’s the first draft stage, maybe even the second, where we go through. It’s going through like a house on fire. We are writing. You can’t stop us. It’s a very exciting time. And in Five Element, the season of Spring is also known for the season of planning, decision making, and proper structure. So that’s really important during this season of new growth because if you don’t have some even loose structure… I’m a landscaper, in the plant world, if there is no structure, it is a jungle. And it’s hard to get through the jungle sometimes.

Gina
What? You’ve been in my yard or something, huh?  

Melody
I actually. Ah, the yard is an oracle. Okay. That’s a whole other podcast. So, this is the season for nurturing our new projects. I want to talk a little bit about some of the types of planning that we can do during the season. We have outlines, which cover, just in a very general topical way, the subject of your story and your characters. And it’s very brief. It’s not like a summary, which is another part of planning, but it gives you a brief overview of your storyline. And then there’s storyboards. Some people put their outlines up on storyboards, which are physical boards. You can do it on, you know, digitally, but physical boards also. They put it up on the wall so they can see where their story is supposed to go and what the characters should be doing. There is another process KimBoo introduced me to. What’s the name of that free program you turned me on to, KimBoo, about doing character trees?

KimBoo
6:40
Oh, I will find it and find it and put it in the…

Melody
Family Echo.

KimBoo
Yes, Family Echo, where you can do fictional family trees for multigenerational stories.

Gina
6:53
Wha– Wha– What?

KimBoo
Yes. Didn’t we share that with you? I guess we’ve been holding out.

Gina
You have not shared that with me.

Melody
6:55
Oh, my gosh.

KimBoo
7:01
it is, it is. So like most— Just quick, as a quick aside, most ancestry genealogy, very restricted in time and, like, actually tracing your actual family tree. This is a free tool that doesn’t have those restrictions on it. So you can invent characters and have a whole family tree outline on a fictional family. So it’s—

Gina
7:23
Okay, I’m there.

Melody
7:26
Exactly. And it’s a really invaluable tool to me as I am working on my next project, which is a novel, which has a lot of characters and family members that start out from the early 1900s in Prussia, and they immigrate to America. And like keeping all these characters straight, was making my head explode. I totally know that I’m gonna have to go back and like, “Oh, you call that guy Joseph there. And then you call him George over there. You might have to keep that straight.”

KimBoo
8:03
That’s a familiar. Oh, yeah.

Melody
8:09
And also research, I wanted to include in part of this, because in your planning phase, especially for myself, personally, I’m going to make, this is going to be a historical novel. So I need to know a little bit about what life was like back then. One of the research items I did—I totally love research. It’s so fun. It’s like play to me. It’s my fun part of writing. I’m with him. Yeah. You it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole with research, isn’t it now? But, recently, I did some research by interviewing the mother of my sister-in-law, and her family comes from the region, they call it Moldova now, but it was Prussia. It’s the same region very near where my grandmother was born, and grew up, and her family came from. So that was a fun bit of research, of doing an interview about her, what it was like for her growing up.

Gina
9:21
That’s great.

Melody
9:23
Yes, I want to know how editing also fits into the planning process of writing and, Gina, maybe you’d give us a little bit of feedback on this. I know how it worked for me. So what do you have to say about that?

Gina
9:43
Oh, several things. Okay. So editing—

KimBoo
9:46
Oh, man. We got her going now. We’re done. That’s it. 

Gina
9:51
We talked about editing at length in the previous episode. It is something that new writers, especially, forget to include in the process. It takes time. You have to allow for that. Please, give yourself time to investigate, interview, and hire the right editor. Fit that into your planning process. And do not schedule your book launch party before you even hand your manuscript off to your editor. Because you don’t know upfront how long that process is going to take,

KimBoo
10:32
Oh, man, stories I could tell.

Melody
10:36
I could say from personal experience, don’t even do it when you think you know your project’s gonna be published, because you will be wrong. I had to do a book appearance without my actual books, because they did not come from the editor in time. Anyway…

Gina
10:57
They had not come from the publisher.

