S02E11: What We Challenge Ourselves To Do

Sam and Matilda accepted a challenge to finally face what they'd been putting off.

Next week, it's the Q1 review!

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with:

Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/3QHym3m

Most recent book:

Heart of the Wolf (Moons & Magic Book 2) https://amzn.eu/d/4HecH3a

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: www.MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)  

Mentioned on the show:

JOIN THE PEN TO PAYCHECK DISCORD: https://discord.gg/w7BjxmeXfF

Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/pentopaycheckauthorspodcast 

Otter dictation app: https://otter.ai/

Gemini (for tidying up dictation): https://gemini.google.com/

Nicholas Erik’s 5 Day Author’s Marketing Roadmap to 2025: https://nicholaserik.com/products/roadmap/

Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Matilda Swift, here with my co-host, Samantha Cummings.

And we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us, and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our mastery through missteps journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way.

This week's topic is something a little bit different.

It's our first personal challenge week.

But before that, what are your wins and whinges of the week?

Oh, I'm kind of come in with full on winch.

We've just been having a chat before recording.

And I basically said all my winches then.

So I'll just try and keep them short here.

But basically, I'm just in the middle of a mental breakdown.

Everything feels like a struggle.

And I'm just like on the cusp of something, but never quite stepping, like taking the next step.

So I just feel like I'm really like progress feels slow.

I feel like I don't know what I'm doing or where I am.

And it feels frustrating.

Like I feel like I'm just like waiting for stuff to happen, but it's not happening.

And even like when I'm trying to relax or take time off, it feels like that is also stressful.

But I know it's the process.

So I'm trying not to, I'm not absorbing it into my soul.

It's not gonna make me bitter.

It's just that I'm currently at the stage of frustration.

That's okay.

I know it will pass.

I feel like you're like a little caterpillar ready to molt.

Yeah, I do.

I feel like, I know I have wings to spread and fly with, but they're not like, yeah, they're kind of all stuck and I'm all like, yeah, bound by gross stuff.

So that's not fun.

But yeah, I'm just kind of, I'm getting through it.

I think I'll be okay.

We had a good chat before we started recording.

And I already feel like things are moving.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna be fine.

Please listeners, do not worry about me.

I promise.

My win of the week is that I launched my little side hustle business today.

It's kind of a soft launch because I already put stuff on social media about it.

But basically it's like just website, admini help that I'm offering people.

I'm not gonna go after it, like business and stuff with a lot of steam because I kind of want to implement like extra jobs slowly into my schedule.

But I've started it and I'm happy that I've started it and it's very exciting.

And I can't wait to start this new adventure.

How about you?

That's so exciting.

I feel, it's interesting.

I feel like I've not really got any specific wins and whinges.

I feel like I'm doing all the things right at the moment.

And like, I am, I think I'm the other side of the cusp, which like, I think I'm, I don't feel constrained at the moment.

I don't feel that way.

I feel like I am exploring new things and doing new things.

I'm not, you know, seeing great successes, but I'm seeing some successes and I can see things I can do and opportunities I have.

And like, every conversation that you have with other authors at the moment is about, yeah, opportunity, which feels really good, even though I'm not quite at the moment necessarily taking those opportunities.

I'm preparing for a lot of things, but in a way that doesn't feel frustrating.

So I definitely was where you were a few months ago, was where you are.

Hmm, too many.

Too many.

And so I, I feel pretty zen.

Maybe no winds and winches.

You look very zen.

Like I do have to say, you're, you're giving off very calm energy, which is the opposite of me.

Not like me at all.

Yeah, so it feels really good.

Yeah.

I, I had one of those moments when you go into bed and you were like, oh, the weekend was so long.

It felt delightful.

I just did so like all the right things.

I even had like a tiny bit of socializing.

I live opposite a lot of woodland, and it was someone's birthday.

And it's a very hippie area where I live, so we also had an Equinox celebration, which included like a prayer for Palestine around the fire.

It was that sort of party.

Yeah.

And, and it was lovely.

And like I only went for half an hour because I really wanted to stay on it with work, because I'm away the coming weekend.

But it was just like, oh, I felt, again, I felt just really zen.

Just like walked into the woods, sat by the fire for a little bit, chatted to my neighbors, and like all my neighbors are really creative, interesting people.

So the person whose party it was, like she used to be an actress on a big soap in the UK, another neighbor from down the street.

She's like, she makes radio plays with UBC.

And I was like, I just feel like I'm in the right place.

Yeah.

So yeah, I feel like I should be wearing a caftan.

That's how I feel right now, that's my life.

What a life you're living.

Yeah.

And I think I'm working really hard, but in a way that doesn't feel like I'm past the exhaustion a few weeks ago, which feels nice.

And I'm trying things that feel successful.

So yes, fantastic.

I'm going to say no wins and winches.

I am a Zen master who is beyond such rooms of life.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much.

I look forward to getting to that stage myself.

So this week, our topic of the week is that we've each picked an item that's been lingering on our to-do lists and challenged ourselves to get on with it.

So what was the thing that you chose and why?

So, yeah, I think we wanted to be a bit different today.

So often when we kind of chat in advance of these episodes, we try and learn a few in a row that are going to be things that we're both thinking about and both working on.

And we both realized we had things that had kind of been lingering for a bit and we hadn't, we kept saying, oh, I mean to do that.

And then it was never going to make its way to the top of the list.

And I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to start this thing.

