173: March 2025 Q&A

 

Novel Jumpstart, a program to help you write the first chapter of your novel in four weeks, is now open for enrollment! Get more information here.

Welcome to the March Q&A episode! Topics discussed include:

  • whether you need to outline/plot your book before you start writing 3:11

  • how to pick a book idea when you have more than one 4:57

  • what to do after finishing a 2nd draft 7:39

  • my content creation process 10:04

  • posting on IG after not posting for a while 17:33

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- The last Tuesday of the month is a Q&A episode! Submit your questions for me HERE.


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March 2025 Q&A

Hi friends, welcome to your big creative life podcast and welcome to our March Q&A episode, just a reminder that the last Tuesday of every month is Q&A episode where I answer y'all questions on writing, editing, mindset, querying, social media, business, personal stuff, whatever, so you can submit any questions that you want in. The link is in the show notes, and there's a... it's just a form that you fill out. You don't have to submit your name. And yeah, I'm excited. We have four or five questions this month, and a couple of them are on social media. And just a heads up, I'm gonna have a Social Media Episode come out in two weeks in April that talks about the basics of content creation and social media, kind of one on one for that, since it's something I love and I think is super important, and a lot of people, you know, find content creation and posting on social media overwhelming or scary or whatever, and I want to, I want to help, because I used to feel that way too.

 

Also the waiting list for Novel Jumpstart is officially open. The rebranded novel jumpstart program launches in April. Let me get my date straight. So enrollment opens on April 1, and then the program officially starts Monday, April 14. This is a four week program for new writers, and it's designed to help you write the first chapter of your novel in four weeks. So you get access to an online course, but you get to keep by the way, even after the Novel Jumpstart program ends, you get lifetime access to it. You get a weekly coaching call with me where you can ask questions, get coaching, do some brainstorming, just mindset, help whatever you need. And then there's a discord group with all the writers, and as an optional add on, if you want me to review your first chapter, I can give you some notes after the program is over.

 

So the waitlist is currently open again. Enrollment opens on April 1. The program starts April 14. But if you get on the wait list, you get priority registration and you get a $50 coupon code. So it takes the price from 299 to 249 and just by the way, my idea to book course, which is the course that you get access to, is 249 that's what the price of the online course is. So you're basically getting the online course plus coaching, coaching calls with me, the ability to ask me question you want and get feedback and have accountability, plus a group, Discord group, and then you can add on the feedback from me. So it's a great deal. If you want to get that coupon code, you just have to get on the wait list. And I'll have the link in the description of this episode so you can go check out more information, see what's included if novel jump start is right for you, and then sign up to get on the wait list. Okay, anything else I have to share? I don't think so. Yeah, let's get into our questions for this month.

 

Question number one, where am I going? Here we are. Do you think it's necessary to plot your book before you start, or is it okay to plot things out as you go in the story, definitely okay to plot things out as you go. Some writers prefer to do all of that plotting and planning ahead of time, to figure out what the story is, to figure out the direction that the plot goes in, to figure out how things end, etc. But some writers want to just start writing they have an idea for a scene, or a rough shape of a character or a setting they want to write in, and they just want to see, like, Where does the story go? What are they actually writing about? And that's part of the fun. So either is great, either is wonderful. There's no wrong way to do it. There's no correct way to write a book. Now I will say, if you've heard me talk about characters before you'll know that I do recommend spending a little bit of time thinking through your main character or characters. And it doesn't have to be before you start. You do not have to have everything figured out about your main character before you begin. That's not what I'm suggesting.

 

But I think it helps in the writing process to have a few ideas nailed down about who that person is, because it helps you with the plot. It helps you with pacing, it helps you with conflict. All of these things are helped when you know that little bit or those few things about your character. So feel free if you just want to start writing, you have my permission. You don't need my permission. You can do whatever you want. But if, in case you did, in case someone is making you feel bad about, you know, being a pantser and just writing the story, you can absolutely figure it out as you go. There just might be a little bit more work you have to do to shape the story and edit the story, if it is rougher at the end. But that's fine.

