48. How to Move From Fear to Flow with Rhonda Douglas

Today on the pod we're covering an important topic, the writer mindset. For anyone who has found themselves facing creative anxiety or procrastination, this episode is for you. 
My guest today is Rhonda Douglas, an award winning poet and fiction author. She is the host of the Resilient Writers radio show and a longtime creativity coach and writing mentor.
Together, we're discussing:

• How to tackle creative anxiety 
• The art of being present
• The power of creative community
• Facing off with perfectionism

I encourage you to curl up somewhere quiet and give a thoughtful listen.
To find more on Nicole: Website | Substack
To find more on Rhonda Douglas: Website | The Resilient Writers Radio Show

Transcript

STEPS TO STORY EP 48 - How to move from fear to flow with Rhonda Douglas 

[00:00:00] Nicole Meier: Listeners, today on the pod we're covering an important topic, the writer mindset. For anyone who has found themselves facing creative anxiety or procrastination, this episode is for you. My guest today is Rhonda Douglas, an award winning poet and fiction author. She is the host of the Resilient Writers radio show and a longtime creativity coach and writing mentor.

[00:00:24] Nicole Meier: Bye. Let's dive right on in with our discussion with Rhonda.

[00:00:35] Nicole Meier: Welcome to Steps to Story. This season, I'm focusing on helping you grow as a writer and as an author. I'm Nicole Meier, multi published author and certified book coach, here to guide you on strengthening your story and getting it out into the world. This season, we'll explore ways to overcome the challenges that hold writers back, from breaking through creative blocks to fine tuning your story structure and navigating the publishing world with confidence.

[00:01:04] Nicole Meier: Wherever you are in your journey, consider this your supportive space to find clarity, direction, and encouragement. Let's take the next step in your story together.

[00:01:18] Nicole Meier: Hi listeners, welcome back to Steps to Story. I am thrilled to have our guest today. Rhonda Douglas, as you know from my intro, is a creativity coach, and we're going to talk about all things writing today. So welcome, Rhonda. Thanks, so glad to be here. It's so nice to have you here. So I know about your journey because we follow each other on social and just in the whole writing world.

[00:01:42] Nicole Meier: But I would love for you to share with our listeners a bit about your journey to becoming a creativity coach. What led you here? What you love about it? All the good stuff. 

[00:01:52] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah, sure. So I've been writing since I was, I think I was nine years old when I first started writing. I've been writing a long time.

[00:01:59] Rhonda Douglas: And then I didn't really start taking it seriously in terms of studying to be better at it until my, I would say, late twenties. And then I did all the workshops, right? I did like every workshop I could find. And I, you know, I already had an English degree, but then I did a graduate diploma in creative writing.

[00:02:16] Rhonda Douglas: And then I did a master's in creative writing and I went all in. And when I came out of my master's of fine arts and creative writing, I was really surprised a couple of years later to notice I just assumed that everybody going in would end up publishing a book. I don't know if that was the wrong assumption or not.

[00:02:33] Rhonda Douglas: But when I looked at it, it really was 50 50. And a lot of the people that hadn't published were women. And so I talked to some people who were in the program and I thought, Oh, there's something about women in writing that makes it just a little bit harder and for us to get to the page. And so I kind of got obsessed with that.

[00:02:55] Rhonda Douglas: And that's really my thing is helping writers. women and non binary writers in particular, finish books and get them out into the world. That's really what I'm here to do and what excites me. And then in terms of the creativity coaching, I thought, okay, well, what skills do I, additional skills do I need?

[00:03:11] Rhonda Douglas: Like I know about being a writer, I know all the craft things. And then I wanted coaching training that understood artists because I think that all writers are artists whose medium is words. And so I worked with Eric Maisel. So he's someone. I absolutely adore. So he has some great books, including one called The Van Gogh Blues, which is about kind of like the sadness of not being able to create the thing that you want to create.

[00:03:40] Rhonda Douglas: Interesting. Yeah. And he does creativity coaching training. So I did the first one with him and then I did the advanced creativity coaching training. And it's great because it's about an understanding of artists and what artists go through. Which is different than like life coaching, right? Like, what's your purpose?