So I have picked Dictation and it's been on my list for a while.

And it came up in the Cozy Mystery Clubhouse that I mentioned a lot.

And people were talking about it.

And it just, you know, something sticks with you and you're like me.

And then I'm starting this new co-writing project.

And I was reading through the first couple of chapters that my co-writer had written.

So she did the first chapters in the plan and then I had to pick up from there.

I was like, oh, it's so dialogue heavy, which is not my natural writing style.

Like if I were given the choice, I would never include dialogue in a book ever.

So I was thinking things and walking around and pondering, which is not good writing.

The opposite of me.

I was like, okay, actually, I would quite, this would lend itself well to dictation.

Also because it's a totally new opportunity.

Like it's a real hard reset.

So with my own books, you know, you get a bit precious about your process.

And you think, oh, if I try and even vary, if the wind is going the wrong direction, my book will be ruined and evermore know it's a failure.

I was like, it's, it's not my book.

It's a co-written book.

So I'm not, I don't have such preciousness about it.

It's a spin off of my co-writers existing series.

So again, there's a sense in which I don't even own it.

It's, you know, it's under her control.

And it's so dialogue heavy that I was like, actually, dictation would help.

And I want to try and do my writing and that writing overlapping at some point.

I was like, I could do the second process.

I am someone who used to be really precious about handwriting, and I would only handwrite books because I felt like that was my, like, for your authentic connection to the page.

You jerk!

And then, and I used to have a really specific forpoint pen I would use, and I would go through like reams and reams of paper, and then the process of transcribing it as part of the process as well.

This was, you know, my original Capitan years.

And then, and then I dropped arthritis and my hands were like, couldn't I couldn't hold a pen for quite a while, actually.

And then I was gifted a very ludicrous, expensive pen that's very heavy and very comfortable.

But even the refills for it are expensive.

It was like, maybe I should find an alternative.

And I just started typing on it.

Again, it was like a new project.

Like, let's just start typing and see if this works resentfully.

And it did.

I was like, okay, if I can make the change from handwriting to typing, maybe I can make the change from typing to dictation.

So that's why I picked it.

And that's kind of what I want from it.

I'll talk a bit more about the process in a minute, but let's start with your challenge.

What were you doing last week?

Oh, yes, this week, I challenged myself to get back into drawing.

I've always wanted to have character art for my books because in young adults is kind of like a thing.

People love it.

And the fun thing I think is that the varying degrees of quality of character art is in some ways, like I love, like I love the fact that some people will have very simplistic character art and then some people have really in-depth digital art that's like, you can tell people have spent hours and hours making it.

And so I've always loved seeing like, I'm not like a precious person when it comes to art.

I just think that any art is good.

But you've not seen my art, so.

I think it's probably good.

I would probably love it.

How do you feel about stick men, Hens?

I love stick men.

Stick men is my favorite.

I used to, this is a little segue, but I used to work with somebody who couldn't draw at all, but she could draw stick men.

Like nobody else.

But everyone could draw stick men.

No, hers were supreme.

They were so good.

So she used to draw me all sorts of stick men.

And I loved it.

I just loved it.

Now I feel like I'm not even good in the stick man thing.

I love praising.

I love praising like bad art.

But anyway, I've always wanted to do my own because I love drawing and I spent my life drawing.

I used to do art at school.

That was my thing.

But over the years, obviously you put those things to one side and other things come into your life.

So when writing came into my life, art went to one side.

And I've dabbled in all sorts.

I've done pencil drawings.

I love charcoal painting.

I used to do a lot of watercolor and digital art.

And the thing that I wanted to do this week was digital art, but I actually bought new pencils instead and just did pencil art.

And yeah, so it's always like, it's just been something that I've been putting off and off and off, because there's always other stuff to do.

But this week, I actually had a gap in my schedule and I thought, what a perfect time to get out a sketchbook.

And yeah, that's what I did.

I feel like if I could draw with my right hand, I would give my left hand for that skill.

I don't know if that's true, because that's too much.

But I would love to be able to draw.

I just think it looks so satisfying to see a thing and then make it on paper.

And people who are sketching, they look so happy with themselves, and they should.

Yeah, that is delightful.

Have you started on the character art?

I have started on character art.

So I have my sketchbook here.

So this is just solely for the people who are watching this on YouTube.

And if you don't watch on YouTube, you're missing out.

So here's my giant sketchbook.

Wow.

I have millions of sketchbooks.

I'm one of those people that just buys a sketchbook, but much like notepads, I also buy sketchbooks just whenever I see them.

So I was practicing with...

I always...

I love drawing faces.

And drawing faces is one of my downfalls, because I never end up drawing full bodies.

I just draw heads and shoulders.

So I always have sketchy things on the go.

I can't really get these in.

I have faces.

I'm trying to make my voice convey the image a bit there.

Yes.

And I was just drawing random stuff to start with, and then I bought new pencils.

And this is a very difficult book to hold up, because it's very big.

But I had started with pencil drawings of different characters.

These are amazing.

And they're not really finished, but it was just more of an experiment to see, do I still enjoy it?

Like, is this something that I would like to do and actually build into my schedule?

And I think I do want to, because I sat down, instead of scrolling on my phone for hours, my boyfriend was watching TV shows and stuff at the end of the night every day this week or last week.

And I just got my sketchbook out and just drew for like an hour.

And the time just went, it was so nice and relaxing.

