This episode delves further into Gina’s Creativity Quest stage of verifying and testing!

We explored how this process of testing our creative boundaries and sharing our work with others relates to the natural seasons of writing and plant spirit medicine. Melody provided insights on using these paradigms to stay aligned with our creative vision during challenging periods of revision and maturation. For many of us, the fall season of letting go and accepting feedback is when doubts can creep in. But having clarity on our purpose and maintaining community support can help us through.

We also discussed our clients’ struggles to see the forest for the trees and lose sight of their goals. Productivity coaching aims to help them build confidence by establishing clear plans. Whether your strength lies in ideation or revision, we hope we offered perspectives on maintaining balance and harmony on your creative journey. Join us next time as we enter the stage of fully integrating and dedicating ourselves to our craft.

RESOURCES

Questions on the Five Seasons and Verifying & Testing

• Spring: Do I verify and test the work I am currently involved with against my vision for my project? In other words, does the work I am currently doing fit my intended vision?
• Summer: Does the process of maturation of my WIP (revisions, editing, development) hold up to my vision? Do I invite my writing community to give me support and encouragement?
• Harvest: Do I take occasions to celebrate my work at whatever stage it is in? Do I feed myself emotionally, spiritually, physically, intellectually in balanced ways?
• Fall: How do I verify and test my work against feedback provided by editors, beta readers, and critique groups? Do their comments and suggestions fit into my vision and what I know to be true regarding my project, characters, and story line?
• Winter: How do I provide myself with appropriate moments of rest in each phase of my work? Do I allow myself time to “sleep on it” when considering important revisions/changes to my WIP?

Episode 35: Revisions, Boundaries, and Clarity

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
0:42
Hello, listeners, this is KimBoo York. Welcome back to  Around the Writer’s Table podcast. We’re getting started on episode 35. We’re actually continuing with a creativity quest, a little bit. As usual, this is going to be a sister episode to the one we recorded earlier, which was Episode 34, on Verifying and Testing. I suggest you go back and listen to that episode before listening to this episode, where Gina talks about that, and she’ll be giving a little bit of a review of that later on. But we will be proceeding on that topic with Melody talking about how the seasons and her spirit medicine paradigm fit into this specifically for writers. So looking forward to this conversation, because we’re gonna dig more into the nuts and bolts of it. 

If you don’t know, I am KimBoo York, I am a novelist and a productivity coach for authors. I love writing, I love talking about writing, and I love helping other authors write. I also run the 1 Million Words Club which is an online membership community for writers focused on productivity and accountability in your writing. So that’s something I’m really enjoying. I launched that earlier this year, and it’s been great for me. 

I am, of course, joined by my wonderful co-hosts. We’re going to start with Miss Gina, if you care to introduce yourself to those who might not be familiar with your wonderfulness.

Gina Hogan Edwards
2:12
Hello, KimBoo. And hello, listeners. Glad to be here today. I’m Gina Hogan Edwards, and I absolutely love creating safe spaces for women to be themselves to really lean into who they are, to find their voice, and to lean into their creativity as well, and I do that by hosting writing retreats primarily on the lovely Gulf shore beaches of North Florida. Also, I’m a novelist myself. Historical fiction is my jam. Now I pass the baton to our lovely Melody, who is the third writer.

Melody, A Scout
2:51
Thank you. And thank you, listeners, for taking some precious time out of your day to join us again around the writer’s table. I am 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: Creating Balance, Resilience, and Connection by Tapping the Wisdom of the Natural World, which is available online at most bookstores. And you can check out my blog posts at soul-of-the-seasons.com. Oh! Put another dash in there (dot)com, another dash in between all those words. And I also do this through designing beauty and wonderful things as a landscape designer and a lifelong gardener.

KimBoo
3:48
And we’re back to talk about this subject, and so what we’re going to do is we’re going to have Gina do a little bit of an overview of Verifying and Testing as we talked about it in Episode 34 so that then we can hand the mick, the virtual microphone—because we’re all wearing microphones—but the virtual microphone over to Melody to get into some of the—I’m gonna say it, I’m gonna say it—the weeds of it. Get into the weeds of the whole subject in regards to the seasons of writing. So, Gina, if you’d like to catch us up a little bit.

