S3 Ep9. You Cannot Edit What You Do Not Write: The Courage to Begin with Simone Dalton

In this warm and reflective conversation, host Aderonke Bademosi Wilson sits down with writer and writing practice coach Simone Dalton to explore what it means to build a sustainable, soul-nourishing writing life rooted in rhythm instead of burnout. 

Simone shares how her love of language, her Caribbean roots and her journey through grief and transformation have shaped her creative work and the way she supports emerging writers, especially women of color who are juggling demanding careers and a long-held desire to write.​

Listeners will hear Simone describe what it truly means to be a language lover and story steward, and why she focuses on helping writers develop a writing practice that fits the reality of their lives rather than an idealized image of what a writer is supposed to look like. She explains the tension many writers feel between creativity and busy schedules, and how she guides them to sit with uncertainty, ask deeper questions of their stories and show up for the page with courage and tenderness.​

We travel with Simone back to the panyard in Trinidad where she grew up among steel pan orchestras, women who cared for her as a baby in a car seat on a bench and a community that taught her about rhythm, belonging and women holding one another up. She reflects on how those early experiences with music and community still live in her imagination, shape her sense of joy and inform the work she does today with writers and through her company, Island Scribe.​

Simone also talks about being inward focused and the personal development work she has done over the past 15 years to listen to the stories she holds, question where they came from and gently reframe or release them so she can move forward. She describes integrating mindfulness, embodiment and self-care into her work with writers, helping them separate their inner critic from their inner witness so they can return to the page even when it feels uncomfortable or lonely.​

A rich part of this episode centers on Simone’s coaching work with writers who do not yet feel comfortable calling themselves writers, often because their lives do not match their image of what a real writer looks like. She speaks to the specific challenges faced by women of color in writing spaces, including feeling exoticized or like the only one sharing a particular kind of story and how that disrupts their ability to sit with their questions and develop their work. Simone explains how she walks alongside writers as a story steward, helping them move from chasing validation and external success to cultivating a habit of creativity and a rhythm that lets them live with their writing for the long term.

Throughout the episode, Simone returns to the idea that stories shape how we see ourselves and how claiming our story can quietly shift the narratives of our lives, our leadership and our communities. She invites listeners to see writing as a retreat and a long game, to build confidence instead of chasing validation and to remember that they do not need to be extraordinary to begin. As she reminds us, you cannot edit what you do not write. You just need to begin.​

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Transcript

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:02.095)

Welcome to another edition of ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter, a podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth, and empowerment. Hi, I am Aderonke Bademosi Wilson. My guest on today’s show is Simone Dalton. Simone is a language lover, a story student, a story steward, and inward focused. Simone, welcome to the show.

Simone Dalton (00:38.542)

Thank you so much for having me, Aderonke. It is a beautiful opportunity to be here to speak with you and your listeners.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:45.083)

Well, first of all, I have to say, I appreciate you saying yes to being on the show, right. And as I told you as we were starting, I never take that for granted.

So Simone, please describe what a language lover is. What does that mean to you.

Simone Dalton (01:03.392)

Actually, just to hear you say it makes me feel extra warm inside. It is why I write. It is why I started reading, getting into language that can transport, that can transform, that can teach, that can light up our curiosity. That is what I come to writing with first.

And so it is really a love of language and what I can possibly do with it and how I can make it come alive on the page.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:39.205)

So tell me a little bit more about that. How do you use language. How do you use language in the work that you do.

Simone Dalton (01:41.678)

Hmm.

Simone Dalton (01:48.174)

So I am a writer myself, a literary writer in that space. And I also work with emerging writers, particularly women who are working in high powered positions and have this part of themselves that they have not yet allowed to flourish because of the constraints of time. They are caught between that tension between their creativity and their busy lifestyle.

So I hold those two things. I was that type of woman. I come from a busy career before moving into an artist career. When I say language lover, what I mean is I am looking for a writer who is willing to sit in the uncertainty of what they may not yet know their story to be and that they have an interest in exploring what that story might have to tell them by using the language that they know and that they may discover through that process.

It is the way that some phrase that their mother might have told them that they know has a particular meaning that they can then share with the reader. That is what makes it particularly interesting because it is original to them and how they might put it together with another part of their story.

So when I say language lover, I mean I am trying to get into those pieces. Sometimes we get caught up in the production of a piece or the production of the work and we forget to actually get into the beauty of what language can do.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (03:48.891)

So, and I want to come back to the writing part in a little bit. Tell me about being a story steward. What is that.

Simone Dalton (03:58.926)

So I use that phrase to mean that when I am working with another writer who is exploring the early stages of their work and what they may want to share with the world, I am helping them get that story out by helping them ask deeper questions of the story, of their process, of their practice, for getting the words on the page.

I often say to the writers I work with, you cannot edit what you do not write. That story steward means that I care about what they are trying to put forward and I walk alongside them in the process of doing that. So if you want to say a shepherd or a steward, that is what I mean by the words story steward.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (05:03.619)

And I want to understand your work a little bit more. Are you an editor. Are you a writing coach. Tell me more about your work with writers.

Simone Dalton (05:09.750)

Hmm.

Simone Dalton (05:15.631)

So I specifically describe myself as a writing practice coach, a writing practice coach. That goes back to the point that you cannot edit what you do not write.