And I just, it's kind of like when you do a jigsaw or like build our little book nooks and stuff, where you get into the zone and you're just in a creative process that doesn't really require much thinking, you're just doing.

And that's what it was like.

And it was so good.

I honestly, it was like, I was Zen in this moment.

When I'm holding a sketchbook and a pencil, that's when my Zen comes in.

That's how I imagine it feels.

Yeah, that's what I really like.

So yeah, it's been really nice.

And I do really want to basically sketch out all of my characters and then turn them into digital art.

So I'm kind of now in this, trying to figure out what my characters, what my characters will look like in sketch form and then what I can turn that into digitally.

So yeah, I absolutely loved it.

It really made my week this week to be doing that.

And if we hadn't have set this challenge, I wouldn't have ever taken that time to do it.

Yeah, which is crazy, because it doesn't take long to pick something up, but it's almost like, when you've got so much on your plate, you don't think you're going to add something else to it.

Even if that thing could make your life easier in the long run, such as like, oh, you don't have to keep thinking in the back of my mind, like how am I going to get to start?

Who do I get to do it?

You're like, I just do it.

So why do you start sketching rather than straight into digital?

Because I know you've got a Wacom tablet that you can sketch on.

I do have a Wacom tablet.

I will say this.

My Photoshop license was going through a rough patch.

Effectively, this is a little hush hush, don't tell anyone, but my work pays for my Photoshop license.

And when you work for a big corporation, they don't pay for things on time.

They get invoices and they forget to pay them.

So for weeks, I haven't had Photoshop.

And this is like in my day job as well.

It's been an absolute nightmare.

Because I use Photoshop every day.

So they hadn't paid the license and I didn't have Photoshop, which is why it kind of forced me into going like into pencil drawings.

But in a way, I'm kind of glad it did because I think I made more progress and I found like a nice sense of peace by doing sketchbook work rather than sitting at my computer because my eyes have been killing me.

Yeah, like I've been having such bad headaches for the last couple of weeks just because I've been doing so much work just at work and then at home.

But I think the universe is like, do you know what?

We're going to take that away from you.

You now have to just look at a sketchbook instead.

And yeah, I was glad for it.

But now that I've got my Photoshop license back, I will be getting my little Wacom tablet out and going for it.

Because I get, since talking about this, or even just thinking about it, I've been having so many accounts on Instagram fed into my algorithm for character art.

And I swear I haven't said anything to anyone.

It just knows.

I'm getting loads of like Procreate videos of people doing really nice watercolor stuff on their tablets.

Like, oh, it looks so nice.

Do you think it's a future side hustle?

Oh no, not for other people.

No, I have done that in the past, obviously.

I've like picked up so many things in the past.

I have done character art for people in the past, like years and years ago.

Yeah, no, it's more fun just to do it for myself, I think.

I'm not gonna say no, because who knows what's gonna happen, but yeah.

Who knows what's like podcast co-host might you should like make a map for the future.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, could I make a map?

Maybe I do have, I'm looking at a map that I drew, like last year.

Maybe I'll become a map maker, that's all.

And no, nothing for other people right now.

I'm just kind of enjoying it for a bit of self care.

It feels like self care.

It really does.

It's really weird, because I was not putting it off, I was a bit scared because I haven't drawn for a while.

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it anymore.

But I just sketched out an eye and a nose and I was back in the best time.

Yeah, I have also been away from screens for my activity.

So maybe this is the universe telling us, stop looking at screens every other day.

So what's interesting is it really reaffirmed my appreciation of this podcast, because I thought, oh, I love learning from podcasts.

It's my favorite tool for anything writing related.

So I did a search in all my existing podcasts for dictation and everything in there was years old.

And even when it was newer, it was people who were using processes that were years old.

And I think that's something I definitely be aware of.

And it's kind of come up a couple of times recently, in people who were really successful and established, they stick in one way of doing something.

And obviously, because who's got time to be picking things up, but we do with Challenge Week, I think we want to keep this going.

They kind of stick in one way of doing things and maybe write something off because it's time consuming or expensive, not realizing that technology has changed.

Because I didn't hear a single person on a dictation episode talk about the way that I'm doing it and the way that I know some people are doing it now and some of my clubhouse are talking about it.

I think because dictation really hit a wave and the technology improved just before the big peak in AI, a lot of people are using technologies that have put effort into training like dragons, you have to train dragons to your voice, not wanting to really think about or make the change to free, easy or very cheap, like no fuss tools that are available now.

So I just thought I'd quickly talk about my process, which also is going to include some visual aids that you will miss out on if you don't watch our beautiful videos.

Though I'm going to be honest and say, I think I just Googled, like, I looked on Amazon for like the little lapel mic that goes in your phone and just picked like the, maybe even just the same one you have.

I've got the same one, yeah.

Cheap, free one.

It was like 20 quid, you get to the power mics and you get a little thingy plug into your phone, which the first time I tried to use it before I was doing this, I did not want to get a plug in your phone.

So I was trying to use the mic and get it Bluetooth touching.

I don't know why it's Bluetooth in, but anyway.

Yeah, I also had the same thing when I got mine.

I was like, why are there extra parts?

I'm so old.

So you get like a little thing you put in the bottom of your phone and you don't need it, right?

You absolutely wouldn't need it, but then you get a little power mic and you don't have to look at your screen.

So I and the benefit, I have two power mics, the charger doesn't last forever.

So if I'm notated for a few hours, one runs out, I plug it in, use the other one.