[00:03:58] Rhonda Douglas: How are we productive? It's not the same. So yeah, so that's me and the creativity coaching stuff. 

[00:04:04] Nicole Meier: That is a beautiful mission. And I really can tell that's coming from your heart because you've walked the walk, right? You've been a writer. You've done the MFA program. You've been in the writing world. And I'm guessing a lot like me, you noticed that something was missing from that journey.

[00:04:19] Nicole Meier: And that's the 

[00:04:20] Rhonda Douglas: support, right? Yeah, and I think An understanding of how it can be hard and the struggle that most writers go through. Like, I don't know anyone who's finished and published a book who hasn't had some form of struggle with it. It's either like, how do I figure out act two? What am I gonna do about my ending?

[00:04:40] Rhonda Douglas: How am I gonna structure this thing? All the craft questions. But then we have all the stuff that goes through our head that are, it's just all the mindset stuff. Like, Feeling like an imposter or a fraud because we've never done it before. And is my book boring? Is it any good? Am I any good? Should I even bother?

[00:04:57] Rhonda Douglas: You know, all that stuff that we tend to think is very specific to us, but it turns out all writers have these issues. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And when you do a master's of fine arts and creative writing, you know, it's like, it's all craft. Yes. None of this mindset stuff. No one talks about being resilient when you've got like the 40th rejection on your short story or how to get to the point in your process where it feels good and it's sustainable.

[00:05:28] Rhonda Douglas: None of that support is there. 

[00:05:30] Nicole Meier: Yeah, it almost feels, I hate to say this, maybe this isn't the right word, but an archaic approach to not include mindset in the way people are learning because it's such a big piece of the puzzle that's missing. Oh, it's huge. It's absolutely huge. Yeah. Well, that's why I love that you're here with me today to talk to the emerging authors that are listening.

[00:05:50] Nicole Meier: I really want to talk about how to go from fear to flow, and I know this is really your wheelhouse. Yeah. So, let's talk about mindset today, and I think the first place to start here is just understanding creative blocks in general. So could you share with us some thoughts that come up for you, or what are some of the most common fears or blocks you're seeing that are holding writers back?

[00:06:13] Nicole Meier: and how they might begin to identify or address these obstacles. 

[00:06:17] Rhonda Douglas: I think every writer is different. But we share a lot of the same blocks and obstacles in common. And I think of it, I put it under one big umbrella called creative anxiety. So whether it's a little bit of resistance or something that feels like a big chunky block, it has the same source.

[00:06:36] Rhonda Douglas: And so I think of it as creative anxiety. And this is this feeling of, I have this idea for a book and the idea is fabulous and I can see it unfolding in my head or I can imagine what it's going to be like. Thank you. But I don't know if my skills are up to the task. Zadie Smith called it the Great Gap.

[00:06:52] Rhonda Douglas: It's the gap between, like, the glimmering, glistening book on the shelf that you could imagine, and where you feel you are now. There's just a way that our brain works naturally, so our brain's only job is to keep us alive. So when you woke up breathing this morning, your brain went awesome, did my job, and that's it, you know?

[00:07:11] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah. And it doesn't want you to step out of your comfort zone or do anything new because it just wants to keep you safe all the time. And so, a lot of the things that we think are, you know, I'm the problem because I can't get over this particular fear, whatever it is, whether it's a fear of failure, a fear of success, you know, whatever my fears are, I think that they're particular to me and I'm the problem, but it's actually just your brain doing what your brain does, which is scan the world for threats.

[00:07:43] Rhonda Douglas: And it thinks, oh, if I publish this memoir, my mother's going to hate me, you know, that's a threat. It thinks if I put my cozy mystery out into the world, people are going to criticize me for it. That's a threat. So it won't let you do it. And so the best way to understand creative anxiety is to really learn about how your brain actually works.

[00:08:07] Rhonda Douglas: So we have something called the reticular activating system, the amygdala, and it's again, it's only job is to scan the world for threat. And when it understands that there's a threat. Which I can understand, and it has no way of distinguishing between saber toothed tiger chasing me across the savannah, and I might get a bad review in a national newspaper.