When I was starting out and I transitioned from a career in public relations, corporate communications, transitioned towards writing and really towards creative writing in particular, it came to me as a place of refuge while I was dealing with an immense form of grief. I had just lost my mother and I was trying to find my place in the world.

So I returned to the page and through that practice found a way to get beneath the hurt I was feeling and to really understand what I was going through. That then led me to really discover what it might mean to turn my attention towards a career as a creative person, as a creative writer, when I saw what was possible for me to create on the page and I saw the way that I could connect with other people by what I was able to share.

But what I noticed very quickly was that my words were not coming as easily as I thought they might, particularly because I had this facility in this corporate setting where I was writing for speed and writing for product and writing press releases and speeches and the sort. And I was trying to understand what was the disconnect.

One of the things that came up for me was that there is a difference between wanting to write and being a writer. So that is why I have been focusing on the point of tension where you need to first develop the practice, understand your process, and it is not anybody else’s practice that can be superimposed onto your life.

What I work with my writers to discover is what is the practice that actually works with their actual life. I mean, if we are being frank, you can go on to type in GPT these days and create a plot outline for a story. That is not the world that I entered when I started writing, but it is possible for us now.

Where people are getting tripped up still is that, if you are actually a language lover and you are actually interested in meeting the world and understanding your world and then sharing that story with the world that you have to share, that requires you to be ready to sit in the discomfort, to sit in the questions, to sit in the uncertainty.

That return to that place of sitting in that quiet space, that is what the practice is about. That is what you are building. And it is going to look different for everyone. It is going to look different at every stage of your life, whether you are traveling, whether you are a new mother, whether you are nursing an elder in your family. And I am at that age where a lot of my friends are facing elder care.

This is the long game, right. And so as your life changes, your writing practice changes. This is when you can see writing as part of your lifestyle and not just something to do for success or something that is only driven by the success.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (09:24.613)

So if I understand correctly, you work with people who have a deep need to continue writing, not just that one book or two books or a blog post. It is long term writing.

Is that how, am I correct in how I am seeing your work.

Simone Dalton (09:50.734)

Yeah, I think, let me see if I can. I think you are correct and I just want to add to it.

Where I meet most of the writers I work with is that they will not call themselves a writer. They are not yet comfortable with that word writer because they have an impression of what a writer looks like, of what a writer does. And if their lives do not match up to that, they think that they cannot call themselves a writer.

So that is one of the things that we work through, right, actually embodying that identity of being a writer. The other thing that the women I work with are facing is that they may have the desire that you mentioned that they have been holding for a long time. Some of them may journal, some of them may have written when they were younger, some of them may have taken a couple of classes.

Often, and this is one of the reasons why I have focused on working particularly with women of color, they will walk into these rooms and they are silenced because their stories are still facing the feeling of being exoticized in those rooms because they are often the only one sharing a story like this in those rooms.

What that does is it disrupts the writer’s ability to sit with their questions and sit with their story and develop their story because they are too focused now on, do I fit in here, do I belong here, does my story matter. I am just taking a quick sip of water.

Simone Dalton (11:58.102)

So I am often working with writers who come to me with a blank page, but they have this idea that they have been working with very quietly in their everyday lives for a long time and they do not know how to crack open that first page and begin.

What does it mean to face that blank page and understand how they begin to walk into that space of the unknown.

Simone Dalton (12:29.614)

So that is what I would add to those two things. Often it is the writer who feels that they are not yet in that identity of being a writer. And it is often the writer who is facing the blank page and is unsure where to begin.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (12:45.595)

Hmm, this sounds fascinating. Thank you. And Simone, you also described yourself as inward focused. Tell me about that.

Simone Dalton (12:56.504)

So I describe myself that way because it represents the steadiness and the calm with which I work with the writers that I work with, and also how I have been on my own journey of personal development over about 15 years now to really understand some of the stories that I have been holding that have been holding me back from pursuing the dream of becoming a writer, the dream of moving forward with the career aspirations that I have had over the years.

So it is about how do I listen to those stories, to question those stories, where do they come from, and how can they be reframed or released so that I can move forward.

So I work from an embodied place and I often integrate mindfulness and practices of self-care within the work that I do with writers because I think writing, as you often hear, is such a solitary act. And it is the first place, when you are sitting at the page and you are unsure of where to go next, you might tend to walk away and not understand what it takes to return to that page and continue the process of inquiry.

Simone Dalton (14:44.182)

So I have been really focused on how do I build a practice within my own writing and in the writing of others to help them be okay to be in that moment of discomfort and to listen for those cues and how they listen to themselves with their stories.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (15:05.113)

Hmm. Thank you. Simone, I would like our listeners to learn a little bit more about you. Please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends would be surprised to learn.

Simone Dalton (15:09.422)

Simone Dalton (15:24.590)

Okay, so number one, I have to admit my friends will definitely know this one, but I think your listeners may be surprised to know that I grew up in a panyard in Trinidad. And when I say I grew up in a panyard in Trinidad and Tobago.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (15:37.033)

Say that again, you grew up where.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (15:43.171)

Okay, you know I have to ask, what is a panyard. Please tell me.

Simone Dalton (15:48.313)

So the steel pan, which was invented in Trinidad, is the only percussive instrument invented in the twentieth century. It is born out of rebellion and a need to express, particularly from the working class Afro Trinidadian community.

