What’s a Book Doula, Anyway?

What if writing a book was about more than just getting the words on the page?

In the first episode of Book Doula Diaries, Megs Thompson, The Book Doula™, introduces you to her unique approach for supporting writers & their stories from the inside out. We’re talking about what a Book Doula actually does, why the emotional side of writing matters just as much as the craft & what it really takes to bring the book inside you onto the page.

If you’ve been dreaming about writing a book, wrestling with a manuscript, or wondering why getting started (or finished) feels so damn hard, you’re in the right place.

Welcome to Book Doula Diaries.

Enjoying Book Doula Diaries?

If this episode resonated with you, follow the show so you never miss a new episode & if you know another writer who needs to hear this, share it with them.

If you’re ready for a little more nurturing for you & your writing, contact Megs via her website - www.megswrites.com

Until next time, keep your notebook close.

Music is Float Easy by Hemlock

Book Doula Diaries is written, recorded & quasi-edited by Megs Thompson, of megswrites llc

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey there, my brave storytellers. Welcome to Bookdoula Diaries, the cozy little corner of the world for nurturing writers and their stories from the inside out. I'm Megs, your resident Bookdoa, intuitive writing coach, editor, publisher, and depending on the day, probably someone who is sitting somewhere with a cup of coffee that's gone completely ice cold because I got distracted listening to a stranger tell me their life story. I'm really glad you're here. Because if you've ever had a story living inside of you, if you've ever thought I should probably write this down someday, if you've ever started a book and stopped, or started five, if you have notebooks tucked into drawers, voice memos on your phone, or a document on your computer with a title that makes your heart skip a beat every time you see it, then my friend, you are absolutely in the right place. So pour yourself something tasty, get comfortable, take a deep breath, and let's chat. Today, I want to answer a question that I get asked all the time, and it's one that I genuinely love hearing. Megs, what exactly is a book doula? When I first started calling myself a bookdoula, I wasn't entirely sure how to explain it either. I mean, I knew what I did. I knew how I wanted writers to feel when they worked with me. I knew what happened when a writer who'd been circling their story for months or years or decades finally had someone sitting beside them, encouraging them to take a breath, slow down, and look at what they'd already accomplished. But putting all of that into a neat little definition, that took some serious time. Because being a book doula isn't about one particular thing. It's not a formula or a five-step system. It's not me sitting across from you twirling a red pen and telling you how your book should be. A book doula is something much more human than that. Most people are probably familiar with what a traditional doula is: a person who supports someone else through one of the biggest transitions of their life. The doula doesn't give birth to the baby. They don't take over. They don't say, okay, mom, I've got this. You can go sit in the waiting room. We'll tell you when it's done. And they definitely don't handle a scalpel or forceps. Quite the opposite. A doula is there to support the person who's doing the actual birthing. They help them trust their body to breathe and stay grounded when things feel overwhelming. They remind them that they can do hard things. In fact, they can do something that may feel completely impossible. And that is really the heart of what I do with writers. Except instead of helping you birth a baby, ew, I'm helping you birth a story. The big takeaway here is that I do not birth the story for you. Period. You do. You're the writer. The voice is yours, the story is yours, the perspective is yours, and those weird little ideas that you aren't quite sure make any sense yet, those are definitely yours too. My job is just to help you hear them, to trust them, and to help you stay with them long enough to discover what they might become. Because sometimes the hardest part of writing isn't actually the writing. Sometimes the hardest part is allowing ourselves to believe that what we have to say is worth saying. There are so many people walking around this world who are without question writers, but refuse to claim the title. Instead, they say things like, I just like to write. You know, I've always wanted to write a book. I've got at least 47 journals full of stuff at home, but none of it's really anything. Oh, I used to write back in school. Guys, sorry, not sorry, but if you have a story that keeps coming back, if you find yourself noticing the details that other people don't, if you are constantly narrating life in your head, if imaginary characters talk to you in the shower, if when you see a stranger at the grocery store, you immediately invent their entire backstory. If you keep thinking about that one thing you haven't written