 

Next question, how? Do you decide which book idea you want to develop further if you have multiple This is a great problem to have, if we even think about it as a problem, because it's not to have multiple book ideas. That's really cool. It's a cool place to be in. And there are, of course, things that you have to consider if you're an established author, if you've written exclusively in one genre, and you have an idea for a book in a different genre, then you have to do more thinking about that in terms of, like, your positioning, your career and stuff. No, you can. Of course you can, but there's a little bit more thought required. But if you're a new writer and or your books aren't published yet, and you're like, ah, which which idea do I go with? I want you to follow your gut. I want you to follow your heart. Sounds cheesy, but let me explain. There's probably going to be one of these story ideas that you feel a stronger connection to, or put a different way. There's going to be an idea that you feel more excited about telling that you're thinking about more than the other story idea, or ideas. That's the one I want you to go with.

 

Now, when you pick a story idea, try committing to it for, like, I don't know, a couple months, three months, let's say three months. That's not it doesn't have to be three months, but I think that's a good amount of time, because what you're doing is you're forcing yourself to commit to one idea, to see it through for that length of time, and then you can decide if it's working, if it's not working, if you want to shelve it and come back to it later, if you do think one of those other story ideas is actually a better fit. That'll give you some clarity. Sometimes you have to start writing something and get a little ways down the road before determining that it's not working or it's not the next right book idea for you. And also remember that when you're doing this, it can feel urgent and important and like the stakes are really high, and in some respects, maybe they are, if you're thinking about what your debut book is going to be, but you're going to come back to the story ideas. You're just you're just putting pause on them. You're not rejecting them. You're not saying, No, I'm never going to write those. I don't want those.

 

It really is about just pausing and then picking one idea and then coming back to the others. So yeah, I think it's, I think this is just one of those things where you really have to pay attention to how you're feeling and pay attention to like, if you feel a pull towards one over the other. And if you truly can't decide if you're like I'm equally as excited, I feel a pull towards both of these ideas. Just pick one. See it through for two, three months, and then you can evaluate if it's the right step for you.

 

Next up, after finishing my second draft, what do you recommend I do? Congratulations on getting a second draft done. That's exciting. We talk a lot about getting the first draft done, but the second draft means that you've edited. So that's exciting. First of all, I think it's good to take a break, especially if you didn't take a break or much of a break before you finished the first draft and got into editing. Taking a break from your manuscript, sending it down, working on something else, or not working on anything, can be a good little reset for our brains. We're never going to be able to see our work completely objectively, but it does help you see it more objectively, I think, like it's a little bit fresher, if you can take that space and then come back to it, and I think it helps the editing process too. So that would be my first recommendation for anything else. It's going to be hard to say, because some writers will plan out their story and write a pretty clean first draft, meaning that they're not really there's not a lot of stuff that they have to change. Yeah, there's some tweaks and some revisions, but there's not a lot.

 

So for those writers, a second draft might be not done, but it might be pretty good, and then the next edit would be just looking at, like line level stuff, like looking at sentences, looking at word choices, etc, cleaning up grammar, if you want to do that. But for some writers who write a little bit rougher in their first draft, their second draft might still be pretty rough, where they've addressed some of those big picture things, but it's really not set in stone. There's still a lot of issues. So in terms of what to work on, I can't, I can't really give advice for this, because it just, it does just depend. I do have a training that's on how to edit your draft. It's a, like a 35 minute training. It's pretty inexpensive, and it goes through my five draft editing method. So if you want a method that breaks this down, how I recommend doing it, as well as tips and tricks, you can check that out in my stand store link.

 

But yeah, I think it's like, it's important to do all the big picture stuff first, like moving chapters around, writing new chapters, big changes before you get to that role, line level, stuff like looking at sentence structure and word choice, etc. So yeah, I think it's just going to kind of depend on on what state your second draft is in. But I do think taking a break, if you have the time, and. And you can do it. I think it's helpful for any writer.

 

All right, next up, we have two social media questions that are kind of similar, but kind of not so I'm going to read each of these and answer them separately, but I do just want to say that in two weeks, we're going to have a social media 101, episode where I talk about the basics of social media content creation from someone who's been doing this for a while and really loves it. I didn't always love it. It used to be very overwhelming and very stressful and very time consuming for me to create content on social media, but that has completely changed for me, so I'm excited about that episode. So you'll have more tips in a couple weeks on on social media. Okay, question number one about social media, how is your content creation process as someone who has multiple jobs and obligations? So I can answer this as someone who like my job right now is not content creation. I do not get paid to create content. I get a little bit of money occasionally, if I do a brand deal or I'm in the Tiktok creator rewards program.