Melody
The publisher.

Gina
I’m sorry, I just had to make a clarification there. Because, you know, that’s another thing you have to plan for is the printing time. Especially if you’re an indie author, and you’re going to do an in-person event, and you need those physical books in your hand, that’s out of your control. You know, if there’s a delay in shipping, if there’s a delay in getting them printed, you’re not going to know that upfront.

KimBoo
11:26
And I just want to jump in, too, because as a project manager, this is my wheelhouse, that I think it’s really important as writers, we get very focused on the writing aspect. And when you say you’re, you’re writing a book and you’re going to publish it, a lot of times, we just tend to think of the writing and editing, you know, like, okay, I guess I’ll make room for editing in there too. But you really do need to think about the codicils to that, such as working with a publisher, if you’re going to be getting hard copies that you want to sell either through directly, through an online store or taking with you to reading, live reading events. 

So when you were talking about planning as authors, while we are focusing mainly on the writing process, Gina and Melody are bringing up a good point here, which is it’s more than just the writing process. When you’re talking about an idea, if you’re planning on just writing it and, like, I write fanfiction, so if you’re just gonna write something like that, and then throw it up on Archive of Our Own, which is a fanfiction site, without any editing, without anything like that, then fine, it doesn’t matter. But if you’re trying to get your book out there to the reading public, planning definitely includes publishing, because that’s a completely different animal. So I just wanted to throw that in there, when you’re thinking of the project of what a book is.

Gina
12:47
Good points. Well, not only, when it comes to editing, not only is time one of the factors that you have to consider in your planning process, but you also have to think about your budget. And that requires some planning. You also need to think about the energy that it’s going to take, you know. Depending on what your arrangement is, with your editor, especially if they’re planning on going through the manuscript more than once, there’s gonna be a lot of back and forth, and there’s going to be revision time that you’re going to need. And that’s all going to take energy. So planning for all of those aspects of working with an editor. You can’t ignore those, those either.

Melody
13:29
Absolutely. And I hired Gina as a story, line, and copy editor. And that was a big investment of all three things: time, money, and energy. And rightly so. It was a big project, and it was very much worth it, to me. Considered it as an investment in my work. But it definitely takes some planning, especially if you have a regular job, like most folks do. Or irregular job, and you need to earn money, or you have a family and all those things that need also your time, attention, and money. So, KimBoo, I’m interested in knowing as a self-professed pantser—

KimBoo
14:20
Oh, no.

Melody
14:23
How does planning factor into your work?

KimBoo
14:29
So I think one of the things that I’ve, when I say pantser, I do mean I am an extreme pantser. I do not like using outlines. I do not like story summaries. I do not do character sheets. A running joke, which I believe I’ve mentioned here on the podcast before is that I don’t even know what I’m writing until I’m 30,000 words into a project.  I begin with a spark of an idea. I’m a very intuitive writer. So a lot of people think that there’s no planning there whatsoever. 

But the fact is, if you know who you are and what you are as a writer, you plan for that. So I plan on being a pantser. I plan on the fact that I’m going to go through different stages of developing the story. So when I’m planning, I account for that. And one of the things that I personally do is, when I get to that point where I finally figured out what the story is about and what the characters are doing, that’s when I sit down and start thinking more in terms of an outline. I really don’t create a strict outline of where I’m going, but I do sit down and create an outline of where I’ve been. And that gives me a very high-level view of what I’m doing so that I know I can move into the next stage of figuring it out. 

Another thing that I tend to do that helps as far as planning goes, and I think, to me personally fits in the planning umbrella is that I often create story bibles, or which is what they’re called, which is basically an ongoing encyclopedia, if you will, of who all the characters are, where, what all the places are, and where things happen. And doing this helps me move through the story because I’m not caught on things that happened in the past that I don’t remember in the story, because like, as I said, I’m a pantser. So I’m not, I don’t have an outline to guide me through those things. I will be 70,000 words into a story and go like, “Oh, wait, what was this character’s hometown, and what is important about that hometown to his backstory?” and I will go back and look at that, and then suddenly be inspired and find something about that little seed I planted, you know, 40,000 words earlier, and it’s coming to fruition. And I can do that, because I’m planning, knowing that I’m going to be going in and out of the story and the structural things that I’m doing to support me in planning it. 