[00:08:32] Rhonda Douglas: Or mom might not like that I wrote that story about, you know, when we were young. So even our own thoughts can be threats, and that's really important to understand. So when that happens. It triggers your sympathetic nervous system and you're we've got two different sort of pieces of our nervous system if you like the sympathetic nervous system which is the fight flight freeze fawn response to a threat.

[00:08:58] Rhonda Douglas: So this can be when you think about flight. It can be as simple as opening up a new tab on your computer just to check Facebook, checking an email, doing a piece of research when actually you just need to be drafting right now. My flight is to the fridge to see, you know, what treats might be hiding in the back of the fridge.

[00:09:20] Rhonda Douglas: And freeze obviously is just, sometimes often we just can't do it and we're like, I don't know why I can't write anything. And so that's our sympathetic nervous system. And what happened is you had a thought. That your brain perceived as a threat, and now it's shutting you down so that everything can be ready for you to take care of yourself and survive.

[00:09:41] Rhonda Douglas: What we need to do instead is trigger the other side of our nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system. That's the side of our nervous system that is the calm, and in befriend. Feeling calm, feeling grounded, feeling centered. Okay, now you can write. So there's a few ways to do this. There's a few that I teach and encourage.

[00:10:03] Rhonda Douglas: One of them is just adult coloring. How can you be anxious about adult coloring? It's just fun. 

[00:10:09] Nicole Meier: It sounds like a fun It sounds good to me right now. I'd love to be doing that. 

[00:10:12] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Like, get a set of colored pencils and a coloring book and go for it. Why not? But the one I use all the time, and I know writers in my community, some of them will crochet, embroider.

[00:10:23] Rhonda Douglas: Anything that doesn't trigger any kind of performance anxiety in you is fine. Like, if you're really concerned about knitting the perfect sweater, don't do that. Yes. Because you're just fostering fear. But I just use deep breathing. So I close my eyes. I set a timer on my phone for two minutes, sometimes three minutes if I'm feeling particularly angsty that day.

[00:10:46] Rhonda Douglas: And I breathe in through my nose and just out through my mouth. And as I'm breathing, I'm observing my breath. And I think about it like, if I had to write a really detailed paragraph. after this about how my breath felt in my body, what would I be noticing? The temperature, where I'm holding my breath, anything like that.

[00:11:10] Rhonda Douglas: And then I just breathe and anytime I notice myself going off on a little like thought tangent about I don't know about the oh act two oh my god I just bring my thoughts back to my breath. And you really don't need very long of that before you've triggered the parasympathetic nervous system and now you're in a calm state from which you can access focus and flow.

[00:11:32] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Okay. I feel 

[00:11:33] Rhonda Douglas: so calm just listening to you. You cannot. If you are in that sympathetic nervous state trigger. It doesn't matter how hard you try to force yourself, your brain is concerned with your survival and you are not able to access the part of your brain that allows you to be creative. 

[00:11:52] Nicole Meier: Yeah.

[00:11:54] Nicole Meier: Which is a really lovely piece of advice because we talk about procrastination, writer's block, all the things that stop us. But what a beautiful way to just get stuck. I love. Yeah, I love your prompt, your writing prompt of don't just do the breathing exercise, don't just be present, write about it, and that really will start someone to warm up that creative muscle again.

[00:12:20] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah. It also allows you to really, as writers, we are observers, we're very observant, and so it just allows me to really stay present and focused on my breath. Instead of my brain going to all of the problems that I have, you know, I have to do this, I have to do that. Because that's what my brain will do immediately.

[00:12:38] Rhonda Douglas: It's this idea of the monkey mind, it will just jump everywhere. But if I can just keep it focused on my breath, and again, two minutes, set a timer, it's all you need. And so if I know I'm going to sit down for 45 minutes of writing, I know that two of those minutes are going to be deep breathing. So that I can write from a calm space.

[00:12:58] Rhonda Douglas: Where I'm not triggered by my creative anxiety, which is not to say it goes away. I still have it. I still want the book to be good. I'm still hoping that when it comes out, it'll be well received, but I'm able to set it aside long enough. And then it's both preventative and curative. So it's preventative.