So I like to hold my power mic or just like lay it on my chest as I'm, you know, lying on the sofa.

You can attach it to you, but then I, you know, forget it's there and wander off with it.

I have more than once just left it laying down beside me.

And then forgotten to pick it up to record.

And it's been fine.

It's very good at picking up sound.

So I plug this in and I'm using Otter, which is one of those modern apps that's spelled with the E, just like the animal, just Otter.

They haven't tried to remove the E.

Don't know what they're on about.

Oh, and I actually feel a bit upset about that.

Right.

They get, you get 30 free minutes, which having seen videos online of like how to work with it, you used to get 600.

So cut down to 300.

It's more than enough to figure out if you like it, though.

One thing I would say that I noticed is I'm going to upgrade because 300 minutes doesn't last that long.

If you upgrade before using the 300 minutes, they don't roll into your next contract.

So I'm going to use the 300, pay.

I probably need it for a month and then use the free 300 the other side of it.

And actually, I think that's something like $20 to get a month at the level I need.

And say I did that four times a year, super cost effective.

And like, I just don't think I could justify the price of having it on the annual process.

But if you also want to do a bit of dictation, it's more than enough.

If you're very fast at dictation, it will be fine, because 300 minutes is quite a while.

And it's 300 minutes a month.

And there are free tools.

And I was using one.

It wasn't as accurate.

I think the benefit of Otter is it's actually quite accurate.

I'm not going to say very accurate, but it's quite accurate.

It's accurate enough.

And the thing about Otter is it's designed for meetings, like Zoom meetings.

So sometimes if you have a meeting with someone, you'll see like they've sent their Otter AI in their place, and it's recording the meeting for them.

If you're watching the screen as you dictate, it does not look very accurate, but it goes back through the recording afterwards and uses logic to realize what you must have been talking about and put it back in so you can't export it right away.

So I would still say it only gets to between quite and very accurate when it's on its kind of rethinking.

But then you export it, put it into I use Gemini with very simple prompt, just saying like turn this into novel format with paragraphs and punctuation.

I don't speak any punctuation.

I'm not saying open quotation marks, close quotation marks, that would drive me up the wall.

I'm doing nothing apart from just saying the words as they come into my head.

And then I'm putting it into Gemini, I give it the list of character names so it knows how to spell them.

I have told it a little bit about the settings of this book in 1920s, just so it can figure out a bit more about the dialect.

And have told it to use like single quotation marks rather than double because it's British English.

I've also told it to spell it in British English.

If it makes a mistake in a character name, I'll just tell it, this is the spelling, you got it wrong.

I forgot to say the spelling before.

It spits out unbelievably perfect prose.

One thing that's amazing that it even does is if you're talking and you say, they sat down at, no, they walked across the room and sat down at the table, it deletes that first nonsense bit that you said, where you sort of repeat yourself, because it knows what it's trying to tidy up.

It spits out perfect prose.

One thing it sometimes does, I would say fairly often, it slides together people speaking too much.

So it will have several people speaking in a paragraph, but you can just easily return that.

But sort of a side of meditation aspect of it, what I really, really am liking about it, and was surprised that I like about it is, it's a three-step process.

So I've got a plan for this book and it's quite loose.

Like it's got the key things that happen in each chapter and the characters and the themes, but it hasn't broken the chapter down into scenes.

So as my planning, splitting the chapter down to like four little scenes I'm going to take separately.

And these are chapters about two, two and a half thousand words.

So I'm splitting them down into chunks.

I'm expecting to be about 500 to 700 words each.

Writing notes on everything that happens, but, and it's very rough prose, but because I know it's not the story, I'm not worried about it.

And then I look at that screen and I don't look at my phone and I dictate, and I just turn it into conversations and polish it.

And again, I know that's not the final version, because I'm going to put it back into my laptop and polish it up again.

That whole process is faster than if I had to write from scratch, because there's like, there's low pressure.

You're kind of getting to have several like touch on something, which for me feels easier with specifically this sort of book, because I'm not sure if I feel the same way with my own writing.

But I think it is, I'm so glad I tried it.

And it feels like the words go down quickly.

If I were having to write this book, so it's like, it's in a new subgenre, it's in an existing world, because it's a spinoff series.

The characters, the way they speak, the way they are, are unfamiliar to me.

I would feel a bit paralyzed when I sit down on the page and think, because I'm trying to fix every problem at once, I'm trying to fix, what's the action?

What's the dialogue with these characters?

What are they doing?

What are their stakes?

How do they feel?

But having to just do like split those into three different tasks.

Oh, such a relief.

Yeah, it sounds freeing.

Yeah, it sounds, because I know like when you, you in particular, when you write, you kind of edit as you go as well, like you're, like you would look back at what you've just written and maybe think about it before you did something else.

But obviously, talking wise, we are both very good at talking consistently for a long time.

So it's, it's funny that you were hesitant about using it at first because talking is comes so naturally to you.

And I think it doesn't feel creative, right?

It doesn't feel I'm not my best self when I'm talking.

I or I think I'm not.

I think I'm a literary genius when I'm writing.

And when I talk, I'm a bumbling fool.

I'd like to maintain that distinction in my head.

I think what's interesting actually is dictation.

I'm probably as slow currently as I am when I write, like physically like hesitant on the page.

So I write quite slowly.

At least when I'm getting into something.

Yeah, I'd like then...

What then?

Then walked and that's how I'm talking.