So, you know. Is it planning? Yes. It’s not planning in the sense that, you know, if you buy a “How to Write a Novel” book, it’s nothing I do would be recommended in that book. But it works for me. It’s a hard won process that I’m still fine-tuning as far as I’m getting into it now. So I am a pantser. But I plan to be a pantser. And I think that’s an important thing. If you are an intuitive writer, or you are a pantser of any kind, anywhere on the spectrum, because it’s not a yes or no type thing. But if you’re anywhere on that intuitive spectrum, definitely be aware of it. Plan for that. That’s an important part of it, I think.

Melody
17:55
That’s such a good information, because I have to say, I consider myself a bit of a pantser as well. When I was writing my first novel—350 pages which never saw the light of day, by the way—but it was a good experience. But I was totally pantsing it. Just flying along and somebody suggested, do you have an outline? Do you have a storyboard? I’m like,” I would have to know what my characters are going to do if I had that,” and I didn’t, you know. They were telling me as we went along what they were going to do. And, to me, I think that’s actually a great state of mind in the very first draft, when things are popping, to not put too tight a rein on your characters, at least in fiction. If you’re writing nonfiction or something historical, then you’re going to have to have some structure. Otherwise, it’s not going to be really historical or nonfiction. It’s just going to be your story. 

So I found now with the novel that I’m writing, and certainly with Soul of the Seasons, it had to be very specific in its structure. So I did, in a way, the outline was already created for me in the Five Elements. 

Now with my historical novel, it’s going to be essential. I’ve already started to have that outline and planning and storyboards and Family Echo tree, because it’s not only following the characters—which I’m pantsing it with the characters and what they’re telling me—but it has to match in with what’s going on in history at the time, both in Prussia and in the US. And it has to follow family lines in a way, you know, sort of a loose structure. It’s patterned after my grandparents, my grandmother that emigrated in 1903 and settled in South Dakota. So I need some structure. So outline, storyboards, character trees, that’s becoming more important to me during this process and during this project. 

So I would like to know from each of you, and let’s start with Gina first, how does planning, the planning part of your writing process, help or hinder your writing?

Gina
20:32
This is a very timely question for me and I appreciate the value of it, because I’m in a major shift right now to focus more closely on my writing. And what I’m realizing is that, even though I’ve never considered myself a pantser because I do like to start with some structure, that when I have written short stories in the past, the short stories, I was a pantser. 

KimBoo
Hmm, interesting.

Gina
Working on my—yeah—working on my longer pieces, though, specifically on the novel that I have in process right now is, I needed very much like you were talking, Melody, I needed some structure, because it is historical, and I was going to be weaving in some actual, historical events and there were things that, culturally, are timely. 

And so I think that what I have seen as an editor working with new writers is, new writers seem to crave structure. You know, the great thing about writing fiction is that we can make everything up. But it also feels totally unconstrained and boundless. And when that happens, sometimes our ideas could just be all over the place, and there’s no, no containers for them. And that can be overwhelming to a new writer. And so what I see from a lot of new writers is them wanting some sort of structure. And whether that’s an outline or a summary, you know, that’s going to depend on the writer, of course, and even though I outlined my novel near the beginning, it was a very loose outline. In terms, it was more like a summary of scenes really than an outline. I know a lot of people cringe at the word outline, because it makes them think about school. But it was very loosely structured. And I have given myself more and more permission as I become a better writer to deviate from that outline and to follow my intuition. 