yet, then you're a writer. You don't need another certification, you don't need a publishing contract, you don't even need to know what the book is yet. You just need to stop hiding from the fact that there's a story inside of you who's been knocking on the door for a very long time. And maybe, just maybe, you're finally ready to answer. That brings us to the all-important question of who this podcast is for. I'm gonna tell you, I'm talking to the people who've finished a manuscript, the ones who know exactly what genre they're writing in and have a color-coded outline. But I'm also talking to the people who are still wondering, still hiding. The ones who write something and immediately throw it out. The ones who have something to say but don't know whether they're allowed to call it a story. The ones who've written 200 pages and still don't see themselves as a writer. The ones who've written three sentences and already decided that they're terrible. The ones who've been waiting patiently for the perfect time to begin. And the ones who've started over and over and over again. Because here's something that I don't think a lot of people realize. Writing is vulnerable. Even when we pretend it isn't, we can tell ourselves that it's just words. It's just a story, a journal entry, a character, just something we're playing around with. But the moment we put something onto a page, we're putting a little piece of ourselves somewhere outside of our own body. And that can be terrifying because now it exists. And if it exists, someone can see it. If someone sees it, they can judge it, they can misunderstand it or dislike it. They can say that it's too much or that it's not enough. And sometimes we don't even need someone else to say those things because we have our own internal committee working overtime. You know, those inner voices that ask who we think we are. They tell us we're being ridiculous, unoriginal, that we're too old, too young, and any number of other extremely unhelpful quips. That voice for me is my inner editor, Agnes. We'll talk more about her in future episodes. But when she starts piping in with her unsolicited advice, I usually respond with something like, Thanks for sharing, Agnes. Now please go sit back down. It's important as writers that we realize that voice doesn't necessarily need to disappear before we write. That's another misconception that I want to challenge. You don't have to be a hundred percent confident before you begin. You don't have to stop being afraid or suddenly know exactly what you're doing. You can write scared and badly and messy. You can write something that you absolutely hate and something that completely surprises you. You can write something you aren't ready to show anyone else. You can write something that eventually becomes a book or doesn't. The point is you get to write. Now writing can also be incredibly lonely. You sit down with your blank page and it's just you and your thoughts and that inner editor. Sometimes those thoughts are beautiful. Sometimes they're complete chaos. Sometimes you've got 17 ideas and no clue where to start. Sometimes you have a beginning and an end, but absolutely no idea what happens between. Sometimes you know exactly what you want to say, but every time you sit down to say it, the words come out sounding like they're someone else's voice. And sometimes you simply don't write at all. Not because you don't care, not because you're lazy, not because you aren't committed, but because life is life. We have work and children and parents and dishes and laundry and emails. We all have people who need things from us. But somewhere in the middle of all of that, there's this little voice that keeps saying, What about my story? That's another place where a book doula comes in handy. Often writers don't need another productivity hack. Instead, they just need someone else to encourage them to sit down, take a deep breath, and give their creativity a little freedom to see what happens. That's what I mean when I say the part about being a book doula is simply holding space. I'm not here to make your writing experience more complicated. I'm here to make it feel a little less lonely, to remind you that your story doesn't have to be perfect to deserve attention, and that your first draft does not need to be beautiful. Your first draft just needs to exist. We get so attached to the idea that the words have to be good before we're allowed to keep them, and I want to lovingly take that pressure off. Instead, write the ugly sentence, the awkward paragraph, the scene that makes absolutely no sense. Write the thing that you're pretty sure you're gonna delete tomorrow. Write the version that's too long, the one that's too short, too emotional. Write the scene that makes you cringe. Sometimes the path to beautiful writing is in the stuff we almost didn't let ourselves write. I think that's true in life too. We want certainty before we take a step, confidence before we put ourselves out there, and to know the ending before we're willing to begin. But stories don't often work that way, neither do we. Sometimes we have to take one step before we can see the next