[00:13:15] Rhonda Douglas: You're able to start writing, but if you get partway through your writing session and all of a sudden your brain is yammering on about, Oh my God, you better not write that because stop, two more minutes of breathing, go back into it. This is all easy peasy lemon squeezy stuff to do, but whatever tells us that it's not us, it's our brain.

[00:13:38] Rhonda Douglas: And our brain is wired for survival, not wired for high level creative tasks. And so we've got to shift it, shift our whole nervous system in order to be able to access the parasympathetic nervous system, which will get us to focus and then flow. 

[00:13:54] Nicole Meier: Yeah, what a great reminder. One of the top things writers say to me, I know they say to you too, is I can't have a consistent writing routine because I procrastinate.

[00:14:04] Nicole Meier: I'm the queen of procrastination. That's flight. Yes. Like, that's what it is. Yeah, looking at the Facebook, the social media, that's just sort of filling time while you're procrastinating. 

[00:14:16] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah. Yeah. Procrastination is all flight. Judgment is all fight. So anytime you're like, Oh my God, that writer, who does she think she is?

[00:14:27] Rhonda Douglas: Fight. Yeah. Low level fight. That fight. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:14:33] Nicole Meier: I know listeners are nodding along right now because we can all relate no matter what stage of our journey we're in. We have all faced this at some point or another. 

[00:14:41] Rhonda Douglas: Well, and that's really the thing, Nicole, like it doesn't go away. I know writers think that, oh, I'm going to have a book out in the world and then I'm not going to have any other creativity issues or anxiety or problems.

[00:14:54] Rhonda Douglas: I'm sorry to tell you, it's with you your whole creative life because when we are doing creative work, we're in a space of uncertainty. Our brain hates uncertainty, hates it, needs to keep you alive, needs to keep you safe, wants everything to be the same. And so that sense of uncertainty is really challenging for the brain, but it's where we spend a lot of our time.

[00:15:16] Rhonda Douglas: What am I going to write next? How is the book going to end? What am I going to do here? And so it is really challenging. But It's As a result, it never goes away. We are always going to be dealing with this. And so the thing is not to feel like, oh, well, I might as well give up because we're always going to be dealing with it.

[00:15:35] Rhonda Douglas: No, there are tools and techniques that you can use so that as part of my creative life, I know that this is something I'm going to be dealing with. And here we are. And I still deal with it. I still have those thoughts, but I have the tools to be able to move beyond it, despite the anxieties I might be experiencing.

[00:15:55] Nicole Meier: Yeah, such a good point. And that's also another reason why I encourage writers to not always work in isolation, because another tool, I think, can be community. Would you agree with that? Totally. Oh my god, 

[00:16:09] Rhonda Douglas: so important. Huge. I think community is essential in a writing life. It helps you realize that you're not alone in all these worries and anxieties that you have.

[00:16:20] Rhonda Douglas: It helps you celebrate who else in your life knows how great it is that you, short story, got accepted to this anthology, right? Your writer friends. Yeah, we know what it's like. And also commiserate and like, you know, you're looking for an agent, you just got rejection number 46. And another writer in your community can say, Oh, yeah, no, I got 104 before I got mine, you know?

[00:16:41] Rhonda Douglas: Yes. And we just like, Oh, yeah, 

[00:16:43] Nicole Meier: no, 

[00:16:43] Rhonda Douglas: this is how it is. Yeah. So let me keep going. 

[00:16:46] Nicole Meier: Yeah. So good. Okay. So we talk about community and sharing the struggles and cheerleading one another. What about when perfectionism comes in and we want to trade pages with a writer friend or we want to even put our work out there into the world?

[00:17:01] Nicole Meier: You have some words for the listeners about overcoming perfectionism. And that really means. What it feels like to share your words before you think it's absolutely perfect enough. It'll never 

[00:17:12] Rhonda Douglas: be perfect enough. Because it's art, it is subjective. So, we've all had that experience where someone loved a book and suggested it to you.

[00:17:23] Rhonda Douglas: And you read it and you were like, nah, it's not for me. So, there's no such thing as perfect in art because of the subjective nature of it. And the other thing is we're always learning and growing as a writer. I had my first book come out, it was a book of poetry, and then I'm out in the community reading from it at different readings, and launches, and festivals, and things.