And it predates me, but my family has been deeply entrenched in this art form for many decades. And it is now a great feature of the country’s carnival celebrations, which just ended and which I just came back from. And the steel pan music has gone worldwide. So you can now find it in Japan, throughout South America, and throughout the US.

So this idea of the panyard for me, as people have a church and a school, and I had all those things, I also had this special place where I was loved, where there was a family to me and to my mother. So my mother played the bass pan. I will briefly share that the steel pan, when it is at its most grand, is in a full orchestra. So you can hear everything from classical to calypso to reggae to pop music played on this orchestra.

So my mother was a part of an orchestra and she was playing throughout her pregnancy. And when she had me, she took me to rehearsals and she put me in my little car seat on a bench in this panyard. The other women in that panyard looked in on me as the practice was going on. And that is where my first, I think it was actually my first introduction to what community means, what rhythm can mean, and what women holding each other up could look like.

Simone Dalton (18:03.855)

It is literally how I entered the world. So I have played the instrument since about the age of eight or nine, but I wanted to just say that I think it has been a formative moment in how I now do the work that I do, if I am to think about it.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (18:21.275)

And do you still play. Do you still have one.

Okay, so you said you just came back from Trinidad. Where do you live now.

Okay, and do you have a pan in Toronto.

Simone Dalton (18:27.028)

Yes. So I live in Toronto, but I do, I have played in a band in Toronto, but I am not an active player at the moment. But it is a part of my imagination. It is a part of what I still listen to, pan music. And I am a little bit rusty because I am out of practice. You see, we have been talking about practice and the importance of the consistency, but I do still listen and follow bands in Toronto at present.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (19:08.283)

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let us hear the others.

Simone Dalton (19:12.821)

The others. So for, I think this one is going to be a surprise to everyone.

For a long time, I actually wanted to be a forensic pathologist, which I know is quite a stretch now that I am a literary writer. The thing is, I have always been observant and curious and a little drawn to what is beneath the surface, which are things I think have really helped in my writing in particular.

So I wanted to know, what does the body hold and what stories remain. And right now I am in the process of working on my debut memoir, which will be out in about a year. And that memoir explores themes of grief and memory and what lingers after loss. So while I did not become a pathologist, I do like to examine stories.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (20:09.520)

Thank you.

Simone Dalton (20:11.887)

You are welcome.

The third one. So number three is that although I am from the Caribbean, I cannot swim.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (20:13.622)

And one more.

Simone Dalton (20:24.143)

So this came as a surprise to friends and to some of the writers I was working with recently. I host a morning writing lounge, which I call Rise and Write, and my writers were shocked to learn this point because we were talking about how common it is in communities of color that people may not know how to swim.

And I have it on my list this year that I am going to actually approach the pool and get my basic training down. But I think there is something a little poetic about it, like we are always at a point where we have something to learn. We are always at that point in our lives when we are moving through something new. And this is an area for growth for me, learning how to swim.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (21:24.047)

I am looking forward to hearing of your success, right, because that is always a big thing as an adult to learn. I always think, as a child, you just figure it out. But in many cases, young people go, children go for lessons.

But I know living in Bermuda, they do something called throwing you off the rocks, meaning a relatively shallow area, but with adults.

Simone Dalton (21:32.227)

Yes.

Simone Dalton (21:37.100)

I know.

Simone Dalton (21:49.933)

Yes. Yes.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (21:53.861)

Hopefully, with responsible adults nearby, you gently, hopefully, throw the kid overboard and they swim. There is a natural tendency, and I know there is a naturalness for children in water anyway, but the adults will be nearby, encouraging and supporting the child as they take their first strokes.

Simone Dalton (22:00.643)

Yes, yes.

Simone Dalton (22:11.535)

Mm hmm.

Simone Dalton (22:16.463)

Mm hmm.

Simone Dalton (22:21.006)

Yeah, I mean, it is going to be interesting to see what it feels like to be in the pool or sea and have a lesson. Earlier in our conversation, I spoke about the stories we carry and how they can hold us back. And when I was learning to swim as a young child, I had a moment of fear and did not want to re-enter the pool and refused to go back to lessons after that.

So there is a part of me that is still holding on to that story. There is a part of me that still has the memory of that little girl in the water who was scared. So, that is where the metaphor and the poetry is for me. It is like being at a point where we are constantly given these opportunities and these lessons in our lives as we go through, whether it be professionally or personally, to learn something that has not quite set in yet, or to have a moment of transformation that has not quite taken hold yet.

And I think that this learning to swim is going to be a really cool way to see what might result, what may come as a result.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (23:43.087)

And it sounds as though you have an opportunity to rewrite your story, rewrite your swimming story.

Simone Dalton (23:49.843)

Exactly, exactly. Yes, I agree with you. Yeah.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (23:56.827)

Simone, can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that you are particularly proud of.

Simone Dalton (24:05.185)

Well, I am particularly proud of, and it took me a little while to believe that it had happened, signing a two book deal with a publisher called Scribner Canada, which is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Canada.

So I mentioned a little earlier that I have a debut memoir coming out, and I am also working on a novel that has been quietly living inside me for a number of years. What makes it particularly meaningful is that it is a validation that the practice does work. I have been on this journey for about ten years to write and to believe that the writing was possible and to develop practices along the way.

