12 Week Year for Writers

Embracing Uncertainty

• Trevor Thrall • Episode 36

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Check out the Embracing Uncertainty Workshop, October 20, 2025!

The draft feels stuck, the notes aren’t talking, and your outline suddenly looks like wishful thinking. We’ve all been there. Trevor sits down with writing coach and historian-turned-book coach Christina Larocco to unpack a calm, repeatable way to turn uncertainty into momentum—without waiting for a muse or getting lost in another stack of sources.

Christina shares the simple two-column exercise that changes everything: list what you know on one side and what you don’t know on the other. Those unknowns become concrete questions, and questions become small, focused experiments you can run in a single session. We dig into structured freewriting, constraint-based prompts, and playful methods—from writing a paragraph three ways to sketching a three-panel comic—that coax clarity when the page feels hostile. You’ll hear how to stop the common avoidance loops: surface-level tinkering, endless research, and premature abandonment of promising drafts.

Together we challenge the plotter vs. pantser binary and show how both camps can cross-train. Plotters plan for discovery so surprises strengthen structure instead of derailing it. Pantsers add light scaffolds to restart momentum when instinct stalls. Then we map these tools to the 12-week year framework: breaking a chapter into solvable questions, scheduling micro-experiments, and measuring progress by decisions made, not hours suffered. Whether you’re shaping an academic article, a business book, or a novel’s messy middle, you’ll leave with practical moves to reduce panic, invite curiosity, and make the unknown do the work.

If this conversation helps, share it with a writer who’s stuck, subscribe for more craft and process insights, and leave a quick review—it helps others find the show and join the work-in-progress.

We're excited to announce the launch of our new website: 12weekyearforwriters.com

To celebrate, you can join the 12 Week Year Writers membership for 50% off the first three months.

ABOUT TREVOR THRALL & THE 12 WEEK YEAR FOR WRITERS

My team and I help writers get their writing done. If you're stuck, it's not a knowledge problem. It's not a skill issue. And it's not a motivation or willpower thing. You know what you need to do and how to do it. The problem is consistent execution: getting the writing done week in and week out.

With the 12 Week Year for Writers system, you'll create a routine that helps you write more, and more happily, than ever before.

Thanks for listening!

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Twelve Week Ear for Writers Podcast. I'm Trevor Thrall, author of the Twelve Week Year for Writers. If you enjoyed today's episode, please submit a review wherever you get your podcasts. And for updates on the podcast and other writing resources, please subscribe to our newsletter at 12weekEarforWriters.com. Have you ever gotten halfway through a writing project only to get stuck and have no idea where to take things next? Have you ever hit a point where you just didn't know what to do with the huge pile of notes on your desk? Have you maybe even given up on a project because you just couldn't fight your way through all the uncertainty and unknowns? I think all writers deal with uncertainty. Uncertainty poses challenges at almost every step along the way. Wouldn't it be nice if you had a strategy for turning uncertainty from a challenge into a superpower? That's what my guest today is going to help you do. Today I have a conversation with Christina Loracco, one of the writing coaches at the 12-week year for writers. I think you're going to love it.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, Trevor. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Before we get started, since this is uh your first time on the podcast, why don't you just introduce yourself and say a little bit about your background so that everyone knows who the heck I'm talking to today?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Yeah. So I'm Christine Larocco. Um I'm here really because I've been working with Trevor to develop the 12-week year masterclass and the other materials associated with that. Um I am a historian-turned book coach. I am formally trained as a historian. I got my PhD um going on about 15 years ago, and thought I would pursue a 10-year track job or tried to pursue a 10-year track job. That didn't work out. And then for the past 10 years, I've been editor-in-chief of a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Um, however, over the course of those years, I've turned much more to creative writing. I'm not especially interested in purely academic writing these days. Um, so I have published two books. Um, the first of which is a narrative history of the women's movement uh since World War II. And the second of which, which just came out earlier this year, is a hybrid memoir biography about a woman named Martha Schofield, um, who was a Philadelphia area Quaker feminist, abolitionist in the years before and after the turn of the 20th century. So that's that that was really fun because that let the creative, the creative parts come out. Um so yeah, I work with writers uh through the 12-week program. I work with writers independently. Um, I especially love to help people, because I come from academia, people who tend to get lost in the weeds of research, um, figure out ways to stop spiraling and start writing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, been there, done that. That sounds good. Well, uh absolutely glad to have you with us and uh congrats on the most recent book, of course. Um, so today we are talking about um, I don't know, could I call it a boogeyman uh of of the the writing world? And and that is uncertainty. Um and you know, I I think most of us will admit if we're pushed that we never know exactly where things are gonna go once we start writing. It it kind of reminds me of Bilbo talking about stepping out on the path. Once you get outside your house, you never know where you're gonna end up. Um and so, you know, I you're about to run a workshop on this topic uh because you have been thinking a lot about the problems that come with uncertainty and the challenges that uncertainty presents and um and what can be done about it. Uh, and so yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because I I myself have have you know been at a fork many a time, and um, I need some new tools to deal with uncertainty myself. So maybe we could just start by talking a little bit, you know, more concretely. When we say uncertainty, or when you say it, you know, what are some of the challenges specifically that that you're talking about when it comes to uncertainty? Was mid-novel and got to a chapter that just would never end, would never go the right direction, couldn't figure out how to get out of this chapter to save her life, and and it spent a long time just battling this one chapter. I mean, it probably took as long to deal with this one chapter as six or seven other chapters, and there was a real panic period where she just wasn't sure if this was gonna maybe sink the entire project. And so, um, you know, be being stuck is not funny. It's not like, oh, I just have a little case of writer's block. I mean, we're talking about the kind of uncertainty where you're like, I don't know if I can finish the story, the kind of a thing. And and I know, you know, from an academic standpoint that you can get to a place if the data doesn't look right all of a sudden that you've been, you know, chomping along, and then you come to some test that you do or another, or you come on a case study and you're like, wait a minute, that oh god, you know, this is I don't I can't write the thing I thought I was gonna write. I don't know if I have a paper anymore. And so you're like, ah, you know, and so you're you're uncertain and certainly afraid, um, you know, all in one. You might have all of these things even.

