Welcome back to Around the Writer’s Table, where we are on a creative journey through the seasons. In this episode, we delve into the heart of summer, both in nature and creativity, to explore the theme of “Taking Ownership.”

Melody shares insights from her book, “Soul of the Seasons,” linking the seasons of life to the writing process. Summer signifies a time of heightened productivity and maturation, emphasizing leadership grounded in integrity and authenticity. We discuss the importance of self-guidance while seeking mentorship and maintaining our unique vision.

This season, it’s all about embracing your creative authority and leading with a compassionate heart. Join us in discovering how the summer of ownership can empower your Creativity Quest!

Resources

• Melody’s book Soul of the Seasons
• Services for authors – work with KimBoo
• Shop of York (books and more!)
• Gina’s Quill on Substack
• Gina’s Ream page
• Episode 4: Seasons of Writing: Spring
• Episode 6: Seasons of Writing: Summer
• Episode 29: The Creativity Quest: Releasing
• Our podcast on YouTube

Ep. 28: Embracing Your Creative Authority

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
0:43
Welcome, everybody. We are glad to be here, back around the writer’s table again, to visit you through your ear bones, wherever you may be listening to us. I’m Gina Hogan Edwards, happy to be here with my co-hosts, KimBoo and Melody. And we are going to start out with a couple little introductions here and a little bit about what kind of plans have we got going on? What’s happening with us? So as I said, I’m Gina Hogan Edwards. I am passionate about working with women writers, helping them find their voice, supporting them in leaning into their creativity. And I’m here today first of all with Melody. How are you?

Melody, A Scout
1:26
I’m good, Gina. Thank you. Thank you to our listeners for taking time to listen in. My name is Melody, A Scout, and I help my clients find their sense of home by restoring balance in harmony to their lives through plant spirit medicine, and my book Soul of the Seasons.

Gina
1:43
And let’s pass off to KimBoo. Hi, KimBoo.

KimBoo York
1:47
Hey, good morning, y’all. It is KimBoo, and I am still working on my coffee. So that’s who I… No, just kidding. I am a romance novelist and former project manager who helps writers and solopreneurs find time, mojo, and motivation to create, and especially authors, creating their own author businesses is something I’m really committed to recently.  That’s who I am. 

Gina
2:14
Awesome. Thanks for being here, ladies. I love this time that we spend together so much, and it’s hard to believe that we are on Episode 28. 

KimBoo and Melody
Ooh, yay.

Gina
Our last episode was a continuation of our discussion about The Creativity Quest. We discussed the guidepost that we’re calling Taking Ownership, which is that place when we have the greatest opening toward becoming our authentic, true selves. It’s when we start to step away from those that we have learned from, from our teachers and our mentors. And we’re gaining greater mastery on our way toward authenticity. And our discussion today is going to primarily be led by Melody, because we’re talking about this guidepost in relationship with the seasons as she discusses them in her book, Soul of the Seasons. So, Melody, I’m gonna hand it off to you to talk about which season relates to this guidepost.

Melody
3:18
Thanks, Gina. Before we do that, let’s do a little, what’s up with everybody.

Gina
3:25
I got ahead of myself. I got plenty ahead of myself.

KimBoo
3:29
She is so excited about this topic, y’all, she jumped right into it.

Gina
Exactly.

Melody
3:35
Well, so then let’s see what’s going on with y’all. KimBoo, what’s up for you?

KimBoo
3:41
Well, as I talked about in the last episode, I’ve got some new offerings as far as coaching for authors and writers, and I’m working on my serial story “Transmigrated Teri.” One of the things on my plans ahead, as I’m looking forward right now, is I’m really working to get the rest of my back catalog wide. And so what that means is having everything available on all distribution channels. Now most of them are already available on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles. But I now have a direct store. I’ve set up a direct sales store with Shopify. I’m going through my books and re-editing the front and back matter so that I can upload the newer versions on Shopify, which means that I have to go back and re-upload new copies of the stories to all the distributors as well. 