And the other thing that makes it particularly meaningful is that I have been writing while building Island Scribe. So Island Scribe is the business under which my coaching and my retreats and writing practice work falls, and the spaces I have created for other writers. So it also feels like a coming together of the inner calling that I have had to do this work and seeing the work in practice, seeing what is possible when these two things can align.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (25:42.629)

Tell me about the memoir. Does it have a title yet.

Simone Dalton (25:46.837)

Yes, so it has a title that I have been working with for a long time, but it may change because it is now with the publisher. So discussions are being had around that.

I titled it What Remains. The reason was because I was interested in looking at a few things. There is the actual inciting incident and what gets the clock ticking, so my mother’s passing, which is very sudden. She died in Trinidad while I was living in Toronto.

But what I was left with is to figure out who was the woman that I wanted to be in her absence, and really trying to work through the fact that I had the opportunity to create that person who I wanted to be. I was also interested in looking at what it means to be a diasporic Caribbean person and holding space in these two homes, the sense of doubleness, the sense of feeling the tension between these two worlds.

And the real possibility there is the opportunity to create what home now means for me, because home with my mother alive meant my mother. With her no longer here with me in the physical realm, it means something new.

So it looks at the possibilities of grief, even when the grief is as painful as mine is. You know, grief is really a great equalizer. So I am hoping that this is an opportunity to discuss grief from a Caribbean lens, but also a lens that reaches beyond the Caribbean and looks at the Caribbean diaspora in particular.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (28:10.235)

And your comment about becoming the woman without your mother. My mom died in 2017. And one of my early thoughts around her death is, how do I walk in the world without her, right. And I was in my fifties when my mom passed. And so for more than fifty years,

Simone Dalton (28:34.735)

You.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (28:39.427)

I had this woman beside me, first as a mentor, parent, guide, then as our relationship changed, friend, right, and with that deeper connection. And so I am curious about how you have evolved as a woman who, it seems, was very close to her mother,

Simone Dalton (28:51.247)

Mm hmm.

Simone Dalton (28:57.592)

Yeah.

Simone Dalton (29:04.686)

Hmm.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (29:07.739)

and had the ability to look inside and write about it.

Simone Dalton (29:17.871)

Mm.

Wow, that is such a beautiful question, and a big one. So you are correct in that she was my world. She was my compass. And we were two peas in a pod, even when I left the country and went on to pursue education and the sort.

But she died at a particularly tender time. Losing a parent at any age is challenging, and in my case, I lost her just at the end of my twenties. And I was at that point where I was having dreams of stepping into my role as caregiver and taking from her shoulders what she had carried for so long. She was a single parent, and I wanted nothing more than to begin to, not to repay, but to honor the sacrifices that she had made.

I will say that around that time of her death, we also had a mini fracture, or what I would almost call a mini death before she died, which was that I came out to her as a queer woman and it changed our relationship, because I was now unrecognizable to her.

I was now a new, this was now a new daughter that she too had to figure out how she was going to relate to. And for a long time, I shrank because I wanted nothing more than to be the good daughter. So that would mean that I was willing to deny this part of myself that I was now discovering in what were the very early days of discovery, so that I could maintain this bond that I had had with my mother throughout my life.

So that when she died so suddenly, I felt really unmoored because I was trying to grapple with this change that had started just before her death and then what felt like a rupture of her no longer being in my life physically.

That was a vision of me that really was looking for a way to explain to myself what had happened and how I was going to be able to continue. How was I going to find purpose in this new life that I now had an opportunity to reframe, to rediscover, and to really forgive myself and my mother and to understand that the love that we shared had not been affected by my revelation, but in fact, it might have been transformed by me sharing what I did and being able to go through this process, which I was not able to go through with her in the physical sense.

And that is why I had to turn to the language to be able to ask those questions of her in the remains, to really understand what was possible in our relationship and in our lives together beyond what we knew, but what we could create on the page together. I know this, I am hoping this all translates.

But it is why it has taken me this long to be able to have this memoir, this representation of this journey of discovery of myself, this journey of forgiveness of myself, this journey of discovery of her and understanding what it could mean for a mother to be facing a new relationship with a daughter, right, and what that may look like.

I am not a mother myself, but I do think that through this process of trying to grapple with these themes through the language, it has allowed me an openness to go into that inner work and to really explore the questions because there is no answer per se. It is not working toward a resolution, but it is, how do you be comfortable with having the questions and being brave enough to ask the questions.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (35:48.025)

Simone, first of all, thank you for sharing. Second, congratulations on the book. And it sounds as though writing, especially writing this book, for you has been cathartic, has been an opportunity for you to not only examine, but potentially heal.

Simone Dalton (35:53.359)

Thank you.

Simone Dalton (36:08.003)

Yes, yes, it has been a place for healing, a place for transformation.

Yeah, and a place to really understand that we are evolving, that change is constant, we are constantly able to create new from pain. We are able to create from that place. So I would agree that it has been transformative for sure.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (36:52.373)

And before I move to the next question, I am going to say this. And I think I have said it on the show before, but I think it is worth repeating. When I was going through a very difficult time in my life, my mom said to me, you use this to help others. And I remember saying at the time, but Mommy, I cannot even help myself. And she just nodded sagely and we moved on, right.

And so I want to say that to you. I think your examination of your relationship with your mom and your relationship within yourself has and will help others.