SPEAKER_00:

So these aren't small problems, I would say. Right. Well, and and you know, Trevor, one interesting thing, if I can just piggyback on on what you said a moment ago, is that um one of the the responses to this uncertainty is is to to to try to eliminate it, right? Um, this happens a lot with nonfiction writers, I think, which is the the group that I I work with primarily and um the genre I write in, you try to control everything, right? You try to plan behind the scenes what you're going to do. And then when you come to one of those forks in the road when it doesn't seem like it's going to work, um, you don't know where to go. Your your brain hasn't been trained to think that way, and you don't have the tools to figure out a way out of it. So, so it's it's inevitable. Um, I think maybe is is one of the keys. Uncertainty is inevitable. So we'd better have a way of dealing with it and continuing to move forward.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I guess that's right. In some ways, you if you think of being a writer of any stripe, it's you know, part of your part of your calling card is that you're a problem solver because you have, you know, not not just planning, you know, in a perfect world, those of us who are plotters, um, you know, and I include all academics more or less in that, because there's really, I don't know a single academic who you could call a pantser. Uh, that's not really how academic writing works, but um, or much nonfiction writing, I think. Some of the more creative nonfiction, maybe, but but but what we attempt to eliminate uncertainty from the get-go by you know knowing exactly all the all the steps we plan to take between A and Z. Um and and yet it never works. It like it's predictable that it's not there's somewhere in there you've you've not understood the future, and it's gonna come and present a problem, some uncertainty. And then certainly, if you're a pantser, if you're a person who writes fiction and who doesn't want to put too many parameters, but you know, too many knowns between the beginning and the end, you know, you may know where you're starting and where you're ending, but you want to leave the rest to discovery and stuff. Well, you've basically asked for the uncertainty at that point, and you're gonna get plenty of it. And um, you know, I think we'll talk about this more later. And I I think it's interesting that in you know, in the ongoing and enduring war between plotters and pancers, you know, you have to give some some pluses or strengths to one team and and some to the other. And in this case, it's there's sort of an interesting question. You know, is this a case where where pancers might have kind of a built-in advantage because they have kind of embraced uncertainty from the get-go? Um, now I will say, having said that, um not just because you're a pancer doesn't mean you necessarily deal with uncertainty mid-work any better than someone else does. Exactly. Sometimes it's still brutal, but but it's kind of an interesting thought that in some ways, you know, panthers have said, look, that's fine. I'm I'm happy to deal with the uncertainty because that's maybe where some of the magic will happen. And so I think that's kind of what your what your approach that you've kind of come up with is more about, hey, don't look at this as uh a problem, right? Look at this as an opportunity in a sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yes and no. Um, in a way, I I think I preach plotting for panters and pantsing for plotters. Um, because I think you're right. I think that that both approaches do have merit. And I in my writing um and my work with clients, I I tend to use both. So for pants, yes, they they embrace uncertainty, they embrace writing as discovery, um, surprises coming to them while they're writing. That's great. But what happens when the fuel runs dry? Um, I think one of the problems with with pantsing is that creativity loves constraints, right? We think that we want all the room in the world to explore just completely free form. Um, and I think that's what panthers do. And sometimes that's great, but sometimes it's just it's not going to stimulate you. It's not going to spark you. And then what do you do? Um panters tend to be critical of plotters because they say that that plotting, you know, lacks creativity. Um, but I think my argument would be that embracing some of this structure that we'll we'll get to a little later, um, can actually help you be more creative.