Gina
4:23
Sure. Thank you. So beginning back in Episode 18 we started talking about The Creativity Quest, and we are now, we’ve been discussing Verifying and Testing. This is a stage in the creative process when you are becoming more open about your creative life. You are really leaning into showing the world what your values and your beliefs are and what the foundations of your creative life are going to be about. It’s a place where those who support us, those who understand us and get us, and our allies really show up. It’s also a place where those who don’t understand us or don’t want to understand us begin to get filtered out. It’s a stage where a lot of boundaries are needed because new tests are coming about in the form of other people sometimes starting to judge us and push our buttons and question why we’re doing what we’re doing . . . because, you know, you’re a writer and that’s weird! So it’s really an outer wearing on our sleeve this life as a creative person in a way that we may not have done up until now. 

As we have done in past episodes, I’m going to pass this off to Melody now so that she can tell us a little bit about the paradigm and the concepts that she’s created in her book Soul of the Seasons and how that relates to the writing life and specifically to this stage of the creative process that we’re calling Verifying and Testing.

Melody
5:57
Thanks, Gina. I just want to verify that I love weeds, and weeds are just plants that have not yet been sufficiently loved. Just FYI.

KimBoo
Ah, I love that. All right. 

Melody
We talked about the Verifying and Testing part of the creativity cycle in our last podcast. So I would recommend that you pause and go back and listen to that episode first. It’ll help a lot of stuff we’re talking about now make a lot more sense. 

We’re going to talk a little bit about how the season of Spring and Fall work in this particular aspect of The Creativity Cycle. But I want to go briefly over the five seasons of the writing process, because we haven’t done that for a while, and so to help you get oriented or reoriented on how the seasons affect the writing process. 

Right now, I’m going to start with Winter because we are in the middle of winter. You can’t see us, but all of us are bundled up and it’s cold out. It’s about to get colder here, and winter is all about the season at rest and quiet. It is dark and cold. It’s where things slow down. Things come to rest and things die away. In our writing process, it’s also the womb of creativity and gestation. It’s where those little fertile seeds, those little story ideas, it’s ways we can work and make our work better. They come to rest and they fall into earth and they wait for the right moment in time to germinate and pop their heads above ground. So it’s a great time, when somebody says sleep on it, this is absolutely the time that you need to do this. I just wanted to verify that Gina as my editor was good at reminding me to take a break and rest after each stage of the grueling process of the revision process. So thank you, Gina.

Gina
You’re so welcome.

Melody
During the next season, of course, Winter gives way to Spring and it’s where those little story and seed ideas start popping. They show their heads above ground. This is where first drafts happen. This where our outlines take shape. This is a season of vision, planning, and boundaries. It’s where we get a clear idea in what our story is shaping to be, and then how we give it structure, where it’s going to go, and how it’ll land. 

Once we have that in the season of Spring—which is rapid growth; we get those first drafts popping; and writing like the world’s on fire; and get it out—then we move into Summer. This is a season of maturation. This really for me has to do also with the Verifying and Testing, because we test our work as it relates to our vision of our project during this time. There’s a lot of growth, we got to keep an eye on things. What do we do next? Those planning and boundaries that came in Spring are real helpful, because it keeps us on track. But this is also the season of community, passion, love, and play. And that keeps us motivated during this really grueling season where a lot is going on.

From Summer, we move through into Harvest, which is the season of reaping the rewards from all our hard work. It’s about sustenance and doing the thing that feeds us in our work. And it’s where our drafts are often completed. And we can feel full energetically with the stuff we’ve created with our work. It’s also time to celebrate. This is a season that can be frustrating for some, because we feel like we haven’t arrived, we haven’t fully received all the abundance, or we at least don’t feel like we have. Gina was also really good at reminding me to celebrate between each step of the process. I would be— 

KimBoo
That is so important. 

Melody
Oh my gosh, isn’t it? Because I would be like, “Okay, next.” Not giving myself a moment to really take in what I have created and to appreciate it and revel in its sweetness. Then from Harvest, we move on to the season of Fall, this is all a season of letting go. It’s about valuing our work. It’s also the season, what we call in Five Element medicine, sorting and separating. So this is where we go into the editing and the revision stage, a lot of times. We divide and keep what’s of value from what’s no longer needed or doesn’t fit within our vision. This may be a time you bring in beta readers, go to a critique group, or work with your editor, or sometimes all three. 