So it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of grunt work going on. But once it’s done, I’ll have my entire back catalog not only updated with new links to my current website, but I will have all my books available for direct sale on my Shopify store, which I’m really excited about. So that’s probably going to take up some energy over the next couple of weeks. That’s aside from everything else I’m doing. That’s definitely a project that’s sitting on my To-Do List, staring at me. 

Melody
5:03
Wow. That made my eyeballs spin just listening to you talking about it.

KimBoo
5:08
My eyeballs spin, thinking about it. But yeah, it’s a lot of, lot of, lot of nitty-gritty work in that one, not fun stuff. But I’ll be happy when it’s all done, because I’m really excited about the direct sales option that we have now as authors.

Melody
Awesome.

KimBoo
How ’bout you, Miss Gina. What’s on your plans?

Gina
5:25
Well, I mentioned last time that I have been learning how to navigate the platforms where I’m putting my fiction, which are Substack and Ream. And one of the things that I’m doing for my Ream subscribers is I’m annotating the chapters.

KimBoo
5:45
I’m so excited about that. I can’t even tell you. She talks about this all the time, people, and I’m, like, I can’t wait.

Gina
5:51
Well, it’s, it’s, it’s really interesting, because it has re-energized my enthusiasm for the story, because it’s making me think about why I made certain choices in the book, and to be able to share those, it’s going to be a lot of fun. 

I’m still working out the timing and the actual logistics, how I’m going to show those notes to the reader so that they can engage with them, because I want the readers to let me know what they think of those things, you know. I want to share them so that they can see sort of behind the scenes, what I’m thinking as the writer and the kinds of research tidbits that I’ve run into that are fun and interesting. 

So that’s the plan for what I’m doing on Ream is those annotated chapters, and at the same time, I’m kind of layering in or will be layering in—this is the plan for the Fall—layering in The Creativity Quest writings that I’m doing, somewhat based on these podcast episodes that we’re doing, but in a more expanded version. So I’m gonna be eventually putting a book together. And so as I’m putting that book together, I will be posting about that on Substack. 

So that’s all in the future, just trying to kind of baby-step it. Let me do this one thing and get it down, and then I’ll introduce another thing, but those two things are going to be working in unison on my Substack.

KimBoo
That’s a lot. That’s a lot though.

Gina
But it’s fun!

KimBoo
7:27
It is fun. I totally get that. The annotated thing I’m really looking forward to, though, because I know how much history—because it’s a historical fiction novel, y’all. If you listeners aren’t familiar with it yet, Dancing at The Orange Peel, and she’s been working on this for a very long time, and she’s done so much research.

Gina
Decades.

KimBoo
I know. And I just love, like, sometimes when we’re driving around in the car, you pick me up to go somewhere, and you just start talking about the history of something. And I’m like, How do you even know that? Like, where did that piece of data come from? It’s going to be fascinating, y’all. I’m excited.

Gina
8:00
The thing in this process and—you know, bouncing ideas off of you, KimBoo, sometimes yields the most unexpected things. This novel was like the thing that I was working on. But what has happened, as I’ve developed this idea for where I want to take my writing, is that this novel is one part of what I’m now calling the Kent Creek Chronicles, which will be a collection of stories that are all set in my fictional town of Kent Creek. So Dancing at The Orange Peel will be the first piece of it. But then I have short stories about different characters. You’ll see some of those same characters from the novel in some of those short stories. And so while my publication on Substack, my overall publication name is Gina’s Quill, one of the sections within it is the Kent Creek Chronicles. And that’s where some of the stories and the novel are going to reside.

Melody
8:53
Oh, I can’t wait.

KimBoo
8:55
I know, right. Yeah, yeah.

Melody
8:58
I can’t wait. That’s so cool. 