 

So if I have a video that's over a minute and does well, I might get like, 50 cents from it. But so I'm not making much from content creation, so I do have to fit it in around my other responsibilities and obligations, just like a lot of you listening, if you have a nine to five and you're writing and you're trying to think about content creation on top of that, it can feel like a lot. So the process that I have right now is one that I've settled on after years of trying to force myself to do it a different way. I am not someone who is very structured and rigid in my content creation workflow. I have purchased courses. I have implemented methods where it's very type a, very organized, whether it's like Asana task boards or like notion, and you list everything out and you script it, and you include the captions and the hashtags in your project management system. And then you have one day where you film all your stuff, and then you edit and you uploaded it, and then everything's organized, and you have project status like, Okay, I filmed these videos, but I still have to script these, and it does not work. It does not work for me.

 

And I just have made peace with it begrudgingly, because there is a part of me that still would like to be that organized, but I just I'm not. So what this looks like for me now is there are two things that are scheduled automatically for me, a podcast video that I do to promote the podcast, and then whatever the episode is that week, and then I have a carousel post on Instagram, and I think I posted on Tiktok too. That's text. It's written now it's a writing a piece of writing, advice or motivation or something like that, and that's posted, and it's a text carousel that people scroll through. Those two are automatic, but the other ones, when I'm in a mood to create content, and I feel like my energy is good, I want to create content I do. And when I do that, I will create a few videos at a time. Usually I will do two, three videos in one sitting, because I feel excited by it and it feels good. Now, I have to be careful when I talk about this, because I don't want to suggest that, like, Oh, you have to wait until you're in the mood to do content, and you can only ever do content when you're in the mood.

 

Because when I was first starting, I was never in the mood to do content because it was scary and overwhelming and all those things I mentioned. But now this many years into it, I have a lot of days, like multiple points where I'm excited to create content, and so I take advantage of that, because I feel like my energy is good. And then I will do a few video ideas. And what I some of the best advice I got, I don't even remember where I heard this initially, is document, not create, and I think about that a lot with the videos that I make. Now, in the past, it was different, but now, if I have if something sparks, where I'm talking with a coaching client about something, or I've noticed I've given a piece of feedback to multiple editing clients in a row, or I've noticed a problem in my own writing, and like, want to talk about what I've done to fix it, or what I wish I knew as a new writer. Whatever it is, like, I'll get these little sparks of info in for of ideas based on conversations I'm having, things I'm thinking about my job, like the editing work that I do, and then that will inspire me to document it.

 

So I'll just open up my camera on my phone and record a video talking about that thing. Or if I'm doing a writing sprint, I will do a video, a vlog, and talk about that. If I'm doing a creative power hour, I'll do that. If I am getting feedback on my writing, and then I'll record a video to talk about that. So documenting versus creating is helpful, because then I don't have to sit like on a Monday morning and think, Okay, what are 25 video ideas I can come up with? And let me script all of them and organize all the captions and all that stuff that works wonderful for so many people. And again, I'm sort of envious of people who work that way, but it's just not me. So when I record its a few videos at a time. I will only record them, so I record them on my camera, and then I close my phone and don't edit them the same time. Later that day or the next day, maybe I will edit all the videos at the same time. And editing means cutting down the clips, trimming things, adding captions into the video, putting the text on screen, writing the caption and the hashtags for the video, and then saving that into the drafts on Tiktok. That's my that's what I do.

 

I do all of that together because I think it helps. Like, when I'm in a content creation mode, I want to just, I want to create content. I want to record a video then, then when I'm maybe not so much in that mood, I can edit and get things ready to post, but I don't actually post them. And my workflow is that everything gets created on TikTok first, and then it gets repurposed to Instagram and to YouTube shorts, like a week later or so, I think I'm about a week behind, depending on the video and the day, but so I'll save it to my drafts and Tiktok and then post it. That's kind of my my creation process. Again. I will share more about this in the social media episode. But I think one thing that really helps with balancing content creation with everything else is making it as easy as possible create as little resistance as you possibly can. Because if I were to tell myself, okay, my hair has to be done, my makeup has to be done, I have to have the perfect lighting. I have to have the fancy video equipment and a great backdrop, and it's super fancy editing and cuts, and I would hardly ever create a video like I'm recording this right now. I'm not looking at myself even I'm looking at the camera.