And it's definitely getting faster.

But it doesn't feel like I am going to reach a stage where I am, you know, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I'm really in a head state over a lot of the words and it feels slow.

But you get the opportunity that you can pause the trans, the recording, you can just leave it going and it doesn't matter.

Nothing's gonna happen.

And you just sort of think, you can look back at what you've written, you can say something like I just there's a couple points in the dictation I did the weekend where I didn't want to think about the description of the location because I don't really know well enough.

So I just write, describe here, and I'll come back to it later and describe there.

That I think is easy to do in written form.

And I think because I know this is the first draft, it's the first draft of the first book in the series, and we're gonna have to do so much rewriting, it's actually really feels so good to write this feeling more like it's a vomit draft than worrying too much about because I'm co-writing, trying to get my voice nearer to someone else's.

I'm like, that is a second draft job.

I'm just gonna try and get like, all the tensions and all the scene right and all the movement right.

And things can move around later.

And if we have to delete whole chapters, fine.

I just said it into my little microphone, so it's not a big deal.

I'll say another one.

That's so funny, isn't it?

Because, yeah, it's, you're doing the same thing, but you're just doing it by a different method, but it's so different, it's a different experience all together, and I think that's really fun.

I don't know if I would get on well with Dictation.

I feel like I would completely lose my train of thought.

I can't even speak, I can't keep a full conversation going without completely forgetting where I was when I first started.

But then you do have it on the screen, so I have up my phone, right?

So I can, I have previously been like, what am I talking about?

And then just go back and, oh yeah, okay.

And I think again, because you know, you're going to go back and over it and edit it.

And actually, I did so little editing today.

I took transcriptions today and I was going to tidy them up and then I have to submit them to the kind of shared document we have.

I was like, I did nothing.

I just moved like paragraphs down and like change where the quote marks were if they were in the wrong person.

I did not edit the text and I thought I would have to significantly, but no, it was such a relief.

I think what's interesting is in all the podcasts I listened to, several people said people don't start the tation unless they have to.

People tend to start it when they've like broken a finger or they've got serious like carpal tunnel or something gone wrong.

Um, and I do have bad risks.

Like I mentioned, I've got arthritis and my wrist often the worst part.

And I noticed when I was doing a lot of typing this year, my wrist was starting to really ache.

And I'm still such a spring chicken, you know, so young, got decades of writing ahead of me.

If my wrists are hurting now, they probably won't last forever.

And I want to have another thing that I'm not...

Because I made the change to typing because I was forced to.

And I was then dealing with like physical ailments, and also like a mental change of trying to change my artistic expression.

So I really like having this like in my back pocket, even if I only ever currently use it for this co writing project, I don't write it, I don't use my own writing.

Or I then pick up like other new projects with this style.

But then I know that really, it's fine.

Like, it's just the same as regular writing.

Yeah, it's just everyone's in their head about it, right?

And understandably, I'm also in my head about it.

And like I'm with any writing change.

I am so glad we did this this challenge, because I just would have put it off forever.

Because like I said, you don't do it unless you have to do it.

Why would you?

Why would you risk?

That's what it feels like.

Risk your, you know, process.

Yeah, because it's hours of time.

Like, yeah, that you have put in however many hours.

It absolutely isn't hours of time.

It was so quick to get started with it.

But it could have been, you don't, you didn't know how much time you were going to be putting into something and whether it was going to work out.

And like you say, like, you wouldn't take that gamble if, but you just wouldn't.

Yeah, if you're on a deadline, you would never and it's never the right time to try something new.

Unless you decide that, like we have, like, this is the week I'm going to try something new.

And yeah, if you don't schedule it and you'd never do it.

Yeah.

Which is what I've learned a lot.

Like things that you don't have to do.

Yeah.

That can, like, that would be better, objectively better if you left a bit longer.

You think like, oh, if I had more time, I'd be better at that.

And if I had a bit more knowledge, I'd be better at that.

It's like, yes, you'll be better.

But you'll also be better by learning and doing it.

And that's how you would also get better.

And the dictation feels like, you know, in an ideal world, I probably would have taken a course, because you know how I love a course?

I have to learn.

I'd have taken a course.

But in fact, I looked online at like, I watched some videos on YouTube.

I've learned people saying like, well, I'm going to teach you how to do dictation.

And it was like, they did not do that.

They did what I've just done now and described their setup.

And they were like, so what I do is I just think of the sentence and then I say the sentence.

And it's like, oh, great, thanks for that fantastic tutorial on how to dictate.

You think of words and you say them.

How could I live without this?

I think that there was a book that I saw that was about dictation.

They had like lots of prompts and activities to do.

And that looked just too in-depth.

I was like, you know what, I'm just going to go for it.

I'll figure out.

Because also if I hated it, I didn't have to stick with it.

That's what felt like this like this challenge week was good because I had tried it.

I mean, it's not for me.

I think also if I had tried it a few years ago, and there had not been a very easy and like free to use initially tool like Otter.

And then if AI wasn't hiding up, I would have thrown in the towel instantly.

In no world am I going to say, open quotation, what do you mean?

Question mark, closed quotation.

Yeah.

Asked Sam, no.

She, no.

Yeah, I've seen people doing, you know, people will do voice notes to people, and all like voice to text.

And when you do voice to text on your phone, you have to say punctuation.

And as somebody who loves punctuation, even in a text message, if there's at least one comment, always an exclamation mark.