KimBoo
9:01
Okay, so now maybe, let’s get back to—

Gina
9:02
No! Melody has to tell us what her deal is.

KimBoo
9:06
Am I rushing things along?

Melody
9:09
I guess that’s what we’re doing today. 

Gina
We’re derailing all over the place.

KimBoo
9:11
Sorry, listeners. We’re just going to play hopscotch with you all the way through this episode.

Melody
Try to follow along.

KimBoo
So, Melody, what’s in your plans up ahead? Aside from moving and packing.

Melody
9:25
Well, as I mentioned in the previous episode, I’m in the middle of moving and exiting a job. And in doing that, I’m looking forward to about mid-October, having some free space and downtime to refocus on the historical novel I’m writing. I’m getting all excited as Gina’s talking because it reminds me of how much I love my characters and I’m anxious to get back into the story. And just back into the writing process and creating the space and the energy and the time to do that. So I am looking forward to that.

Gina
10:04
So are we.

KimBoo
10:05
Yeah, So are we and I know, that’s exciting. That’s the fun part, isn’t it. Getting to the writing.

Gina
10:11
Now that we derailed all over the place, we’re back to our original plan, which was talking about Taking Ownership, this guidepost that, to me, it’s represented by this quote that’s sometimes attributed to Rumi, but also to others of, “I am the one that I have been waiting for,” where we’re claiming our authenticity, and our ownership of our creative existence. So as that relates to summer, Melody, share, share about that with us.

Melody
10:43
Thanks, Gina. In my book Soul of the Seasons, I talk about the five seasons of life and our inner landscapes and as they’re reflected in the outer landscapes of the natural world, and that germinated the seed of the five seasons of the writing process. And if you go back and look in our earlier podcasts, we go through each season and specifically check into the season of Summer where we would talk about this in depth. 

It’s a season of great productivity. It is where we land it in our project, in our work and our relationships. They have matured, and they continue to mature from a place of integrity and authenticity. And the quality of leadership is important in this, because a lot of things are going on, and a lot of times, all at the same time. We need that leadership quality within ourself, grounded in authenticity, integrity, to be able to negotiate and navigate the season of big things happening. Are we in our revisions? Are we finishing up on our final edits? We need to know and be grounded in who we are, and what the vision is of our project. 

Another quality, this is where we talked about leadership, and with good leadership, we have to be able to navigate with clarity, but also kindness and compassion. Yeah, not the whips and chains, girls.

KimBoo
12:30
Different party? Yeah.

Melody
12:33
Yeah. I think you, KimBoo’s got some stuff on that. So check out her stuff. That’s a whole other Dr. Phil. But let’s go. Although we take wise counsel during this time from, possibly, mentors or other peers, we are grounded in our own authenticity and our own truth with a capital T, so we can rely on our own vision. We talked in the last episode in depth about maps and knowing where we are on the map, and using the map that’s appropriate for us to navigate through these processes, not only in our writing process, but within ourselves personally, because when we operate from a place of authority and experience, and we effectively and compassionately communicate that to others, as well, so they are clear [on] the direction we’re going. 

And some of the pitfalls—we call them imbalances in the book Soul of the Seasons—are when we don’t have that grounded authenticity and knowing and truth. We end up with some confusion and chaos, because nobody knows who the real leader is, and maybe not even us. So we lack clarity, if we’ve gotten out of balance in this area, and we talked briefly on this, but one of the ways we can miss out on taking ownership is if we allow others to influence us. Even beloved mentors and teachers can do this. One thing, too, a lot of people sometimes are looking for gurus. You know, they want the experts, and they want to have people to tell them what to do and how to do it, because it relieves us of the decision-making process and the energy and the effort it takes to dig deep and excavate our own truth. There’s nothing wrong with having mentors. They’re perfectly healthy and useful ways to be able to mature ourselves through our process. But when you get to the place where you feel like you have grown beyond what your mentor has to offer, or that you are grounded enough in who you are and what you are, you no longer need to follow every single way. And they may not go in the same direction as you. So that’s kind of a nutshell. 