 

Because if I look at myself too much while I'm recording videos, I start to analyze myself and how I look, and I notice I've got this hair out of place, and, oh, I should have put a little bit of lip gloss, and, oh, I'm not wearing earrings today, and I just worked out right before this, so I'm still kind of red. I just, I don't even look at myself. What what I look like is none of my business. I'm just delivering the content. Um, so I just want to make it as easy as possible to record content. I keep things simple. I keep things accessible. And I think if you're if you're struggling to fit content, creation is this is one of the biggest things that can help is to make it so easy, and also to not be a perfectionist about it, like you cannot be too precious about a single piece of content where you're agonizing and spending hours with it and you just gotta create it, post it, or save it in your drafts and move on.

 

So the next question that we had about content, my posting on my Instagram grid has been dormant. While I don't subscribe to the you need followers to get an agent to get published. I do think social media helps with marketing and outreach. Do you have suggestions for how to jump back into posting again? Should I ease my way back in or just start making content? First of all, definitely want to reiterate this. You do not need a huge social media following to get an agent or to get a book deal, because this is literally proven false. Every single week there are deals being made. People sign with agents who don't have a social media platform. People get book deals who don't have a social platform. Fiction that is non fiction. It's different.

 

But this is, this is one of those myths that keeps getting circulated around social media targeting new writers, because it's usually said by someone who wants to sell you something that they want to sell you some social media course, or like, here's you have to do it this way, otherwise agents won't even pay attention to your query. Yeah, you just you don't need a following. However, in this day and age, I am in agreement with this person, that it does make sense to paint yourself in the best possible light, and if an agent or an editor at a publisher sees that you just at the bare minimum that you post and you know how to create content that's going to make you more appealing. Because even if you get a traditional publishing deal, you are still going to have to create content. You're still going to have to market yourself. You can't just sit back and let your publisher do all of that.

 

 So a couple things to consider here with someone who wants to get back into posting. It hasn't been posting for a while. First up is to think about how active your PO your account has been, and who your followers are. For some people, it makes the most sense to create a separate author account if you really want to be be strongly presenting yourself, positioning yourself as an author, and if it feels cringy to do that, if your followers are like people from high school and your extended family, it works best for some people to create a separate account. It's not cringy, to be clear, it is very much not cringy. But I understand being that mindset. I did the same thing. I was that way too, where I felt like I just wanted to hide from people that knew me in real life while I kind of figured out the whole content creation thing.

 

So consider, if you want to start a new account and make it public, I mean, you have to make it public so that people can see what you're posting. I. Um, but, or if you want to just switch gears, you want to pivot on your account and start implementing some writing content, or some book content or whatever, um, what I would not do is do a lot of, like, ramping up, where you're like, I'm getting ready to post more. And like, sorry, I haven't been very active. But here's what's going on. No, just hit the ground running post, as if you have never missed posting, as if you've been super consistent the whole time, and just post whatever content you want to post. I think that's going to work best if it's a new account and you just hit the ground running and start posting. Or if it's your old account you want to revitalize it, just start posting. Don't explain. You don't have to. You can just start posting new content. What else do I want to say about this?

Yeah, I think it goes back to what I was saying before, about like, not being too precious or too perfectionist about content to just get that, get the reps in, get the experience of posting under your belt while you're in this you know, if you're in a phase where, like, you don't have an agent yet, but you want one, or even for indie authors, like, if you haven't published a book yet, but you know it's coming, this is the practice period. This is where you get your training wheels, and you kind of post, and you just start to implement some of the content that talks about writing and you sharing more of your life and behind the scenes into what it looks like to be an author. And yeah, get comfortable. Get a little bit more comfortable with it. I think that's helpful. So yeah, with both of those social media things, again, I'm gonna have an episode in two weeks that talks more about social media. All right, thank you everyone for listening or watching the YouTube video. 

Katie Wolf