Simone Dalton (37:31.673)

Thank you. Thank you for saying that. I really, really appreciate it.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (37:38.885)

Simone, please tell us about a time when you made a difference in another’s life. What were the circumstances. Paint a picture for me.

Simone Dalton (37:47.747)

So I will share a story from working with one of my writers. It is a really interesting one in particular because she is an academic, a very successful academic, who, as a teenager, had a high school career in athletics. So when she came to me with this desire to write creatively, she was coming with a winning mindset, which means for most people when they think of writing, it is publication, it is recognition, and it is a breakthrough.

And every session was framed around that achievement, that need to win, but she was not writing consistently. She had no practice. And she was waiting for the home run but had not really attended to what it would mean to actually be in regular conversation with the work.

So I started to shift her focus. What would it mean to have a habit of creativity instead of a habit of success. And what that means is a change of the question you are asking yourself. So instead of saying, is this good enough, we started asking the question, did you show up.

Right, did you show up. Which moves you from chasing an outcome to actually building this rhythm, this rhythm of showing up.

What was really beautiful to see by the time we had finished working together was that she had a completed draft of a short story. And the thing that was really important to witness and really a treat to see was that she had developed a practice that made sense for her life during the process of creating that draft. And she recognized that the shift was not external. It was all the inner work that she had to do, all of that quieting of that voice of success and moving toward that voice of creativity.

It is what I encourage writers to do when we stop trying to impress the world and actually want to be in relationship with the work itself. That I think is one of the things that has made a difference to me, and it continues to be something that I hold dear.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (41:06.457)

What were the key strengths and qualities that you relied on to make a difference for this writer.

Simone Dalton (41:15.505)

I think it comes from being, or working from, a place of embodiment, or working from an embodied place. And what I mean by that is that I am not coaching from theory alone. I am a writer who sits with the doubt and the deadlines and that need to perform and also the resistance and the joy.

And I really rely on deep listening to be able to pay attention to a tone shift or what someone is avoiding, to really see when the energy drops because I am a mirror to myself, right. I know what this means, what it meant for me and how it kept me from the page.

I trust process and I know that the change rarely looks dramatic in the moment. It is that small act, it is that tiny courage, it is that showing up that is important.

I think what helps a writer feel comfortable to sit with me in that moment is that I bring steadiness to the fears that they may be facing or the stories they may be grappling with. I do not panic when they feel stuck, and I try to hold the possibility for that story until they can see it themselves.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (43:21.093)

Simone, can you recall a situation where you overcame a challenge that led to personal growth. What did you learn from that experience.

Simone Dalton (43:31.120)

Well, I will have to come back to you after I learn to swim and I will let you know how that goes.

But the one I wanted to share is related to writing through grief. In that moment when I first, and I will say actually one of your other podcast guests was the first person, one of the first people, to read,

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (43:35.387)

You.

Simone Dalton (43:58.511)

I think my first paragraph that I ever wrote about this story, who is Karel McIntosh, and you have had her on your show. And I wrote this one paragraph that ended up being what I describe almost like a trauma loop because I could not get past this one paragraph, this moment of getting the phone call that my mother was gone.

So when I started to figure out, what is here, how do I expand this, how do I actually develop this into something, I thought that I would be able to approach it with clarity. I thought I could rely on the skills that I had as a writer.

But that shrinking that started to happen was me doubting my voice, was me doubting. I said a bit earlier that grief is really a great equalizer. So who am I to share my grief. What about my grief makes this story special. And I got really caught up in those questions. And those are the questions that kept me from the page.

And I thought that the part of me that could write confidently was gone.

Simone Dalton (45:27.670)

In the returning and in the showing up that I eventually was able to develop for myself over years of success and failure, I learned that grief does not erase the voice, it just changes it.

And I have been in the practice of really trying to listen more deeply to it.

I can say now that having been working through language, I know that writing is not about certainty. It really is about staying with the stuff long enough to hear what needs to be said.

And the grief taught me to develop a tenderness with my own process. And that tenderness is, I think, what informs how I work with others now.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (46:32.485)

Thank you for sharing.

Simone Dalton (46:34.266)

Thank you.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (46:38.627)

You are listening to ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter podcast.

Welcome back to ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter. My guest today is Simone Dalton. Simone, we have talked about writing through grief. We have talked about you growing up in a steel panyard and what that means to you. We have talked about your support of writers as they start the process, as they have breakthroughs, as they have successes in their own writing.

And my question for you is, what self-care practices or strategies help you to sustain your energy and motivation while navigating your journey.

Simone Dalton (47:27.822)

This is a great question and an important one. The first thing I would say that has been really helpful for me has been a meditation practice.

However, I will say the caveat here is that it was not always a practice, meaning that I did not have a daily practice. I do now, but that has taken me years to build. I think it came at the time when I was evolving my spirituality and it helped me separate my inner critic from my inner witness, being able to hold those two parts of myself.

I move my body as much as I can. I walk, which is a beautiful practice to have as a writer, to just sort of lose yourself in the breeze, in the sunshine on your face as you think through a particular character or question you may have.

Now in my life, I am post menopausal and especially now I move even more. So I am deeply aware that managing energy is not optional. It is essential. And with managing a full time writing practice and a heart centered business, I have to find how I keep that energy going.