Yeah, that's kind of always the thing that's been in my head.

Like, I don't want to say all the things that I would type.

So that is, I think, one of the benefits of AI is definitely for things like that, is I don't obviously want to be using generative AI in work, but for tidying up works that you've already done, what a fantastic achievement, like how far we've come.

Because if you had done that, if you had done this whole thing and then you had to go through manually and then re-edit it, you might as well write.

And you're not even editing, you're just then punctuating and you do admin, that again, you might as well have written it.

Whereas this just feels like I've got a typist and they're sending me my finished work, which someone in one of the podcast episodes I listened to sent their work off to be typed up, which is like, that sounds lovely, but also not super helpful to me.

I don't have that money or time.

And I really like, actually, it's almost like I've been to four sprints on myself, doing these little 500 to 700 word blocks, which is how these long chapters break up.

So I, in my books, write 1000, like check my current series, and 1000 words feels like a unit.

It's always like one thing happening.

Whereas in these chapters, they're two, two and a thousand, and that felt like quite intimidating when I think about writing that, because it's just not how I write.

But actually, because they're longer, it sort of does lend itself to speaking more, because you want to be a little bit freer with your words.

A lot of the conversation that the characters are happening in this 1920 series is revealing who they are through what they say, rather than, you know, I naturally write like incredibly dense, and that's what I like.

And that's fine, but it didn't fit this series.

So yes, I've absolutely loved this.

And I want to carry this forward into thinking like, how else can I challenge my processes and find ways to not even necessarily make myself more efficient, but just like make sure I'm trying new things.

Yeah.

Yeah, because I definitely like, when people start to have lactatation the first time, obviously I had like, ooh, the itch.

And I talked to other people about it.

They were like, no, absolutely not.

No, it feels horrible the thought of it.

And I, you know, I completely sympathize with that.

So I do want to make sure I'm thinking about other other places in which I can bring other techniques into my process, either because I think they'll be useful or because I think they might be useful in future.

And I want to kind of get ahead of any problems.

Have you got anything like that, that you think you would like to, you know what you'd like to do, or you'd like to improve a system but you don't quite know how to do it yet?

Off the top of my head, no.

I mean, I'm sure there are, but I haven't really thought ahead to think of what else I could be doing.

Though I think a lot of my processes are probably due for tightening up.

I definitely am doing the same, the same old rigmarole every single time.

I write books in the same way.

I edit in the same way.

I reckon there's probably a lot that I could be doing to write better first drafts.

Editing along the way might be it.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's definitely something to have to think about, but I probably think my first draft is where I would start, because I am a sloppy first drafter.

And I begrudge it every single time.

I'm like, past Sam, why have you forsaken me?

And then like me writing a first draft is like, it's future Sam's problem.

Yeah, it's going to be fine.

You saw that, I know that.

Yeah.

I definitely think I do want to get better at my planning and preparation stage.

I think I've got into lazy habits because I know I can fix it.

And actually I'm making myself an exhausting amount of work unnecessarily.

And it's almost like I'm daring myself to fail.

And I really hate that.

I think partly I need to go back and do some mindset work.

Because seeing how easy this writing feels has made me realize how I may be sabotaging myself in other areas.

And I'm constantly sort of pushing myself to the end of deadlines or purposefully procrastinating a lot.

And I'm not good at...

I've said this a number of times, I'm really not good at giving myself time that differentiates rest and procrastination.

So I will just work until my body is like, I am going to stop you working now.

And then I hate myself because I'm procrastinating, quote unquote procrastinating, when my body's like, rest.

So last week, I forgot to mention a winter week, actually.

I did the Nicholas Eric course that I can't remember the name of because it's really long.

It's something like Five Author Roadmap Five Success Steps to 2025.

It's absolutely not the name, but some of those words are in there.

I'll see if I can find it.

I will find it.

I'll put it in the show notes.

It's not open, so it just closed, but I'm going to put a link in the show notes because if it reopens, 100%, I recommend it.

I've got it here, so I just want to say it's the Five Day Authors Marketing Roadmap to 2025.

That's what I said.

Rolls off the tongue.

Exactly.

It's got a slightly too many words in.

It's like you and I go to this bookshop cafe that's got a lot of words in that all sound quite similar, and I neither remember the name.

It's called something like, I think it's called the House of Books and Friends.

No, see, even now, I don't know if it's called that, but we jokingly call it the House of Books and Friends and Co.

Because it just...

Yeah, some of those words are in the name.

It's something like that.

Yeah, but anyway, it's this Nicholas Erick course.

It was billed as being an hour a day for five days.

And it was right at the end of my workday, so I had to come straight out of work.

I mean, on my computer, just switch to a different screen.

But like I finished work at five, then the course started at five.

And it's meant to be an hour every day from Tuesday to Saturday, which is already quite a lot to add into my weekend, extra five hours of a course.

But Nicholas Erick is unbelievably thorough.

So every day, A, he's just spoken part of the course, it's meant to be 45 minutes, it was an hour, hour and a half.

And then B, he stayed in and did a Q&A session that was built as 45 minutes, no built as 15 minutes.

Until there were no more questions.

And there were 100 people in the room on the first day.

So the point at which there were no more questions, on one of the days was four hours.

It was a four hour session, it was meant to be one hour.

And it was, I tell you what that felt, that's made me feel very Zen, actually.

He's such a pro at what he does.

And he's very data driven.