[00:17:44] Rhonda Douglas: Being my reading copy, like, it's got, words crossed out, other words written in. Right. So like, you're always learning and growing as a writer. So as a result, you're always going to think that previous work could have been better because you're a different writer now. Like I'm 10 years on, I'm a different poet than I was then.

[00:18:04] Rhonda Douglas: And so I would do it differently. There's a book by Tal Ben Shahar called, I think it's called Happier. And it is a book about not allowing your life to be ruled by perfectionism. This was a huge issue for me in all areas of my life. And I think for most of us it is. It doesn't just show up in your writing life, it's everywhere, right?

[00:18:25] Rhonda Douglas: You're the person who, you know, your partner loads the dishwasher and you reload it to make it better. These are my people. And so. It affects all areas of your life. It affects your relationships, your day job, and your writing. And he talks about moving from perfectionism to optimalism. How can you become an optimalist?

[00:18:47] Rhonda Douglas: And the optimalist believes that I did the best I could under the circumstances. In a different set of circumstances, I would have done something different. So once we understand that there's no such thing as perfection in art, And that, I hate to tell you this, but like, not everybody's going to love your book.

[00:19:06] Rhonda Douglas: Right. Some people are going to think it's the best thing that they've ever read. And other people are going to be like, eh, it's not for me. We all have that experience with books. Once you understand that about art and about the nature of books, and then you think, yeah, I've done the best I can under the circumstances, then I think that's a huge way of moving beyond perfectionism.

[00:19:26] Rhonda Douglas: But I constantly have to remind myself that it's not life or death. So I, uh, worked with a book coach on my current novel, sent it out to her, and she sent me her notes. Now, I had to take a day or two and talk to myself and be like, you sent her a draft, you know, it's a draft, you know, you're going to work on it.

[00:19:47] Rhonda Douglas: These notes are going to help you make it better. You know, and I'm talking to my brain and telling my brain, no threat here. This is all really good, great stuff. And then, you know, from the email. But it took, like, a couple of days, I'm not gonna lie, you know, of like, I can do it, I can, no, no, not today, you know, and then the next day I'm like, oh, no, it'll be fine.

[00:20:09] Rhonda Douglas: These are just really, they were really good notes. So I think that also just coming to grips with like, it's not life or death, no one's open on an operating table, right, brand new piece of feedback as a chance to make the book better is huge. And then there is no such thing as perfect in art. because of the subjective nature of it.

[00:20:31] Rhonda Douglas: And so you can just release that whole idea. But I do recommend the work of Tom and Jahar around releasing perfectionism and moving to optimalism. How can you do your very best under the circumstances? And then the other thing is changing how you talk to yourself, the things you say to yourself and the thoughts you have about your writing.

[00:20:51] Rhonda Douglas: So this isn't any good. Can become, I can make it better. Every time I sit down to work on my book, I'm making it better. The thought that I love that I go back to all the time is I'm learning and growing as a writer. Yes. Because I can think, Oh my God, I don't know what to do about act two. Ah, I don't know how to end this.

[00:21:14] Rhonda Douglas: Yes. But I'm learning and growing as a writer, so I can go to a workshop on structure, and I can write two different endings and see which one I like better. There are always craft answers. Any question you have, you're like, my book is boring in the middle. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to write great dialogue.

[00:21:34] Rhonda Douglas: You can go to a workshop and learn that. All craft skills can be learned. 

[00:21:38] Nicole Meier: Yeah, I really love the idea of telling yourself you are doing the best you can, you put your best foot forward, and you're learning and growing. These are things that I can remind myself too. It's so easy for us to focus on the one bad comment.

[00:21:52] Nicole Meier: You get 12 great comments, but why do we focus on the one? Yeah. It's like it's been tattooed on 

[00:21:59] Rhonda Douglas: our skin or something. 

[00:21:59] Nicole Meier: Yes. Yes. No, that's really great. It's funny when you were saying that I was thinking of a time when I taught a workshop at a conference. And it was great, packed house, but there were two people in the front that sat with their arms folded the whole time, didn't take notes, and didn't have a reaction.