Character profiles help me a lot, because again, all those details, keeping track of those things. And most recently, because I’ve had this flood of ideas beyond the current work in-progress, is I’ve been working with Scrivener to give me some planning and structure. And I really feel like it’s going to help me be able to work on more than one project at a time. Which as we know, as writers, there’s never enough time to get everything written that we want to write. And so I think Scrivener is going to help me with the organization piece. But as far as whether planning helps or hinders, I really think for me, it depends on what I’m working on. Like I said, the short stories, I think I’m more of a pantser. But with the longer pieces, I need some sort of organization and structure in the beginning, but I like to be very flexible with that, give myself permission to deviate.

KimBoo
23:38
I’m just going to marvel for a second because, as you were talking, I realized I’m exactly the reverse. If I’m writing a short story, I have to know the beats. I have to know exactly what’s going to happen down to the paragraph line. If I’m going to write a short story, I have to have a very precise outline. And I had not really thought about that until you were talking about how it’s, you pants, your short stories. I cannot do that. Because I am by nature an epic writer. So I spiral things out. I’m always adding things in. And so my, historically when I tried to write short stories, to constrain them, to keep them ballooning from 3000 words to, you know, 70,000 words. Yeah, right. Like it’s happened. It’s happened! And so, but if I want to write a traditional short story, less than 5000 words, I have to have an outline. I can’t not because otherwise I’m just off the chain. So I hadn’t really thought about that until you mentioned it, Gina, but that is exactly, that is, we’re both reversed. But I mean, it’s interesting. That’s fascinating. I hadn’t thought about it. 

Gina
24:51
It just goes to show you really have to learn your process. You know, as you write more, you’re going to start to recognize things that come up for you again and again, and start to notice those patterns so that you know how to treat yourself.

KimBoo
25:08
And I just also want to break in here really quickly because you mentioned tools. And of course, as a techie, you know, my heart goes out to all the tools that we use. Scrivener is a great option. There are others like Novlr, and not The Ranch—there’s one that’s like ranch themed, camp themed. Oh, Camp Writing, Camp Novel, I think. Campfire, that’s it. 

There’s a lot of tools out there that our readers really should investigate to find the one that works for them. Having something where you can move scenes around, where you can have things connected to character sheets and things that you’re creating, can really help with the planning process and the writing process. So really, highly recommend, you know, I understand that a lot of writers do like their first draft to be handwritten. And that’s fine. I don’t understand your world view at all. But if that’s what you do, that’s fine. But when you get to the point where you’re doing more organization, look at these kinds of digital tools and see how they can help you, because just throwing something into, say, Google Docs, or Microsoft Word or Office Libra, that might seem like the easiest solution. But when it comes down to planning and shuffling things around, and linking things up together so you can see the whole picture, there are better tools out there. So keep that in mind.

Melody
26:25
That’s a really good point. So, Gina, I can’t remember, did you talk any about whether planning hinders your writing in any way that you’ve noticed?

Gina
26:37
I think that I’m at the point now as a writer that I don’t allow it to hinder me. You know, if I’ve created an outline that is too rigid, I give myself permission to break from it. I’m not going to try to, you know, stick within that outline. But, you know, it’s hard when you’ve written so long to go back and think about what it was like when you were a new writer. I really think that the outlining process helped me a lot as a new writer, and I’m needing it less and less the more experience that I get. And I’ve kind of seen that play out with some of my clients, too.

Melody
27:14
Yeah, that makes sense. And I know that this never happens with me personally, because I never go overboard on the planning part. I’m too much a pantser for that. But I have a friend who loves to plan. Oh, my gosh, she’s a teacher. She loves to plan. And she planned her summer off and made a world map, in each of the countries represented a specific project she wanted to do. And they were all color coded and very detailed. And she put it up on the wall. And it was beautiful. And she spent so much time planning, she didn’t have much time to actually do the things she had planned for. 