In five element medicine, what my book Soul of the Seasons is based on, which is a form of traditional Chinese medicine, there’s officials for each season, and one of the officials for Summer is the heart as supreme controller. And the heart is more than just the physical organ. They’re talking about an essence of being, a way of navigating in the world. And when our hearts, not our heads, but our hearts are connected with our inner truth, we can lead. We can lead ourselves. We can lead others into, and get them excited about our dreams. Just like you guys were talking with authenticity about your stories. You got me excited about it. Yeah, I want to read about that, and a good leader can do that. 

So, it’s a pretty rich topic. And again, I invite you to go back and look at some of them. I will post which, I think we’ll post links to those past episodes on our website. So my question is, I’d like to do the round robin here, is I want to know, Gina and KimBoo, how have you come to own and respect your own authority in your writing and writing process? And what may have been some of the challenges? Gina, why don’t you start.

Gina
17:13
Oh, so there’s a lot in that question. There are a lot of things that come to mind. So let me, let me start. So, I’m gonna talk about not just writing, but my voice. You know, kind of what I stand for in the world, and I think that one of the things that really, truly took me miles and miles in this journey of finding my voice and finding my own authority and autonomy was when I decided that I was going to become a WomanSpeak Circle Leader. Now, I did that for about two years. And the intention from a business standpoint was to support the writers that I work with in being able to stand up in front of a group of people, whether that’s at a book signing or at a conference and to be able to speak with confidence and to know what their message is. But what I realized after about two years of doing that was that I did not go through that process for my clients and my friends that I hoped that I was supporting. I went through that process for myself. And truthfully, it took me way further toward being able to connect with myself and my values and what I want to stand for as a creative person than almost anything else that I’ve ever done. 

As to the challenges. Yeah, yeah, it was powerful. And like I said, it was only in retrospect that I realized that I was doing it for me, not for the women that I was supporting. And it was a tremendous journey for all of us. I think we all got a great deal out of it. 

As far as the challenges in finding that authority in my writing, I think things that we’ve touched on before in these episodes: perfectionism, imposter syndrome, being afraid that people are gonna think that I’m something, that I think that I’m something that I really am not, and that they’re going to call me out on it, and that I’m going to be shamed in public. Those kinds of things. But I really think what you said, Melody, about connecting with the heart—and I understand why the heart is the supreme controller in this season—that when you really connect with what is in your heart, that we can let go of needing to have external validation, that we don’t have to be performative, doing what people expect us to do, that that’s when we can truly lean into who we are and what it is that we want to create.

Melody
20:19
Wow, that’s powerful.

KimBoo
20:23
Just kind of sitting here absorbing all that.

Melody
20:27
Mm hmm. And the reason the mind is not supreme controller, we talked about in the previous episode: the ego, the mind is part of ego. And the mind is mostly about getting shit done and surviving. And sometimes, both at the same time. 

And the purpose of the mind is to do the bidding of the balanced heart. When the heart is not balanced, the mind takes over, and ego rears larger than life, I think egos are important. They help us get stuff done. They help us get stuff done. Without the mind and the ego, we would just lay around and have wonderful, great ideas and be blissed out all the time and go, “Yeah.” But we have things to do with the visions and the projects and the goals that we see. The mind is there to carry that out. And the heart stays centered and grounded with authenticity, truth, and integrity. It’s like that captain of the ship KimBoo was talking about in the previous episode. Your whole, not only you, but your whole crew, the people you work with, your team feels safe and held. Oh, the leader knows where it’s going. You know, it knows the path and knows the way through. And only when we claim that for our very selves, can we speak with that authority. And I would say for women, the biggest challenge is also because we are taught to be more support staff and companions, and to do someone else’s bidding, pleasing, people-pleasing. And so it’s not as natural for us to claim ownership sometimes.