[00:22:17] Nicole Meier: And the rest of the group was so complimentary, and they all stayed after, wanting to talk to me. But all I could think about were the two people who just had a bad reaction, and I just couldn't 

[00:22:28] Rhonda Douglas: let it go. And that is your brain doing what it needs to do. It's saying, Nicole, I think there might be a problem here.

[00:22:35] Rhonda Douglas: You might be kicked out of the tribe because of these grumpy people in the front. And so it's keeping you focused on that in order to keep you safe. But it doesn't feel like it, you know, like a brat. And we have to slowly train ourself over time to focus on the positive. And I'm now at the point where I can hear something negative and It's not that it doesn't bother me, of course it bothers me, I'm human, but then I can say, oh, I think that's about that person.

[00:23:04] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah. I got a mean comment online, I'm like, just says more about them than it does about me. So I think it takes time, it takes practice, but you can get there. 

[00:23:16] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Really great advice. So you talked a little bit about why the writer got into it, remember, you're doing this because you're learning, you're doing the best you can, you obviously are doing it because you have a joy of writing.

[00:23:30] Nicole Meier: So can you talk about maybe reconnecting with that joy or that purpose for some people that feel like they're really in the trenches right now? How can they reconnect with that joyful feeling of why they're writing the story in the first place? Yeah. 

[00:23:43] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah, so there are two things that I suggest as exercises for this.

[00:23:47] Rhonda Douglas: The first one is some journaling around your ideal reader. So depending on what you're writing, everybody's ideal reader is different, but we all kind of have one in the back of our head. So if I'm writing a memoir about a journey I had, I'm just thinking about a student of mine who's writing a book about her cancer journey.

[00:24:07] Rhonda Douglas: She's writing it for the woman who needs that book. She wishes she had that book at that time. And so much about memoir is connecting with other people on the same journey so that we're not all alone. And why do we go to literature? Why does literature even exist? It's so that we have a deeper understanding of the human condition and we don't feel so alone.

[00:24:27] Rhonda Douglas: Absolutely. So I like journaling in my writer's notebook. So I keep a writer's notebook that's separate from whatever project I'm working on where I journal different things or I might like. eavesdrop in a coffee shop and do some dialogue or write some character notes, but I also write about how I feel about my writing.

[00:24:45] Rhonda Douglas: And so I will go to my journal and journal about my ideal reader for this book. Now, if it's a cozy mystery, You know, then it's maybe it's someone looking to be like whisked away into another world for a little while. I think about my dad. He had an accident and then needed spinal surgery and he was in a lot of pain.

[00:25:06] Rhonda Douglas: And I had been reading a friend of mine writes sort of literary thrillers, very page turner kind of book. And so I had that with me and I left it in my dad's room when my mom and I went for the evening and we came back the next day and he's out of surgery and he's starting to recover. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:23] Rhonda Douglas: And he picked that book up and was in it and loving it, you know, and it took him away from his current circumstance. 

[00:25:31] Nicole Meier: And it's a gift to the reader. You don't know where they are in their journey, in their world, in their being, but a lot of those books are a gift. And I like to think of. Writing as a joyful activity, as a gift for the audience who's seeking that message at that time.

[00:25:48] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's really helpful to do that ideal reader journaling exercise. And then the other thing that's important to do is to have a writing ritual that tells your brain, I love this. I find joy in this. This is delicious and wonderful, not hard, difficult, painful. Yes. And when you think about it, we spend a lot of time thinking, Oh my God, it's going to take forever.

[00:26:18] Rhonda Douglas: Oh my God, I don't know what I'm doing. Oh my God, I need to figure out this. Oh, it's going to be so difficult. Your brain does not want you to sit down and write if those are the thoughts you're having. So, I recommend that people develop a ritual, and a ritual is just a series of actions that you do in the same order every time.

[00:26:39] Rhonda Douglas: And so, I love a writing ritual that's based around the five senses. So, for example, for Sight, I have printed out and designed different writing quotes that speak to me. So, the Terry Pratchett quote, the first draft is just you telling yourself the story. And it's because, quote, you can't edit a blank page.