So I personally don’t do that. But I can easily go down the rabbit hole of research and dig up, Oooo, let’s do this. And this leads to that. And oh my gosh, you know, that cruise ship has so many levels, and let’s look at other cruise ships. You know, that sort of thing that I personally have a challenge with in my writing process is to stay focused, to come back. That’s fun, it probably all lends to the flavor and color of the story, but come back again to the storyline.

Gina
28:40
I think that most writers are curious, and that curiosity can get us in trouble sometimes.

KimBoo
28:47
Although I do, I do think you’re bringing up one of the, an idea with this with my clients in project management coaching, productivity coaching, is that they will spend so much time planning and doing, that it’s a very good excuse not to do. And I think we’ve all met writers who do that sometimes. They spend so much time trying to find the perfect outline or the perfect, you know, the perfect beats, you know, in or something like that. Oor the perfect opening and they just, they spend so much time at the planning stage. Like you were talking about gardening earlier. It’s like you’re planning to put the garden and you put all the stakes out, but then you never put the seeds in. It’s, that’s not how it works. I think planning could be a great route to procrastinate. I mean, I hate to say it. 

Gina
29:38
Oh, you’re, yes, you’re right. Yes.

KimBoo
29:44
Melody said no, so obviously I’m completely wrong.

Melody
29:49
And, and conversely, no planning at all, which in the beginning when I was first writing I was, you know, allergic to any sort of structure, planning ideas, I couldn’t even have the concept of writing a short story. I used to have a T-shirt that said “Help I’m writing and I can’t get up.” It was like… “I can’t shut up” was actually more like it. So I, I totally understand that and it’s too diffuse when there is at least not a gentle structure. It could go off into Never Never Land with your characters and your storylines. 

Gina taught me something really good. When I had like, the 100 pages of excess that needed to be trimmed. She said, “It’s never wasted. Save it, you may want to develop that later on, it may have its own life.” So that would be what I would offer.

KimBoo
30:56
That’s another valid reason to get the right tools. Because if you have something like Scrivener, you have something like Novlr, you can just take those scenes and tuck them into a folder in the app and be able to come back to it later. And, you know, that’s proven to be invaluable for me, honestly.

Melody
31:13
Absolutely. So KimBoo, how does planning, or how has planning helped or hindered your writing process?

KimBoo
31:21
Uh, well, until I got to the point where I understood that I needed to plan to be a pantser, it was really a hindrance, because I really thought that I needed to have an outline, I needed to have a summary. And what I would do is I would write out—I actually lost a couple of stories this way—I would write out a full outline the way the books told me. This was when I was a very young writer, and I was just getting my feet wet on writing longer stories. And then my brain would just go. “Okay, well, you’re done. Now, you outlined it, you told the story. You’re you can’t…” Like, I would, I couldn’t even write it. So in that sense, I learned that planning can be a real hindrance for me at that level. If I’m planning it the way someone else has told me to plan it, which I think circles back around to what Gina was saying, you know. Know thyself, know what kind of writer you are, learn what kind of writer you are. Experiment. Like, now I know that I had to go through that process. 

But figure out where you’re at as a writer, as a person, or you will end up, yeah, kind of getting in your own way. So it has been, it has been in the past. As with Gina, I’m now at the point where I can say, “Okay, this is how I do things. This is, I can plan to do it this way.” And so now planning has become my friend, but planning on my own terms. Trying to plan by somebody else’s instructions, very educational, not really as helpful as it could have been.

Gina
32:57
Related to what Melody was saying about, you know, no words on the page are wasted. I think that a lot of writers get stuck in wanting to know that the process they’re doing is right, and if it’s not, that they don’t want to do it. And so what you said about being willing to experiment, there’s no experimentation in your writing process that is wasted either. A lot of writers will hold back and just not start because they’re afraid that that process might not be the right process for them, and so they don’t experiment, and then they never get anything written. So be willing to experiment. That’s a great tip, KimBoo.