And he's very like unswayed by trends and people what people say.

He's like, this is not what data says, so it's not true.

And it was just, and that's, that's what I really appreciate.

And I think a lot of people, I can imagine wouldn't wouldn't like that.

I kind of want people are more vibes based.

I love data, I love science.

So for him to say that's not true makes me think, okay, that's not true then.

And it gives me a sense of confidence.

And to be able to ask him questions, and really specific questions, and him to give very exact answers back, felt so satisfying and just really useful.

So anyway, so last week, rather than spending five hours in a course, which I didn't really have time to do, but I found out about the course a week before when I booked it, I spent 15 hours in a course, on top of my job and writing commitments, and life and various other things.

I didn't have time for that.

And I kept thinking all week, like, why have I procrastinated?

Why have I not written enough this week?

What am I doing?

Why am I so lazy?

Oh no.

Yeah, yes, I need to improve that.

Yeah, I do understand.

I think that I've kind of felt like that.

Like I've been, I've purposefully taken some, like I'm purposefully in a break.

So this week and next week, I'm supposed to be on break.

And that was built into my schedule.

And I'm trying desperately to relax, but at the same time, I'm just filling the space with more work.

So I've taken a break from like writing and editing, but I've not taken a break from the rest of the writing business, which really takes up more time for me than anything else.

So I equally feel the same.

Like I'm supposed to be on break, but I've not actually stopped doing stuff.

And it makes me feel, and that makes me feel guilty, the fact that I've not taken a break, but I can't, I also feel like if I stop doing stuff, I'll feel guilty because I'm like, well, I've got so much to do.

So yeah, I think we both have a lot to work on with that.

To work on a productive rest.

Because definitely, I think when you get a habit, so like my typing style of writing, you get a habit and you start it well, then it degrades over time, and you just put worse and worse bits in it, a bit like if you...

I love moving house because you get to resettle your habits.

But after a while, you find the corner shop that you go to, and occasionally you get a chocolate bar there on the way home, you've had a stressful day.

And then it becomes like, this is my everyday chocolate bar.

And then it upgrades like, this is my everyday chocolate bar and an extra little treat.

And it just like, you build up on these things until you normalize your bad habits.

Not that chocolate is a bad habit.

Obviously, that's like an essential food group.

Yes, of course.

But I've done the same with like typing, writing.

We need a different word for that.

In that I'll do a burst, and I know that I need a break.

And I do, I can't just keep writing continuously.

I very much like a burst, like a sprint writer.

So I'll do a burst of writing, and then I'll just check things, right?

I'll check all the million browser tabs I've got open, they're all like various Amazon things, and I'll look at my phone, and then I'll be on social media, and I'll think, I'll do a bit of research, I'll make a post, and then it's like, and then half an hour's gone, and you're like, well, I'm not really doing sprints now, because I should have taken a break five minutes, but my body said I needed more break, and I didn't want to take it, so I procrastinated.

And going into dictation, you sort of can't procrastinate while you're dictating, because, you know, you can't flick over to another screen because you're talking, and actually that uses up your whole brain, you can't look at something else unless you'd say what you're looking at.

So yes, I think I want to get my other habits back into control, or find a way to expand.

I was thinking about maybe using dictation for my planning of my own novels, and just doing more in-depth planning, and then doing more of the writing by typing.

Again, I need a better word.

Yeah.

I think just writing is fine, dictation is fine.

They're your two separate terms.

And I've just written a post on my computer for a future podcast topic.

How do we build healthier habits?

So yeah, I'm going to stick that in the bank.

Yes, that would be so good.

Do you think that we should continue these challenge weeks quarterly?

Has it felt like a good amount of like time and work?

Would you have the time if you went on a break?

I would, no, I think that it has been very nice, because the reason I think I've figured out or found that kind of the then part of the process, it wasn't that I couldn't do it on a normal week, it's that I would use that time that I was doing it this week to be on my phone, relaxing.

But I've been, I constantly try to tell myself like, this is a healthy habit, don't be on my phone after 6 p.m.

and I always try and have that habit, but I always slip.

So this has reestablished that.

We sit together so early.

I know, I know, but I do most of my phone stuff during the day when I'm at work.

I sit in the corner behind my computers, I've got a massive Mac, so I've got like the big screen.

You do need a break at work, and it's like, it's not that we chat to your colleague and then you both disrupt it.

Yeah.

So yeah, I was drawing during the time that I would have just been on my phone or maybe watching a quiz show on TV, because I love a good quiz show.

So yeah, it's not actually something that didn't fit into my schedule already.

I just needed the excuse.

Yeah, yes.

So I am gonna say success with Challenge Week.

I would never have meditation otherwise, and I would like everyone hopefully in the Discord.

That's gonna be a question of the week is like, what's a challenge you could take up?

And it can be of any size.

It's just something that has been like, lingering through this because you think it's not that important, or I something emotional about it puts you off.

We just think I'll get to it later.

I think it is good just have a time to to pick that up.

I think in future we can make like a bigger push on our Challenge Weeks and I can announce them in advance.

Have everyone declared what they're going to do because I think that has also felt positive is doing it with you knowing they're going to have to report back if I had decided by myself to start dictation and it was even slightly tricky and I'm like, no, nevermind.

Yeah, I didn't tell anyone what I was doing.

Yeah.

Okay, I'm trying to make a note of that then to put it in our Discord.

What's the challenge you can pick up?