[00:26:59] Rhonda Douglas: Yes. And I have them printed out and framed and they're up over my writing desk where when I look up, that's what I see. For touch, I always have a shawl around that I like to wrap around me or in the winter I wear these fingerless gloves that are made from alpaca and they're really soft. But I also keep a mug that is themed towards what I'm writing on.

[00:27:21] Rhonda Douglas: So I have one. My project involves the suffragist movement. Okay. And so I have a Votes for Women mug, and I have my drink in there. I light a candle. I set my intention when I light my candle. I listen to music. Yes. And people might like white noise, or brown noise, or blue noise, or, you know. And for taste, I have a little tiny can of these small little French fruit candies.

[00:27:47] Rhonda Douglas: And then I reward myself with a sticker for every writing session. And so many stickers, I get a treat. So that's my ritual. Yours can be different. But what you're trying to do is give your brain, every time you sit down, a hit of dopamine. And the brain deals with dopamine in an interesting way. It's not just dopamine.

[00:28:11] Rhonda Douglas: the doing of something that gives you a hit of dopamine. It's the anticipation that also a hit of dopamine if you enjoy something. So you're wanting to train your brain over time to be like, Ooh, that feels really good. Let's go do that right now. So that you're always drawn towards your writing. Yes. Way where it feels really good.

[00:28:31] Rhonda Douglas: And I put a lot of time and emphasis on my writing ritual and having a process and practice that feels delicious and wonderful and joyful. And it's really just so that my brain will let me do it. Because otherwise, if I tell myself it's hard, it's a struggle, I don't know what I'm doing next. I don't know if anyone's gonna want to read this book.

[00:28:54] Rhonda Douglas: There's so much work to be done here. I do not want to sit down and write. 

[00:28:59] Nicole Meier: No, there's no joy in it. It feels like a punishment. 

[00:29:02] Rhonda Douglas: Yes, totally. Totally. Yeah. So that's what I recommend. the ideal reader kind of journaling, and then a writing ritual that's really, really heavy on the pleasure. 

[00:29:13] Nicole Meier: Yeah, wonderful, wonderful bits of advice and wisdom, and that all resonates with me.

[00:29:19] Nicole Meier: So this gives me a beautiful segue into the guide that you have for writers. Can you talk a little bit about what you offer for writers in that area? 

[00:29:28] Rhonda Douglas: Yeah, so I have something called the Consistent Writer Guide, and there are six steps. To becoming a consistent writer and quite a few of them are mindset based, it's kind of things we have to address around some of the lies we get told and the lies we tell ourselves about writing that we've discussed.

[00:29:47] Rhonda Douglas: But then there are practical things like how do you get to focus? What are the practical things you need to put in place in order to be able to focus? Because focus is a necessary precondition for flow. You can't better a state of flow until you find that space of focus. So it's a guide that kind of walks through each step of the six steps, explains them all, and then there's a little checklist and an action plan at the end that allows you to kind of go through and do all of the things you need to do to set yourself up to write consistently.

[00:30:20] Rhonda Douglas: So I can share that with folks if they're interested. 

[00:30:22] Nicole Meier: Yeah. So how can they find that? How can they find you? Well, I will give you a link to put in your 

[00:30:27] Rhonda Douglas: show notes. Absolutely. But it's offers. resilientwriters. com forward slash consistent hyphen writer hyphen guide. 

[00:30:38] Nicole Meier: Great. And we will make that so easy in the show notes for people to find.

[00:30:41] Nicole Meier: But how can they find you and all the good places that you're on online? 

[00:30:45] Rhonda Douglas: I'm at resilient writers on Instagram. My website is resilientwriters.com. And if you love podcasts, which I know you do, because you're listening to one right now, um, you can search for the Resilient Writers Radio Show, which are interviews I do with writers, much like this one, which are really focused on process and practice and how do we finish our books and get them out into the world.

[00:31:08] Nicole Meier: Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today. And listeners, I hope you got some great nuggets of wisdom about how you can move, From fear to flow. Thank you so much, Rhonda. And writers, happy writing. We will see you next time. Thanks so 

[00:31:23] Rhonda Douglas: much.

[00:31:28] Nicole Meier: If you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers, visit NicoleMeier. com. That's M E I E R. And if you like this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show and and to get going on their writing journey.

[00:31:49] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy writing, everyone.