I think a lot of it, self care for me, has really come from a place of grace and a willingness to adjust. If something is not working as it did one week, to be able to take a step back and make the adjustments that you might need to make in your schedule and figure out what is possible. So I have been getting better at doing that and trying to listen and be attentive to moments when I am stuck and I am forcing something that is not working and being able to take a step back.

Simone Dalton (49:45.954)

The last thing I will share, and I consider this to be part of my self-care, is that I write early in the morning. So that is before my self critic wakes up because she is very loud and very active.

I like the kind of softness there is first thing in the morning. And that is where I like to meet the page when I start the day.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (50:28.091)

So when you start writing, first of all, what time do you wake up.

Simone Dalton (50:32.752)

Right now, because I am working on a revision to get this thing on the shelves, I wake up at 4 a.m.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (50:40.731)

And so the next question, how long do you write for. You wake up at four and then what happens.

Simone Dalton (50:42.801)

Okay.

So my current practice looks like this. I wake up at four. I meditate, then I exercise for about half an hour. I do a bit of strength training. One of the things, you mentioned the word motivation. So one of the things I have noticed about me is that my willpower, my sense of motivation, is the strongest in the morning.

So I am trying to frontload as much of the things that are either challenging. I actually share this as sort of my best kept secret, or maybe it is my worst kept secret, writing is the most challenging thing for me to do in the day.

And when I say that, I mean that it is the thing that I will pile in other things to distract myself from. I will procrastinate all because I do not want to face the sentence that is not working, the page that is still blank that I have not written on, the question that I am still discovering. That is what I am trying to avoid.

So I frontload that. I tend to write in spurts. So I will make a block for myself of about two hours, which will run roughly from about 6 to 8 a.m. in the morning. But I break that up. I am using the technique of the Pomodoro. So this usually means you do 25 minutes in deep focus and then you allow yourself a break.

And so I try to do that during that two hour block.

A couple of things that I will share with listeners and that I share with the writers that I work with: I make the time a physical thing. So I put the block in my calendar, so that this is a date that I am making with myself. This has a weight to it. It is something that I can see when I sit down and I open my calendar at the start of a day. Just as you would when you are at work, at the job, you have your meetings booked. So this is your meeting with yourself.

And it is interesting how many writers I have spoken to, those who are particularly emerging, who have never put in their calendar a writing date with themselves.

So that is what I tend to do. And the morning is a practice that I have started sharing through Rise and Write with other writers that I work with. And it has really been a beautiful thing to see. It is not about being a morning person. It is just about making sure that you can start the day with yourself first.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (53:57.753)

This is, I am just going to ask you the question. So what time do you go to bed. If you are waking up at 4 a.m., do you go to bed at 6 p.m. What does that look like.

Simone Dalton (54:01.265)

That is such an important question because it is an important part of this process. So not 6 p.m., but I try to get in by about 9:30 or 10. So I am looking for about seven hours of sleep.

So I am really happy that you asked that question because it is important to rest and to get sufficient rest so that you can actually get up in the morning and feel reasonably okay to face the day. I do not get up bounding out of my bed every morning. There are some mornings when I cheat and I have two cups of coffee or I am feeling particularly snoozy, but the sleep is important.

When I was talking about the practice and a practice that works with your actual life, these are the kinds of questions that I start writers examining. So if your life requires that you are doing homework with your kids until 8 p.m. and getting dinner on the table at 9, and that your body is maybe not ready to relax and settle in until 11 o’clock at night, then a 4 o’clock practice may not be for you.

And what I urge writers to do is to not expect that you have to do it that way. What I want you instead to do is question, what works for me.

And it is that part of the long game. There was a woman, I always share this story. I would take the train to work in Toronto and I met a woman on the train one morning. And this was after I had completed an MFA, a Master of Fine Arts. I had the first draft of my memoir complete. And I went back to my full time job because I did not believe that I could be a writer full time.

And I met a woman on the train who said to me, unprompted, on a busy train, “I finished writing my book by writing a little bit every day on the train.”

She was an older person than me, an older Black woman, an auntie. And I, in that moment, felt as though she was put on that train to give me that message. Because I was in a headspace of “this is not going to work.” I was unhappy at my job. I had started the transformation to actually pursue this new life, and I was not giving myself the opportunity to actually see what was possible.

So all that to say that if it means it is on the train, if it means it is on your lunch hour, if it means it is “sweetie, I need half an hour, can you just take the dishes out of the dishwasher for me,” whatever it means, it is all possible. What we need to get away from is this idea that the book is going to just materialize or the story is going to materialize.

And maybe you do not even want to publish. Some people have to, not to go off on this tangent too long, but I will just end by saying this, the other thing that is important to recognize is, who do you want to be as a writer. Maybe you just want to write for self-care and you do not want to share that writing with the world. Then your practice looks different.

So those are the types of questions that I enjoy having with writers.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (58:24.453)

So how do people find you. Let us say I am sitting here in Bermuda and I am thinking, okay, I need to finish this book which I have started. I am editing it. It is driving me crazy. How do I find you. How do people find the level of writing support that you provide. How can people find you.

Simone Dalton (58:49.219)

Right. So if you are looking for an editor, I would likely refer you to a really good editor because I am not that type of writing coach.

However, if you are looking to develop a rhythm that fits with your life so that you can actually be in the practice of writing and you actually want it to be part of your lifestyle, whether you want to share that writing with the world or not, then the way you will find me is, I am on LinkedIn. Our website is islandscriberetreats.ca.