Gina
22:55
Yes.

KimBoo
22:56
That’s so true.

Gina
22:58
I would like to, if I can just take a second, to bring something to the attention of the listeners, and to also give you guys a warning, you two. There was a gem buried in what Melody just talked about. And I’ll give you credit, but the warning is I’m going to use this in my book because it is so powerful. Take this in, listeners. The purpose of the mind is to do the bidding of the balanced heart. Not to be the leader, not to take control, but to do the bidding of the heart, which should be our controller. So we, you know, there have been so many gems in the things that we’ve talked about in terms of The Creativity Quest and the guideposts. So the warning to you two is, I’m gonna quoting ya.

KimBoo
24:02
Oh, no, she’ll be quoting us.

Melody
24:05
Why, why, thank you, Gina.

KimBoo
24:08
Glad you wrote it down, Gina, because I agree with you. That was a gem. She dropped that into, like a pebble into a pond, and the ripples were still hitting me. And you were still talking and I’m like shit, I need to write that down. I need to remember what she said. So I’m glad you did, Gina, because I’ll probably be stealing it as well at some point. I mean, you’ve been warned. Melody. Sorry. Because that truly was very, very profound.

Melody
24:33
It was such a big aha when I recognized that, and it brought a lot of stuff into focus. It was like, oh, that’s how we continue to do what we do without getting lost in confusion and out in the weeds and down rabbit holes and worried about somebody else’s hurt feelings. Waah-de-waah. But how we also carry it out with compassion and kindness, because the heart is all about compassion. About truth. It’s about speaking the truth with love. Not just speaking the truth with a two-by-four, beating somebody over the head with it, including ourselves. But speaking the truth with love. We all need to hear the truth spoken clearly and directly.

Gina
Even when it’s a hard truth. 

Melody
Especially when it’s a hard truth. And not all entangled with the mind’s rationalizations or expectations. It’s like, nope, here it is. It’s sort of like that map we were talking about. If you’re trying to navigate on the map that’s not really yours, or you spill coffee on it, and, or if it shifts, you know. Like you were talking about earlier, Gina. It changes the whole perspective, may not change your vision, but it changes the whole perspective of what you’re doing and where you’re going. And we don’t expect, you know, when you were talking about WomanSpeak, you were thinking it was gonna lead down one direction, but it didn’t. And I would say the same thing happened with me and plant spirit medicine. I got super excited. I loved the medicine. I took the rigorous two-year training and then another year of internship for becoming a plant spirit medicine healer, which I’m still loving doing and being a part of, but I was meant to write this book. That was the real reason I took plant spirit medicine.

Gina
26:57
Yeah.

Melody
27:00
And this book would never have been written without that.

Gina
27:03
Yeah. And I think that I wouldn’t be where I am in my writing, and this new enthusiasm for my writing, if it hadn’t been for WomanSpeak. Yeah. So, Melody, we can’t let KimBoo slide out of answering the question. 

KimBoo
27:21
Well, this has been great. Thank you, Listeners.

Gina
27:25
Good try. Not happening.

Melody
27:28
Yeah, so, KimBoo, how have you come to own and respect your authority in your writing and the writing process, and/or what have been your challenges?