one. That's why intuition is such a big part of my work. I don't believe every story needs to be forced into the exact same structure, or that every writer needs to follow the same process. I definitely don't believe there's one magical formula that will suddenly turn you into a real writer. Spoiler, you already are. One question I love asking writers is, what does your story want? I get a lot of eye rolls with that one. They want to know what I mean. To which I respond, I don't know. You tell me. Because underneath all the rules and expectations and shoulds and formulas, there's often something inside of us that already knows. We may not know how to articulate it yet, we may not know where the chapter belongs, we may not know how the story ends, we may not even know what genre we're writing, but there's usually a little something tugging at us. A feeling, an image, a sentence, a memory, a character, a question, a moment we can't stop thinking about. That's where we get to begin. Not with what we think we should write, but with what keeps asking to be written. You may be rolling your eyes at me now, thinking, okay, Megs, it sounds lovely, but I'm still not sure that I'm even a writer at all. Fair. Let me ask you something. What's one thought or story that you keep coming back to? Not the one you think you should write, not the one that you think's going to make you the most money, or that people will be most impressed by. Definitely not the one that you think is going to make your family most proud. I'm talking about the one that keeps tapping you on the shoulder. The one that shows up when you're driving or showering. The one you think about when you're supposed to be falling asleep at night. The one that makes you wonder. What is it? Maybe it's a memoir, maybe it's a novel, maybe it's a children's book, a collection of essays, or a love story. Maybe it's something you've never been able to categorize. And maybe it's simply a story that you need to get out of your body. And here's the mic drop moment. Maybe you can write it and not do anything with it. Period. You don't have to publish everything you write. You don't have to tell anyone about it. You don't even have to announce it on Instagram that you're finally writing your book. Maybe for now you just need to give yourself permission to do it. Just to write, and that's enough. And if you've already been writing, if you've got pages and pages and pages, then maybe you need permission for something else. Maybe you need to give yourself permission to stop judging the pages while you're still creating them. Maybe you need to give yourself permission to write badly for a while. Maybe you need to give yourself permission to change your mind. Maybe you need to give yourself permission to start in the middle. Or to write the scene that's calling you instead of the scene that you think you're supposed to write next. Maybe you need to give yourself permission to have no idea what you're doing. And maybe you need to give yourself permission to say, I'm a writer, even if your voice shakes. I think there's something incredibly powerful about naming the thing. And that's really what I want this podcast to be. A place where we can talk about all of it. The writing, the stories, the fears, the ridiculousness, the procrastination, the perfectionism, the characters who refuse to behave, the chapters that won't cooperate, the days when the words pour out, and the days when we stare at a blinking cursor and consider throwing our laptop into the lake. We're gonna talk about all of it. Because you are not just a person producing words. You're a human being trying to say something that matters to you. And that deserves care. It deserves patience. It deserves compassion. It deserves curiosity. It deserves having someone in your corner. That's where I come in as your book, doula. I'm the person sitting beside you saying, okay, let's look at this. Tell me what you're trying to say. What happens if we don't judge this yet? What if we follow that thread? What if we take the pressure off? What if you just trust yourself? And sometimes, alright, sweetheart, enough thinking, go right. Because yes, there is some tough love in here too. I am very much the epitome of a warm hug with a tiny clipboard. You will be encouraged, you'll be supported, you will be allowed to be messy, and I may occasionally lovingly point at the door and say the words are in there, go get them. Because ultimately this isn't about me. That's important. I'm not the author of your story. You are. My role is to help you remember that. To help you find your way back to the story when you wander away from it, to help you hear your own voice underneath all of the other voices. To help you turn the giant overwhelming thing called my book into something you can actually sit down with. One page, paragraph, sentence, sometimes just one honest word at a time. And that's enough. We put so much pressure on writing because we imagine the finished book. We imagine the finished manuscript sitting neatly on our computer, beautiful cover, the bookstore, the launch party, the people holding it, the reviews, and those things can be