That is the overview of all the seasons. I want to talk specifically a little bit about the season of Spring, the vision for our work, and the planning in the boundaries phases of the writing process, and how this relates to Verifying and Testing. Because once we have the vision for our work, then any planning and boundaries that need to come into play need to fit within that vision. This can be a really challenging time because if you’re anything like me, I don’t know if y’all can relate, but I have a lot of ideas popping. And even within a story project, once I start it, it spins off a whole lot more ideas, and I could be chasing going down a lot of rabbit holes. And that’s why

Gina
12:58
Well, I don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about!

Melody
13:01
None of you.

KimBoo
13:02
Complete mystery like, oh, wow, what is this strange new world?

Melody
13:07
None of you have any clue? Oh, all right, so this is just for me. 

KimBoo
All about you, Melody.

Melody
So this is where the planning and the boundaries come into play and setting up the rails for your project. Then the season of Fall also, for me, factors into this Verifying and Testing because this is the season—the revision process, editing process, beta readers—is always about letting go of what no longer serves the vision or your story. And that can be challenging, because sometimes those passages are our favorites. Very favorites. We can always rely on the season of Spring, we can rely on all the seasons, to help us go through these challenging times. 

So, I would like to take a moment now and I would like to know, Gina and KimBoo, which season you feel most at ease with during the Verifying and Testing process. And which one do you find most challenging? Gina?

Gina
14:38
Well, first of all, I want to remind ourselves and the listeners that neither of these examples, these paradigms that we’re talking about, being The Creativity Quest and then the seasons, are a linear, neat, organized process.

KimBoo
14:59
Good reminder.

Gina
15:02
In each one of the seasons as you describe them, I can see certain aspects of the Verifying and Testing. And so, as far as . . . so the question was which one I’m at most ease with at verifying and testing? Yeah. So I would, it is tricky, because there’s certain aspects of each one that I really love. You’re talking about in Winter how those ideas start making themselves evident, but they’re sort of lying underneath the surface. So I just love the ideation, but I also love when it gets to the point in Spring when you get to give some structure to what you’re doing. So I would say kind of the Winter and the Spring are probably my two favorites, is where we get to generate those ideas and start seeing them come to the surface and then start molding them a little bit.

Melody
16:05
Nice. And which is the most challenging do you find, for yourself?

KimBoo
D. All of the above!

Gina
16:19
Um, well, let’s see here. How about the ah, it’s gotta be, you know, sharing the work, putting the work out there into the world, which I think is probably most evident, maybe, in the Summer? Would that be right to say that? Where you really first start really showing?

Melody
16:44
I’d say we’re looking at more Harvest or Fall when you start inviting people in.

Gina
16:52
And yeah, well, that! That’s uncomfortable. That’s uncomfortable. Let me just create, let me just keep on writing. 

Melody
17:00
Let me just sleep in my little writing cave. 

KimBoo
17:08
Yeah, just let me get my little writing shed set up in the backyard. Just close the door, peek out every once in a while.

Melody
Of course, just do that. Why can’t we?

Gina
17:18
I’m all for it.

Melody
17:20
Yeah. What about you, Kimboo?

KimBoo
17:26
So I think, as far as Verifying and Testing, the one season that feels most comfortable to me is Spring, because I just love coming up with ideas, and I love talking about them, and I love sharing them, and that’s verifying and testing, in that sense. The most challenging one is also Fall, for me. Not because I have problems letting go of my work. As we’ve talked in the past, in previous episodes, I’m really good about letting go of my work. I just throw it out into the world. Here, read my blog post. Here, read my books. But the flip side of that is that I’m a little too good at letting go of it. I just let it out in the world but then never look back. And I don’t build up . . . so let me see if I can . . . so the verifying and the testing part of this is that I don’t find my readers, the readers for my work, because I’m not really looking for them. I’m not looking at them. I’m just throwing the work out there and hoping somebody picks it up off the ground. And so for me, it’s I’m not really harvesting; I’m not really planting. I’m not doing any of that, and so when it comes to seeing the work as a successful entity outside of having written it and feeling proud of having written it, finding the readers for it is where I feel very challenged. 

I’m looking at the notes that we have for this episode: dividing what’s of value from what’s not, with beta readers and critique groups and editors. And I’m pretty good at that. But then we get to the actual readers that the story was meant for . . . am I listening to their validation? Am I listening, am I testing—I hate to say, I don’t want to make it sound like a marketing thing—but am I listening to the fans of the work? Am I listening to the readers? Part of me doesn’t want to. It’s like maybe they won’t like it and I don’t want to know, so it’s just like, “Here, have it, and just go on your merry way.”