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, no, it's an interesting thought. And I and I have to say I do sometimes wonder if the distinction is overblown because I think so. I think to be fair, most people do a little of both. And a lot of cancers um, I think are just people who don't write down the stuff that's in their head that would look a lot like plotting if they were to actually say it out loud and write it on a piece of paper. So that's a good that's a good point. All right. So so um you talked about sort of some of the challenges that people run into that we can kind of put under this big umbrella of uncertainty. And and the problem is that very often when people hit one of these problems, they get they get stuck for a while. And so to talk a little bit about the the sort of the the um maladaptive uh responses that we see when when people hit this kind of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So I see a lot of writers when when they're stuck, when they don't know where to go next, I see them turn to surface level work on their manuscript, reading the chapters over and over again, fixing grammar, changing word choice, maybe tweaking a sentence here or there. Um, but they're not they're not really entering the mess in the way they have to. I always in in my own writing, I always think of, okay, I'm making a mess and then I'm cleaning it up, and then I'm making another mess and I'm cleaning it up. Um is is is just sort of how I think about my process. And and you have to get in there, right? You have to get dirty um to to figure things out. So staying on the surface is is definitely one way that people respond. Um if you are an academic writer or someone otherwise using research, well, you're just going to go and read another book. Um, read another article, take more notes, wait until you know more, and then you'll be ready to write is the theory. But there's always another book, there's always another article, there will always be more notes. So if you're waiting until you know everything, you're never going to write. And you're never going to figure out what your argument is, what you really believe about a topic, until you write.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um these are both avoidant strategies. Kind of at the at the extreme end of that is is just putting down the manuscript, is just not working on it, chucking it.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, and and I think that, you know, for new writers, um, I think that's a special danger because I think if you haven't seen the ball go all the way from one side of the field to the other a few times, it can be easy to say, oh, this must be one that isn't gonna work. You know, this this problem probably can't be resolved. I probably didn't do it right. Let me put it down. Um, but I think that in most cases that's that would be a mistake. Like you you can work through almost any issue you've created, you can unmess the mess. You just need the right sort of mindset and the right tools to do it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Because I mean, the worst case scenario is that you're going to write something that you either cut from a draft or you know, you write something that doesn't get published, and then you've learned a ton from from that process. So it's I I really believe it's never it's never wasted.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, absolutely right. Absolutely right. I I'm a big believer in that no words that you wrote are ever really wasted. So I'm with you on there. All right. So so tell me a little bit about how you you sort of became aware of this sort of challenge and and what your strategy for for coping with it has emerged into.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So it kind of comes from two opposite ends of the planning process, um, the writing process. And I think has to do with the fact that I do have backgrounds in both creative writing and academic writing. I think I think that's what sort of led me to realize this problem and then to develop some solutions. So um the first half really came to my realization uh during COVID. I had in the past when I was stuck, when I didn't know where I was going next, I would rely on completely unstructured free writing. Um, you know, the the morning pages, write for 15 minutes, whatever comes into your mind, um, just clear your head of all of your thoughts. And that had worked really well for a while. Um, it really helps me on a number of essays when I I had reached a point where I didn't know what to say or what it was supposed to be, where I was supposed to go next. Um but I think what happened during COVID is that there was so little going into my brain. There was so little stimulation that it was really hard to to produce anything for anything to come out. So I found what I needed at that point was was something more structured. Um, and that's when I really started to develop the idea of structured free writing, um, with thanks to Ann Janser for a lot of the work she's done in this area. So the other side of it comes, as I said, from not only being an academic, but being an academic editor for a decade. Um academic writing can easily fall into a lot of different traps. Um, one of them that we've alluded to already is especially if you're early in your career, um you're going to tend to foreground the literature, foreground what other people, other experts have said, and not emphasize your own contribution because you're afraid of what your committee is going to say, because you're afraid you've left someone out. Um, the other thing I find is that academics, myself included, um, their writing tends to fall into what I call the going from document to document problem, by which I mean, okay, so we have our notes in front of us. We have all of these quotes that we've that we've written down. And we tend to follow along with our notes as we're writing. So on June 11th, she said this. On June 12th, she wrote this in a letter. On June 13th, she said this. And that's not the most engaging page.