Melody
33:44
And that shows the value of having a writing coach as well. Because maybe there’s an appropriate time for each of those things that you’re writing coach will keep you focused on when is the right time to be thinking about that. Am I doing this right is not something to be considered so much in the first or second draft. That’s more about getting the story out on the page. But you may focus on that a little more, scrutinize that a little more intensely, when you get to your final draft. And does this match up with what my vision for my project writing project is? And I love KimBoo’s idea of pushing the edges on this, and if you are super planner, try starting a small project without any plans at all. See what that feels like?

KimBoo
34:44
Dun dun dun dun.

Melody
34:48
Right. And if you’re a real pantser, 100%, try a little structure there. See what happens when you write a rough outline. What happens with your characters? What happens with your storyline? Can you get to the point where you’ve said, “Okay, I’ve outlined the creativity right out of this story.” So too much. It’s good to find that balance and for each of us it’s going to be different. And it’s gonna be different at each phase of the process. 

Well, this has been really fascinating subject, and we could absolutely go on and on. But…

Gina
I think we did.

Melody
But in our next episode is actually tied up with this subject of planning, because Gina’s going to talk about her creative cycle, which is so fascinating to me. Gina, can you give an outline—overview—of your creative cycle process?

Gina
36:04
Yes, just briefly, because we’re going to spend our next episode diving more into a big overview of this. But what we’re going to talk about over the next, basically 10-12 months or so is each phase of the creative cycle. And this cycle is something that I’ve come up with from observing my own clients and their creative process, as well as my own. And it will take us all the way from what I like to call Inner Disquiet, which is when we have this longing to be creative and yet we are not leaning into that, all the way through the various stages of experimenting and taking ownership of our voice, and seeing what feels authentic or not, and recognizing who in our world supports us and who doesn’t, integrating our voice into the work that we do, and dedicating ourselves at a deeper level. And then what happens when we start reaching our goals. What happens when we’ve got gazillions of ideas percolating, and we can’t focus on any one, or what happens when we actually complete a creative project, and how sometimes we can sit in one stage for a great length of time. Sometimes we can revisit a stage over and over and over again, or several stages over and over again. So those are all the kinds of things that we’re going to be talking about in future months. And so join us on our next episode, when I’ll go into a greater overview and then lay out what we’re going to be doing in the future with that creative cycle.

Melody
37:57
Thank you. Yeah, I’m excited about it. Because we’ll also be talking about how Gina’s creative cycle ties into the seasons of the writing process.

KimBoo
38:09
Yeah, gotta bring it all together, baby. Bring it all together. So yeah. But that’s it for this episode. We’re really happy that you joined us for this one. We’ve talked about a lot of things. You might need to listen to this one twice, because we covered a lot of bases on that. Please visit our website. We are going to have an overview of Spring that we used for Episode 4. I’ll repost that so that it’s available for download, so you have a reference for it. 

Leave a comment at our website. We have a comment form there that you can use. Check us out on whatever distribution platform as I call them: Spotify and Stitcher and Apple podcasts. We’re on all of those platforms. So check us out there. Leave us a review. That helps with the algorithm to find us and get the word out, and we’d really appreciate it too. So you know, thumbs up or star, whatever the heck, whichever platform has for you to encourage people to listen to this podcast. If you found it helpful, share it around. So thank you very much. This is KimBoo signing off.

Gina
39:20
Bye, everybody.

Melody
39:21
Bye. Thanks for sharing your time with us.

Dave
39:27
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.

Copyright / Terms & Conditions

Around the Writer's Table and its co-hosts, Gina Hogan Edwards, Melody, A Scout, and Kimboo York own the copyright to all content and transcripts of the Around the Writer's Table podcast, with all rights reserved, including right of publicity. ​​You ​are welcome to share an excerpt from the episode transcript (up to 500 words) in media articles​, such as ​​The New York Times, ​Miami Herald, etc.; in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., ​​Medium); and/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided you include proper attribution and link back to the podcast URL. No one is authorized to use the Around the Writer's Table logo, or any portion of the transcripts or other content in and of the podcast to promote themselves.