Gina
19:42
So I have a question for you. Don’t hate me. Okay? But I have a question for you. 

KimBoo
I already do. I already do. I can tell. All right. All right. 

Gina
Does any of that have to do with not wanting—and you sort of alluded to it, which is what made me think of it—since you’re saying that you put it out there, you don’t really pay that much attention to what the readers think; you don’t necessarily try to find them. Does that have to do, not with you valuing your own work, but having some underlying resistance to knowing how others value your work?

Melody
20:22
Ooh.

KimBoo
20:22
I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I heard was: wahwahwah wahwahwah.

Melody
20:31
It must have landed.

Gina
Just a question. You don’t have to answer it now. Just consider it. And also, what I hear you saying is that when you finish something, you throw it out into the world, you don’t think much more about it, you don’t concern yourself about whether the readers are there or not, you just move on to the next thing. You’re not giving yourself that moment of breath, that moment of rest, that moment of celebration for what you’ve just accomplished.

Melody
20:58
I was thinking that, too, as you were talking.

KimBoo
21:01
You’re absolutely right on all of those counts. In fact, what’s really interesting—

Gina
Stop it!

KimBoo
I know. Just stop it! What’s been really interesting has been interesting for me over the last four or five months is I’ve been basically promoting my book Become an Unstoppable Storyteller, which is about writing advice for other writers. It’s a nonfiction book, it’s a craft book. And it’s very weird for me to be promoting it. I’m just like, “Oh, is this what book promotion feels like? Like talking about your book and being interviewed about the book?” 

Gina
Because you’ve not done that with fiction?

KimBoo
Because I’ve never done that with my fiction. Never. Never. It’s just been like, “Here’s a book, I hope you buy it.” So looking at how that relates to the verification and testing aspect of, you know, am I scared of what they’re gonna say? Am I not writing for readers at all? Am I only writing for myself? I don’t know. I’m going to have to sit with that, Gina, because it was an excellent question. And I can’t answer but I can compare the behavior I’ve had in the past about this with what I’m doing for the nonfiction book Become an Unstoppable Storyteller, because it’s very different, and it feels very weird. I’m like, “Okay, I already told you about this book. Why am I talking about it again?” But that’s what you have to do when you’re marketing something, just keep talking about it. It’s very weird.

Melody
22:24
I totally get what you’re saying, Kimboo, because I find myself challenged on those aspects a lot too. I would put things out to the world, never go back to them again, never revisit them. I maybe wouldn’t even talk about them again.

KimBoo
22:40
Right? Well, why? They’re out there. What do you need to do?

Melody
22:42
I, for myself, it was recognizing that that’s somewhat to do with both the valuing of my work and, in combination I want to say, with the Summer and community, and sharing what you have, the storyteller continuing to tell the story. Because, in other cultures, storytelling doesn’t end by telling a story once The story is told and retold and retold, and it continues to shape and have life. And as you know, as I know, certainly in experience, you take what you take and what your work is and even what you intended for it, and what was happening with you at the time of your writing, may or may not have any relevance to what the reader receives from it. Good and bad. They could have this whole revelatory experience that shifted their life completely, that had nothing to do with why you wrote it, or what that was about for you. But God bless them, if that’s what it did for you. It becomes an entity. Your finished work becomes an entity that has a life of its own, and I have a real strong tendency to orphan my work. Yeah, cut it loose. Yeah, okay. You’re on your own. 

Marketing is nurturing that along. If you don’t feel it’s meant for the larger world, don’t market it. Tell it to your friends or give it to your friends and be done with it. But if you feel like what you have to offer can be beneficial to others, then that is the valuing of it and sharing it with your community. And I really have, I would say that’s my challenged seasons in it. 

For me, I love the Spring. I love new story ideas when they pop. I love the first draft and, oh, my god, I can write forever and ever. Oh yeah, and I would. And I even like some aspects of the season of Fall. I actually enjoy critiquing and being critiqued. So that part, I kind of welcome. I like hearing how I maybe could shape and hone something better. I have to be in the right mood for it. I need to be aware of the mental and physical and emotional state I’m in when I am doing the critiquing and being critiqued. But I really do enjoy that aspect of it. I would say Summer is very challenging for me, because keeping going with the mature maturation process. It’s kind of when you’re in the trenches, sort of phase. You’re getting into the second, third, fourth, one hundred seventy-fifth revisions, and your editor hands back your manuscript with a lot of red highlights in it. And you just got to go sit and have an adult beverage and put your feet up.