SPEAKER_01:

I I call that the writing a book report. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or just you know, sharing. Do some analysis.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, exactly. Where's the so what? And and where are you? Where is where is the author's guiding hand? Um, so I think it can be really helpful to those writers to embrace a bit less structure and actually put the notes away and work out the ideas on paper, um, just from what's in their own heads.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, cool, very cool. All right. So you you're sort of at the crossroads of of kind of creative writing and academic writing, and you kind of realize that uncertainty is something that you know is gonna befall all of us. So, in your workshops, when you're helping people out with this, what are some of the strategies that you're gonna unfurl for people to help them work through this?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. So um I think there's a way that we can take uncertainty and we can actually use it to unveil what our next steps are. So one of the things I often have writers do is divide a piece of paper into two columns. Um, this works for fiction or nonfiction. On one side, they write, here's everything I know about my project, and they list those out. On the other side, here's everything I don't know about my project. Some writers may find that it's more productive for them to say, here's what my character doesn't know about what's going on in the story. But I think either, either could be productive. That's just a personal reference or you know, experiment with what works better. Um once you've assembled the list of here's what I don't know, you're going to have a list of things you need to figure out, right? Of questions you need to answer. You might need to break them down more into concrete steps, but what you don't know is it's it's it's the beginning. It's really it's the beginning. Um, it shows you where to go rather than you know being a form of being lost. So we take those unknowns, we turn them into questions, and then through short focused, low pressure experiments, we try to figure them out. And we can certainly talk more about what that looks like.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. No, that's very interesting. I, you know, um not to over-academicize it, but but one of the things that I think, you know, as I hear you outlining this awesome strategy, uh, you know, I think one of the things that it's easy when you get stuck. And I because I've heard many people, they don't know what's wrong, right? I don't know what I don't like, I don't know why it's not working.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

The unknown unknowns. Right. There's a bunch of unknown unknowns. I'm I'm upset. I'm it people start to get panicky sometimes because they just upset about what's it's not, I don't know where to go. What's this person supposed to do now, whatever it might be. And and I think that that emotion is inchoate, it doesn't have a shape, and you cannot answer an incohate fear. It's just you can't try you can you could try to avoid it, you could try to put a shit in a box, but you it doesn't have an answer because it's not a question, right? And what you've done is you said, hey, look, let's let's just sit down and and very calmly without worrying about what uh what the answers to anything are, let's just figure out what the questions are. And so, yeah, start with what you know, and as you're listing that, it kind of becomes a little bit more clear what are the things you don't know. And then the don't know's are like little headlights that can help you peer into right, or or in in you know, our world from I can they become little mini research questions that you actually can go answer. Because one of the things I think you know that I find very common, and this is across genres of writing, is is that analysis paralysis where people think reading another book or or do doing a whole bunch more of this or that is gonna it that doesn't help because they don't they're not I had a friend when when I was just starting my dissertation, he was a little bit ahead of me. He had finished his exams six months or something before, and she was a little ahead of me. He said, Let me give you one piece of advice that I've just been through. He said, When you go start to read stuff, he says, have your research question in mind first, otherwise, you'll find everything and nothing. And what a great phrase and what wonderful advice that was, because it's just absolutely true. Now I fell into that trap anyway because I I had a question that wasn't one is not enough questions typically. So having a list of questions to help guide your thinking, you're just gonna get a lot more traction on each of those questions and on your fear about it isn't working. It isn't working, it's not a question you can answer, right? But what specifically I don't know, like those are things you could answer.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. That's that's such a good point and so well said, Trevor, in in a way that I hadn't really thought about that, you know, yes, for a lot of kinds of writing, you do need to do research, not just academic or nonfiction writing, but historical fiction, right? You need to learn about the era. There are a lot of writing projects where you have to learn things. Um, but it can be very easy to engage in that productive procrastination of just learning and learning and learning. Um, and then the other thing we said that was so interesting is is about this sort of inchoate not knowing. I think that's that's really important for um well, I think that's what I ran into when free writing just kind of stopped working. And I think that's part of why I'm so invested in using a little bit of structure is because um when something is inchoate, it's abstract. Yeah, you can't touch it. Yes, exactly. But if you have an actual concrete question, if you have an actual concrete container that you're going to try to answer it inside, um it becomes concrete, it becomes something you can do something about. And sometimes that's all it takes, right? Is knowing that you have a way of dealing with something. And and you know, this will always be there. You can always pull it out and apply it to whatever problem you're working on. And straightforward. Yeah, you have a tool for that.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like having a hammer. I don't have to worry about a nail that's sticking up by a I have a hammer, I can deal with it. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00:

So I mean, you know, this is a it is a philosophy, but it's also really, really practical. It's about developing the tools that will be there for you to to rely on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, what what I like about about what you just said though, you know, if you think about it, it's obviously a potential problem solving strategy, you know, listing what you know, what you don't know. But if you think of like if you think about it from a more of a proactive sense, right, it can be a strategy for helping you create in the first place, too. Yeah. Like saying, hey, look, I'm at the beginning of a chapter. I get to figure out like, here's a bunch of stuff I don't know yet, but not in a bad way because I'm worried, but it because I'm excited. Like I get to go design this chapter now. What do I want to do next? Well, okay, what do I know? What do I not know about the scene I want to write next? Or right? And or about the case study I'm about to do next. What would be exciting? What would be a thrill to like, okay, write a bunch of things down and then go use that procedure props to see which direction is going to be the right as opposed to only when you're stuck, it could also be so this. I think this embracing, you know, uncertainty, it's it's a it's a bigger philosophy than than yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think um what you've just said is is part of why it maps so well onto the 12-week year. Um, because you know, we know that you don't write an entire book in 12 weeks. You don't try to write an entire book in in 12 weeks. Um, so if your if your goal for a certain 12-week period is to write chapter three, um, then this is a great technique to integrate into the planning, right? So it really is planning and it's it's also the writing craft itself.

SPEAKER_01:

Right on, right on. All right. So two columns, what I know, what I don't know. I love that strategy. What else you got for people?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Um, so that's a preliminary tool that um I suggest pretty universally um for people who are are facing this challenge. Um what you do then is you take a look at the different containers that are out there that you can that you can put your writing inside. Um and at the workshop, um, I'm going to, there will be a workbook, I should say. I know that's I know that's exciting. Um there will be a whole master list of of different methods for for structuring your writing time. Um, but you're going to pick a container. Maybe it is a timed free write. I I do that all the time, but a time free write with a guiding question. What am I worried that I will never figure out about this chapter? What am I really trying to say in this chapter? Something to focus your thinking. Um, you might try writing one paragraph three ways, um, perhaps for three different audiences, a child, your mother, an esteemed colleague, and see what happens. Um perhaps you write with a constraint where you write only in questions. Um, or you write, this is actually one of my favorites. Um, you write avoiding is, was, or ing words. I as an editor, I just I hate those, those being verbs. They're like the name of my existence. So that's good anyway. Get that stuff out of here. Yeah. Yeah, a little uh little copy editing advice there. Um so that can that can focus your energy and your attention. You might write a dialogue um between two characters. Um, if you're a fiction writer, between yourself and another thinker or a whole series of thinkers in which you're trying to articulate your argument to them, and they in turn articulate their argument to you. It could be something as simple as a list of possible titles, of arguments, of main points. Um it could be visual, you know. Uh one uh one fun strategy here is to divide a piece of paper into three columns and sketch a three panel comic that uh is intended to Embody one of your main points. So if you're a visual thinker, that can be a really fun way to do it. So the strategies are nearly infinite, really. And they're a lot of fun. And what you want to do is pick the one that you think is going to best serve you where you are at that given moment, where you have something that you're stuck with. You know, if you're if you're struggling to define, say, what your contribution is, well, then I think a dialogue would be, would be great, where you do have to, in writing, say to someone and have them respond to you what you're trying to uh what you're trying to say. Um if you are trying to figure out, let's see. I don't have another example right off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_01:

Well that was a lot of examples. I, you know, it so it it's I I'm just as you're as you're talking, I'm thinking about all the the ways in which this approach generally is is so helpful. And it feels to me like you know, when you're stuck, you're at an uncertain point that's generating some kind of anxiety or or fear or whatever. That what you need is sort of a multi, you know, pronged uh approach, which which this is, which is you you need sometimes to take that big scary thing and break it into small chunks. Yeah. You know, you need to do something that's not scary, you need to do something that puts your brain into a new pathway that you're not in a rut that you were stuck in. If you're stuck, it's usually because you keep banging on one direction, one strategy, and that's not working. So you need to redirect your brain and so uh and and get moving, you know. I mean, that's so so I think if you if you sort of broad brush, all the things you've just talked about are ways to you know take a small step without fear that allows your brain to be creative again, to readdress the the whatever the issue is, and that's just like seems like a very good, you know, recipe.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And that's another reason that it works so well for the 12-week year, because we're all about breaking down the big scary things into doable steps that that feel less overwhelming. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Not trying to focus on just the you know, a book, that's a crazy or the fear, you gotta break it down. So, all right, what am I really talking about here? What are those what are the specific things I need to figure out how to do?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, in this section or in this scene, not in not even in this chapter, maybe that might even be too big.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. So so those are some of the strategies. Um if you are just sort of general advice to to someone who's combining the uncertainty sort of strategy with 12-week year, how how would you sort of phrase that?

SPEAKER_00:

So sure. So I I think it helps really in in two ways. When you're planning a project, um it gives you another way of creating that inventory of tasks that you need to complete uh toward a goal, right? If you're asking yourself questions about what you don't know, you can turn those into steps. Um but when it comes to the writing sessions themselves, I think it works there as well. And and I think that that's why this is able to bypass the plotter versus pancer dichotomy, because you can plan to on a certain day say, okay, I'm going to experiment with this. Um, and then when that day comes, set a timer if you want and and go for it, right? So you can you can plan to write with uncertainty. You can you can plan to deal with it. And and I think that those things can coexist perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and and you know, more to the point, I think, you know, I think one of the things that I'm I'm learning as we talk about this is that, you know, whichever side of the aisle you find yourself leaning to just from your own personality standpoint, either way, you need to number one, embrace uncertainty because it's a reality that you're gonna deal with. It's funny because when I coach uh business book writing clients, I mean, this is the like you think of that maybe as like the one of the least creative acts possible, right? But if that's just not true at all. Even though they're maybe writing about a system they've been training people on for years, they make an outline, because I make them and make an outline, and then they start writing. And I say, but here's what's gonna happen. You have this beautiful outline, even down to the chapter section. But what's gonna happen when you start writing is it's gonna get messy on you. Yep, yep. And I tell them, don't worry about that, just keep writing, we'll see what happens. Because sometimes in that mess, something genius that you didn't outline for originally appears and uh makes us redo the outline. And so, so even plotters need to embrace that uncertainty and discovery are going to happen, but for them, the key is don't be afraid of that, but use it, be ready to use it. And for panthers, panthers already embrace uncertainty on one level, but I think one of the things that can be a problem for panthers is that when they do get stuck, when that discovery engine isn't somehow turning into words anymore. I think sometimes panthers have underinvested in tools to provide structure in a pinch. You know, if your car is stuck and you need to stick something under the tire to get it moving off the ice or out of the hole, you know, like pancers need some tools too to keep the discovery moving forward. And and I think this, you know, your you're just that first example or exercise of of breaking your page into two. Like to me, even just that simple tool is a way for a pantser to say, look, my my my my brain is no longer automatically the next thing I need to know. Now I need to make it a little bit more rigorous. I need to go back and think it through. And so it's not saying you're plotting even, you're just trying to figure out what the next thing that you want to discover is, but you need a process. Yes, yes, I feel exactly this is really a tool that both sides can use without thinking that they're giving in to the other. It's just making their approach as as good as it can be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes. No, I think I think that's that's so that's so well said because you know it's it's it's a frame, it's it's a playground, it's the place in which you're going to play and learn and discover. It's it's not a prison, but nor is this just nor is it just this sort of abstract, like, I'll just go where where the muse takes me, because the muse doesn't really show up that frequently. Um, but it's funny that in a way plotters and panthers need the same medicine.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a funny thought.

unknown:

That's a funny thought.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, hey, and as writing coaches, that's good if we have we have one bottle to give people. Exactly. That's good. Fantastic. All right. Well, if they want to learn more, they're gonna have to come to the workshop. Yes, I hope they will. October 22nd, 20th, October 20th, October 20th. And all the information will be in the show notes so people can uh find that easily. Christina, thank you for the conversation today. Thank you, Trevor.

SPEAKER_02:

This is fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we'll we'll be back again soon, uh, I'm sure. All right, take care.

SPEAKER_00:

Bye.