And I am actually now working on a beautiful program that, if I may share, is launching this May called The Right Rhythm, which is really a container for writers who want to build that consistency and write without self punishment, which is another area that can sometimes keep us from the page.

So often, we think that discipline means harshness, but discipline can actually be restorative. Having that rhythm could actually mean freedom.

So this is a group program to ask yourself those questions, like, what do you want to do with the language on the page, what is possible in your actual life now, and what stories are you holding already so that you can begin to test and to play with what is possible with those stories on the page.

Leaving a program like The Right Rhythm, you will have developed seeds that you can then create into your first story, into your first writing practice, and develop ways that you can bring it into your everyday life to then develop into the next thing that is possible for you with your writing. So this is for the emerging writer that I am speaking to right now.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:01:17.605)

Simone, thank you. Thank you. I think anybody that is listening who is curious about their own story will be really happy to know that somebody like you exists, right, because you provide, from what I am taking away, a framework in which to get started, in which to continue, because you can start but you do not have the momentum or the support or the guidance to continue and then get to the end of whatever your process is.

As you have said, whether it is for publication, whether it is for self, or in some cases for your blog post, it allows you to have a successful writing experience.

Simone Dalton (01:02:09.165)

Exactly, exactly. So that you can live with this thing for the long term. It provides you with that foundational support.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:02:20.783)

How might sharing your experiences of success and growth create a positive ripple effect in your family, community, the world.

Simone Dalton (01:02:29.905)

Hmm.

Simone Dalton (01:02:36.498)

I think what I am modeling for others is what it means to have a sustainable writing life, one that is rooted in rhythm instead of burnout, which is such a common experience, particularly of women in corporate situations and in academia right now.

I hope it gives permission to others to do the same for themselves, to see this as possible for themselves.

I think if a writer can build confidence instead of chasing validation, I think that will actually translate into other spaces in their life. It may affect how they parent, it may affect how they lead, how they step into a room, how they take up space, how they speak in meetings, and how they can show up in community with others with that confidence within themselves.

Simone Dalton (01:03:57.860)

The other thing about this work is that stories shape how we see ourselves, and when someone claims their story, I think they can shift the narrative of their personal life and beyond. I really do. It is quiet work, but it has the ability to multiply into these other areas.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:04:43.323)

Thank you. What brings you joy.

Simone Dalton (01:04:47.621)

Joy is such a good word. For me, that is my wife’s cooking. My 101 year old grandmother, 101, I love her laugh. That always happens before she has delivered the punchline for her joke that she is telling you.

The sound of a steel pan being tuned just before a performance starts. It is that first metallic knock. I cannot get that rush out of my body. It is still part of me.

And language, right. We started with the language lover, particularly when a sentence transports you somewhere you did not expect to go.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:05:49.423)

What book recommendation do you have. It can be a book that you have read recently or something that has stayed with you over the years. And it could be more than one book.

Simone Dalton (01:05:59.280)

I am happy that it can be more than one book because I have two. And they are both older books to me and also older books in the market.

So the first book is Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John. And it is the first time I saw myself, a Caribbean girl, reflected on the page.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:06:01.978)

Okay.

Simone Dalton (01:06:26.691)

And it taught me that my perspective was not peripheral, it was central. And I have returned to that first lesson, which I got, I think I read Annie John when I was about eleven or twelve. It was on our syllabus. And that book has just remained with me in all these other different ways.

The second book is Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. And I share this one because it reminds me not to lean into perfection, but instead to give us permission. It is about building the practice and it reinforces what I teach, that creativity thrives inside that practice and inside that continual renewal and creating moments of joy for oneself in the practice. So those are the two for me.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:07:39.387)

Thank you, Simone. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for giving your insight and wisdom around language, around writing, around the writing practice and what you as an individual gain in the process of learning and maybe even hearing your voice with clarity when you begin to write.

Do you have anything else. Do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share.

Simone Dalton (01:08:11.730)

Hmm.

Simone Dalton (01:08:19.824)

I think what I would like to share, well, in addition to the fact that you can find Island Scribe on Instagram as well as Island Scribe Retreats. I often say, let your writing be a retreat. So one of the things that Island Scribe started with was, we host retreats in the Caribbean for writers.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:08:46.947)

Okay. So I did see a website and I am sorry to jump in at this point. I wanted to understand how that works. So please tell us, do you have every month or every six months set dates where people come, or they just come there during their vacation or time and they want to write and they just pitch up and start writing. How does that work.

Simone Dalton (01:08:50.641)

Yes.

Simone Dalton (01:08:55.600)

Yes.

Simone Dalton (01:09:13.253)

Yes, I am happy that you asked the question. So this is a curated experience. I host the retreats. They are seven days. We select the location and a lot goes into selecting the location because the creation of space, and a space that will encourage you to be able to rejuvenate and to write, is important to us.

So the dates are set each year and we do not have retreats happening this year, but our next retreat will happen next year in April in Barbados in a fishing village known as Bathsheba. And the opportunity there is for emerging writers to work with me for seven days on a project that they have been thinking about and developing their practice in that container.

We will explore mindfulness practices and explore how we get in front of the stories that are keeping our stories from the page, the stories that we want to write. There will be moments for group accountability and writing together and understanding what it means to be a literary citizen. And there are moments for your solo writing work.