wonderful. But none of that is where the book begins. The book begins much more quietly. It begins with a thought, a question, a memory, a sentence, a blank page. A person sitting alone somewhere saying, I think I have a story to tell. That moment, that is sacred. And that's where I want to meet you. Not the finish line right there at the beginning or the middle or the messy, confusing, I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing part. Because there's no perfect place to begin. There's only where you are right now. So if you're listening to this and you have a story, I want you to know something. You don't have to prove that you're a writer before you write. You don't have to earn your way into the room. You don't have to know all the rules. You don't have to have a platform or a publishing deal or the perfect writing routine. You just need a willingness to listen to the little voice that's been asking for your attention. And if that voice has been quiet for a while, that's okay too. Sometimes stories hibernate. Sometimes life asks us to put our story down for a season. And sometimes we come back to it years later and realize, oh, there you are. Maybe that's where you are right now. God knows I've been there more than once. So maybe you're coming back. Or maybe you're just beginning. Maybe you're finally ready to stop calling it an idea and start calling it a story. Maybe you're finally ready to stop calling yourself someone who wants to write and start letting yourself become someone who does. Give yourself permission to realize you don't have to write a book today. You don't have to finish anything today. You don't have to figure out your genre, you don't have to outline your chapters. You don't have to decide whether anyone will ever read what you write. Simply give yourself permission to begin. That's it. Open the notebook, open the document, pull out the old pages, record a voice memo, write by hand, type, talk into your phone while you're driving, preferably hands-free because we'd all like you to arrive at your destination safely, but give the story somewhere to go. And if all you write today is, I don't know what I'm doing, but I think there's something here that's beautiful, that's writing. It's a beginning. And if you already have pages, go back to them with curiosity instead of criticism. Ask yourself what is still alive here? Not what's wrong with this or what needs fixing or is this even good enough? Just what is still alive here? I think that's one of the most beautiful questions we can ask of our writing. And maybe that's a good place for us to end today. Not with a homework assignment or a ten step process, and not with a list of things you need to accomplish before the next episode. Just an invitation. An invitation to notice what story is asking for your attention? What words have you been holding back? What have you been afraid to say? What would happen if you stopped waiting to feel like a writer and simply wrote? And if you're the writer who's been hiding, I want you to know something. You don't have to hide here. You don't have to be polished, you don't have to impress me, you don't have to approve anything. You can come exactly as you are. Bring the messy pages, the half formed ideas, the notebooks you've been hiding in your nightstand, the book you've been thinking about for ten years, the story you aren't even sure is a story yet. Bring that fear, the doubt, bring all of it. We'll make room. Because that's what a book doula does. I make room. I hold space, I listen, I nurture, I encourage, I gently nudge. And sometimes I say, sweetheart, you've been thinking about this for six months. Please sit down and write the damn thing. But mostly, I remind you that you don't have to do this alone. Your story and your voice, they belong to you. And there's something incredibly powerful that happens when you stop asking whether you're allowed to tell your story and just start telling it. So welcome. Welcome to Book Deal of Diaries. I'm seriously very glad that you're here. If you've been a closeted writer, if you've been quietly carrying around a story, if you've been waiting for someone else to give you permission, consider this your all-encompassing permission slip. You are allowed to write. You are allowed to be a beginner. You are allowed to be messy. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to write something no one else understands yet. You are allowed to write something that matters deeply to you. And you are absolutely above all else allowed to call yourself a writer. Even if you're still learning how to believe it. Especially if you're still learning how to believe it. Thanks for spending this little bit of time with me. Thank you for trusting me with your ears, your attention, and maybe even a tiny corner of your story. If something in today's conversation stirred something in you, don't push it away. Pay attention. Maybe that's your story saying hello. Until next time, keep nurturing your story, trust your instincts, give yourself permission, and write bravely one messy, beautiful word at a time. I'm Megs, and I'll see you next time on Book Deal of Diaries.