KimBoo
26:24
Which, of course, we mean, a hot cup of tea.

Melody
26:28
Yeah, not me. But okay. It’s also, we’re gonna get to the second part of the question that I have for you is: so working with your clients, do you notice any patterns of which seasons are most challenging for your clients, and what have you offered for that? KimBoo?

KimBoo
26:54
I would say Summer is really—that if I were to put like a sticker on it, the client, the writing clients—I do work with small business owners sometimes, but specifically talking about my writing clients. And I, unlike Gina, I’m not a creativity coach in that sense. I am a productivity coach. I help people meet their word counts and their goals and that type of thing. But what I find with a lot of people is that they want to put their plan, and I’m looking at your notes right now: putting a plan into action, maturing your vision, second drafts, fleshing out your storylines and characters, and the most important one, staying true to the vision. So they get wrapped up in the story, they get frustrated by elements of it, they make a plan, but they don’t stick with it, because it’s not right, the right plan for them more often than not. And so this maturing aspect of it is very difficult for them, and a lot of times it’s because, in the sense of the verification and testing, the confidence isn’t there. And so they come to me to try to help them, not necessarily build up the confidence, but help them build the steps so they can get to their confidence. I think that would have to be the biggest stumbling block that I deal with, with my clients as far as the productivity side, what’s preventing them from putting words on the paper. And it’s that they’ve hit these walls about what their vision is having doubts. Not listening to their editors or their beta readers or their critique people, and just kind of drawing down and drawing down and drawing down into themselves until they’re not doing anything. So that would be my answer to that question.

Melody
28:45
And you’re really good at helping people see both the forest and the trees. Let me say that. You really have an art for that. And I would concur with you on that, and I think this was a detriment. I’d get a story idea. I’d get the first draft going. I’d have no idea of an ending, might not have much of an idea about the middle. I was excited about the storyline. I didn’t like to do the planning work of an outline. It felt constrictive. What if my story doesn’t go that way? All the excuses. But now I so much appreciate the outlines and the vision, and when I get stuck in the weeds, and that happens. If it hasn’t happened to you, it’s gonna happen. To get into the weeds at any phase. Oh, we focus on the vision. We focus on the reason you’re writing this and the vision for your story. So I totally get that.

KimBoo
30:01
Yeah, I have one client right now, before I hand it off to Gina to answer the question, it’s just where they are. They had the vision of what the story they wanted the story to become, and they got so unable to see the forest, they’re so busy picking it up trying to cut down the trees or whatever, that they just kind of stopped writing. And it was just in the act of making them write and be accountable for writing something that got them back on the track. So that’s definitely an issue. So didn’t mean to derail us too long there. Sorry.

Melody
30:34
That was on point. So yeah, Gina?

Gina
30:38
So the question is, clients, what have they been most challenged with? Right? 

Melody
And what can you offer? 

Gina
So I’m going to say knowing when they are ready to show their work, and then preparing themselves to be ready to show it.

KimBoo
30:58
Two separate steps.

Gina
31:01
That would probably fall into the season of Fall, right? Because beta readers, critique groups, editors, those are all places where we show our work. When I talk about being ready to get ready to show your work, we talked in the last episode a little bit about resilience, and also about knowing who to trust. All of those things, I think, are really challenging for clients to really know: Who can they show their work to? Who has earned the right to see their work? And who should they listen to and not listen to? 

The thing that I always suggest to them is—and in a way this relates to vision, but it’s a little bit more precise in that I suggest that they check for alignment, or maybe misalignment, between what they are receiving in terms of critique or feedback and what their original plans for the writing were, and what their vision, not only for the story itself, but for the way that they want to present their work in general to the world. And so making sure that the suggestions that they do heed are in alignment with the values and the beliefs that they hold around their writing, that are conveyed through their writing, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, and in alignment with the way they want to present themselves as a creative person in the world.

Melody
32:52
Absolutely. And, for myself, when I work with clients and when I am having this discussion with writers and creative types a lot, I find there’s a breakdown a lot of times. They lose momentum in Summer, in the long haul, in the maturation process, and then they are disappointed and they give up. This is too hard. They have lost their vision. They’ve lost sight of their vision. Maybe they went down some rabbit hole. Maybe they ran out of steam because Summer not only it’s about the maturation process, but it’s also about remembering to have fun, to play, calling in your passion for your work again, however that needs to be. And if we don’t have that, during that long process, we do burn out. That’s where burnout comes in. And I think each season— but that calls for us to verify and test in certain ways. 