KimBoo
27:40
So it’s, as most people who know me know, I’ve practiced Buddhism for many years, and one of the most difficult lessons of Buddhism is that attachment leads to suffering. And a lot of people think that that means you need to not be attached to anything, that you should have no emotions. I can always tell newbie Buddhists because they’re like, I have no attachment. I have no feelings about this. And I’m like, No, you’re just pretending you’re not human. That’s not the same thing at all. But when you were talking about it, the phrase that kept coming up for me and I even wrote it down, it’s the idea of letting go. And letting go of attachments, for me, has been very important in this process of becoming my own leader, becoming my own captain of my own ship, and understanding, taking ownership of my voice and my plans and my hopes and my dreams, because I have been using other people’s maps for so long. And I’ve been taught for so long that I had to use their maps, or I would end up lost, right. And maybe for a little while that was true. But eventually, as you said, Melody, my path shifted, things for me internally as a person changed. But I kept clinging to those maps. Like, oh, this map got me where I wanted to be. Surely it will get me to the next place I want to be. But no, no, that map was not for me. That map was another person’s map and it was helpful, and it got me through the rocky waters or whatever metaphor-analogy thing that you want to use there. But being able to let go of previous expectations, Gina, you kind of mentioned that with talking about WomanSpeak. Your expectation—and I remember you going through the training—your expectation was going to be this one thing and this is how you’re going to implement it and this is what you’re going to do. By the time you got through the whole process, your map had changed. And, but you embraced it, unlike me. You weren’t clinging to the side of the ship like, Don’t leave me here.

Gina
30:00
Oh, I clung for a while.

KimBoo
30:03
You clung, yeah. I think it’s just human nature to be honest with you. But yet, letting go has been my biggest issue because holding onto the side of the ship, we’re talking about the heart balance and I was unbalanced by doing that. I was not trying to save myself. I was not trying to find my own path. I was not following my own map. And so letting go, to me, has been a big part of the process of Taking Ownership and being my own leader and finding my own voice and authenticity, because to do that, I had to let go of so many things I thought were important to me or thought I needed to do, but worked.

Gina
30:47
I have to thank both of you. In our last episode, Melody spoke about an example of having her foot in two places at one time, basically being at two guideposts in the process. And what you have just demonstrated, KimBoo, in your answer to this question, is how a preceding guidepost or phase supported you in getting you to this guidepost. You talked about letting go? Well, we’ve already done an episode about Releasing. And so unless you had gone through that guidepost, unless you had done that letting go, you couldn’t have gotten to this guidepost. So thank you for sharing things in a way that helps illustrate what this Creativity Quest really is all about.

Melody
31:42
Oh, absolutely. Because it also reminded me about how we can use the strength of the other seasons and the passages of the creativity cycle to help us through what we’re doing now. Within the season of Spring, we’re talking about getting grounded in our vision and putting down roots, and Summer helps mature that. And the season of Spring is about fluidity and flexibility, strength with flexibility. And if we become too rigid: I had this vision, particular vision back here, and it was really good, and probably at the time, it was fine. It was good for us at that point. But if you cling to it and become too rigid, can’t let go of it, we bring suffering on ourselves. We lose passion for what we’re doing. It doesn’t become fun anymore. It becomes a chore, and the people we’re trying to work with can see it. 

KimBoo
That’s true.

Gina
32:55
That’s so true. Well, ladies, you know, I know I’ve said this before on episodes, but I think that might be our best one. Great conversations here. Listeners, we appreciate you coming along in these conversations that we have together. You know, this podcast was born out of us sitting around a table talking about writing, and we’re like, let’s just share this with people. Yeah. 

So we want to remind you that a lot of the things that we’ve talked about in this particular episode, we’ve gone into greater depth about in previous episodes, and we will link to those on our website for the podcast, which is AroundTheWritersTable.com. You can also listen to this podcast on your other platforms such as Spotify, Apple. I can’t remember all of them, but you know. Oh, yes, and thanks to KimBoo’s rigorous, hard work she has gotten our past episodes up on YouTube as well. So you can listen there if you would like. 

We will be attaching, in addition to resources at the bottom of the page on the website, any worksheets that will go with this. Leave us a comment there, or on your podcast provider, give us a review, a thumbs up, whatever you can to get the word out that you’ve enjoyed this podcast. Share it with friends and other writers, and we appreciate you being here. And we look forward to talking with you again next time.

KimBoo
Bye. 

Melody
34:33
Thanks, everybody.

Dave Hogan, Gina’s Pop
34:36
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.

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