We also take writers to experience the sensory experience of the island itself, to understand what it means to bring all of yourself to the page, all of the senses, all the things you experience to the page. So you get a chance to explore the island’s culture and history.

We connect them with literary writers on the island. So we have an afternoon that is curated with a conversation and lunch where they can meet someone who is in practice. Last year we had science fiction writer Karen Lord join our group, which was a beautiful experience.

So those are the types of things that are curated across the seven days. So to the question of, can you just rock up. No, it is a registration process, not in the sense of trying to audition for acceptance, but there is a specific time of year when the retreats are hosted and, once you are connected to Island Scribe, you can do this through our newsletter that you can sign up for on the website. You will be able to get information as to our dates and when registration is opened for the next retreat, which will happen coming up this spring. We will start promoting for next year.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:12:24.417)

And each retreat, is it in a different location.

Simone Dalton (01:12:29.010)

We tend to change locations ever so often. So we have done retreats in Tobago, Barbados, and Dominica so far. And we will likely go to other islands. We started in 2023 and we will likely explore other islands in the years to come.

One of the cool things I like about bringing writers to the Caribbean is that often we have one dimension of what it means to be in the Caribbean and one dimension of what Caribbean life means. So it is an opportunity to expose them to a side of the Caribbean that they have never experienced before. But it also speaks to the resourcefulness and the ingenuity and that innovation and creativity that is possible in these countries, in these spaces.

So you get a chance to dip yourself deeply into that setting.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:13:38.875)

So I am going to say this on the record, Bermuda is open for business.

Simone Dalton (01:13:48.227)

Yes.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:13:51.707)

So when you are ready to explore Bermuda, please, please, please let me know and I am sure there are many places that you can consider on this tiny island to host a retreat.

Simone Dalton (01:13:52.912)

I am.

Simone Dalton (01:13:58.231)

My gosh.

Simone Dalton (01:14:04.524)

What a lovely invitation. I am definitely going to follow up with you on that for sure.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:14:12.333)

Excellent. Simone, anything else. And I know I cut into your final thoughts. Please, please continue.

Simone Dalton (01:14:16.082)

No, no, I will just end by saying that I really want listeners to realize that you do not need to be extraordinary to begin.

Simone Dalton (01:14:36.742)

You just need to begin.

Right. So that idea of “my story does not matter.”

You do not need to be extraordinary.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:14:58.683)

Simone Dalton, thank you so much. I have learned a lot about writing. I have learned a lot about the process. I have learned a lot about you, given that we have never met before. And so I appreciate your candor. I appreciate you sharing.

And I just want to go over some of the appreciation nuggets that I am taking away as a, how do I say this, as a writing curious person. I am not even sure that is a term, but I am very much interested in writing. I write a blog and ideas will come to me every so often, but I will tell you, I do have a secret blog that nobody really knows about where I try to be a humor writer.

Simone Dalton (01:15:28.294)

Hmm.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:15:28.923)

So you are eking out secrets from me at this point. And it is where I write about things that have happened and after the fact I will see as funny. So one day I thought my car was on fire. So I called somebody and said, “I think my car is on fire.” And the person said, “Did you feel the hood.” I said, “Hot.” And it had been raining. He was like,

Simone Dalton (01:15:35.378)

You.

Simone Dalton (01:16:03.789)

Interesting.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:16:25.839)

“Well, maybe it is steam.” I was like, okay. Things like that. I fell down once, or I have fallen down several times, and I wrote about this one time that I fell down and damaged my palms. I had been out walking, exercising. And so when people would say, “What happened to your hand.” I would say, “It is a sports related injury.”

Simone Dalton (01:16:27.538)

You.

Simone Dalton (01:16:41.756)

You.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:16:56.003)

So that is where I try to find humor in things that happen. So that is the secret blog that I have. I will share it, and I do not write in it often. Maybe I need to revisit it. But I like to secretly think I am a humor writer.

Simone Dalton (01:17:04.210)

Which you should.

Simone Dalton (01:17:11.516)

Yeah.

Simone Dalton (01:17:17.779)

I think that is so important to share with anyone who is thinking. You see, this is the really cool thing because it is a secret, right. You have chosen to share it with us here, but how can you just allow yourself that little extra discovery, that cover, that space where you can bring the joy and experiment. That is such a beautiful thing.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:17:48.147)

Simone, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We will be talking.

And so these are the appreciation nuggets that I am taking from our conversation.

You cannot edit what you do not write.

Simone Dalton (01:17:50.674)

Good, good, good, good.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:18:07.065)

We always have something to learn.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:18:15.737)

Develop a habit of creativity instead of a habit of success.

Grief is a great equalizer. Grief does not erase the voice, it changes it.

And one of the things that you said about yourself, separate the inner critic from the inner witness.

Simone Dalton (01:18:38.896)

Yes, yes.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:18:41.047)

And one of the last things you have just said, you do not need to be extraordinary to begin, just begin.

Yes, Simone Dalton, I truly appreciate you taking the time to join me on ABWilson’s Heart of the Matter,

Simone Dalton (01:18:46.962)

Yes, begin. Have that secret blog.

Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:19:07.747)

a podcast dedicated to asking overwhelmingly positive questions as we uncover incredible stories of wisdom and success from people you may know.

Simone Dalton, thank you so much.

Simone Dalton (01:19:23.804)

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.