In Winter, just as in the natural world, a lot of seeds fall to the ground. Not all of those seeds sprout and not all those sprouts develop into mature plants. And a recognition of that maybe you start out and you get really excited, but it just didn’t fizzle in. You couldn’t find a good vision for it. It was a good exercise. Move on to something else that calls you. Allow your work to call you into what it wants, the passion and vision of it. And in Spring, the vision is going to help you—I can’t tell you how much—reflecting back on your vision, and it helps with the decision making. Once you hold up, do I need to add this whole chapter in about so and so? And this is a fascinating character? And like, I don’t know, does it hold up to your vision? How does it compare to the vision of what you want to write about? Or the intention for your work? Does it? Good. Include it. No? Save it for another project or another storyline.

KimBoo
35:24
I’m gonna jump in because one of the things that, before we wrap this up and just say, one of the things that we’ve talked about with this Verifying and Testing that we seem to come back to a lot, and I just want to point out, is holding on to the vision, setting boundaries about the vision, referring to the vision. Making sure that what you have in your mind is concrete enough and strong enough that as you move forward, whether it’s through the initial act of writing, or whether you’re going into beta readers, or whether you’re like me, just throwing it out the window and hoping somebody reads it, having that vision is such an important part of the verification and testing process. I think, at least that’s my take on it. Gina, I don’t know, if that’s part of your whole creativity quest thing, or not.

Gina
36:11
Yeah, I’m sitting here nodding my head and just realizing, too, that you can’t check for alignment with your vision, and you can’t tap back into that vision, and you can’t draw from that vision unless that vision is really clear. And so really, it seems to me, the first stage for all of us is to get really clear about what that vision is. What’s the vision not only for your specific work, which of course is important to be able to carry through and to not get bogged down in that messy middle that you were talking about, Melody, but also having a vision for what our creative life is going to look like, because that’s different for all of us. And so being clear about what you want that to be, so that when you do check for the alignment, you’ve got something concrete to measure it. 

Melody
37:06
Exactly, because it will never come to full fruition if you are not clear on your vision. You’ll just be wandering around out in the wilderness for 40 years. I think one of the most helpful things I can offer my clients is to go back through each of the seasons, and ask, hold that up to your vision or your particular stuck place, and say, what do I need? Do I need more of this? What this season has to offer? Bring some of that in, see how that helps your writing process. In harvest, have you given yourself enough nourishment, physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual? Have you fed yourself enough? Do you have the right support in helping you do the editing and the letting go process? Do you have the right amount of rest and going within time? And that all feeds into it. Do you have enough community and laughter and play and passion in your life to help you get through the process? So that’s a list of questions that I am going to put on this podcast, at the bottom? 

KimBoo
Yeah, we can include those in the show notes. 

Melody
That’ll help people reflect back and see if, in verifying, and this is a process of verifying and testing. Do I have enough of this? Does this feel balanced? Because the balance and harmony, though you may feel off in one of these points of the season or cycle, it throws all of it off. You want balance in all seasons, and they are continually moving and cycling through. So we have covered some great territory today.

KimBoo
39:21
And we’ve got more to go. Gina, would you give us a little bit of an insight on what we’re going to be dealing with in the next episode when we move on with The Creativity Quest?

Gina
39:30
So the next stage or guidepost in The Creativity Quest is Integrating and Dedicating. And that is really when all of the masks come off. So we’ll dive into that deep in the next episode.

KimBoo
39:47
That’s a lead-in, right there.

Gina
39:52
So tune in next time, folks.

KimBoo
39:56
In the meantime, be sure to give us some thumbs up or some hearts or some likes on whatever app you’re listening to. Remember, you can also find all of our previous podcasts on our YouTube channel. And on our website, we have transcripts. We’ll have the worksheets. We’ll be including the worksheet for verifying and testing again on this episode as well. And also a feedback form. So if you have any comments, if you have any suggestions, if you have any questions, we would love to hear it, and we appreciate you all coming here and hanging out with us and thinking about the big thoughts. Thank you so much, listeners. We appreciate it.

Melody
40:34
Thank you all. 

Gina
40:35
Thank you. Bye.

Dave
40:40
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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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.