I will explain that further when I post it and we also have other exciting news that we do have a Discord which everyone should join.

We've got so many exciting people in there and it's just so lovely to have a chat and it feels like other writers are real people you can ask questions of now rather than just strangers whose names you see on screen.

But we have other exciting news.

We have a coffee, not the drink.

K-O-F-I, so like a little, you know, give us a little thanks for the podcast.

So Sam and I pay for a couple of things for the podcast.

We pay for hosting and the recording platform.

Not super expensive and as I've said before, we would suggest everyone gets a podcast.

But we thought if you get valid at the podcast and if you have been listening to us for the past year plus, we are about to hit our 5th quarter mark.

Then pop in a donation.

It can either be a one-off and there's suggested amounts where you can either buy one of us a coffee, two of us a coffee.

If you've got a favorite one, pick just one or both of us.

Or you can buy us both a coffee and a cake to share.

And we promise that we will share it evenly.

So yeah, you can put a little money in there or you can set up a regular donation, again, whatever amount you want in there and no obligation.

We'll keep putting out either way.

But we have covered the cost of the podcast for a year and a bit now.

And if you want to help with that and kind of share in the joy of making this podcast, join the Discord, sign up to the coffee.

We'll put the link in the show notes, put the link in the Discord.

It is and I had the name to hand.

It is Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast, Coffee.

So if you just Google that, but coffee is K-O-F-R.

You can find it or we'll share the links everywhere.

Thank you to Sam for setting up.

She is our tech wizard.

As she mentioned, she is also setting up her side hustle for tech wizarding for other people now.

So do feel free to ask her for her rates and things and the products to help people with.

We are everything everywhere all at once.

Do we have anything else on the topics for today before we wrap up?

I don't think so.

No, I think I'm happy to wrap this up and go away and start drawing again for a little bit of this evening.

Yes.

So next week is a milestone, as I said.

It is our second Q1 review.

This is 2025 Q1 review, which it feels like so long since we did a quarter review.

I can't.

I sort of forgot we did quarter reviews until we were kind of planning our episodes.

Yeah, we do those.

How are you feeling about that?

I feel astounded.

I'm astounded.

Yeah, I can never believe the passage of time.

I constantly talk about this.

Time is definitely speeding up, and it's not just because I'm getting older.

Now, I'm looking forward to doing it because we've both been really hecticly in our own processes.

We're both producing books at the moment.

Whereas last year, we were both a little bit, obviously, further behind.

We didn't have as much going on.

So I've got a lot of things I think I've probably done that I haven't realized are good to recap.

But I also have a lot of things I still have to do.

So it'll be nice to see where I am and vocally talk about where I need to go.

How about you?

Yeah.

Yes.

I think I'm going to listen to last year's Q1 review.

I think I mentioned I went out later in the podcast onto YouTube and because I have got exceptional internet, I live up to the internet box, I am doing the uploading.

And just to download them and upload them, sometimes I'm listening to little bits.

And it is so weird.

Like us from a year ago.

We were babies.

Yeah.

It's like looking a thousand years into the past.

Yeah.

And like in a really lovely way.

So I mean, the quality today will be no different because yet again, I forgot to switch my microphone to the right setting.

So it sounds like this.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

I always like halfway through.

I made a mistake.

I always try and remember to check our tech, but I didn't today.

I don't know why it won't remember itself.

But anyway, yes.

So the sound sounds different.

We sound different.

And I think even just the way we were talking is obviously different.

So yeah, I think I'm going to go back and listen to the Q&A review just to get a sense of what was important.

I think the episode that I just listened to was from March of last year, because we were both, I was talking about not writing.

Oh, I was just starting writing again.

Yes.

And I was saying, oh, I thought we were never getting back into writing.

Could I write?

I was like, oh, my God, who are you?

You little child.

I know.

It's funny just to talk about this a little bit, of how much more relaxed we obviously are recording now.

I remember when we first started, so like a year ago, or like a little bit more than a year ago, every time we went to record, I think I was just so nervous.

Like I wouldn't know what to say.

Like, and that's, and it's stupid because I always had something to say, but I always had that like just before we start recording, like, oh, like a deer in headlights.

And I think whenever I look and see videos back then, I can see it in my eyes, like a slight, a slight hint of fear hiding behind my vacant expression.

But now obviously it's just second nature.

Like, I'm just, like, I don't even think about it.

So it's, it's fun.

I can't wait.

I'm going to go and listen to that episode as well.

I can't wait to listen and see what we thought was really important back then.

Yeah.

It was important to us.

It was important for that stage.

And I think that's what I love about this podcast, to be able to capture that different, those different processes.

I feel so much like we're in Act 2 now.

I'm really looking forward to listen to Act 1.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I just, I think, I mean, what if we're just the same?

No, we're going to be different.

We're so different.

We're not the same.

I mean, I probably, I think I do still have things on my to-do list that I probably had on my to-do list then.

But now we've got challenge week, so we can clear those things off.

That's fine.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's true.

Yes.

So we were put back on the Q1s.

I feel like I didn't make myself Q1, like, goal list this year.

I definitely did.

So I need to go and find that.

In fact, I think we met at the House of Books and Friends and Company and made our end of year plans.

So I will go and track that down and see what I intended to do.

Probably was just released several books and I've done that.

So, yay me.

But yeah, I think I want to really...

I think it's going to be a good chance to think about my Q2, which I really haven't thought about.

I've kind of just said, it's penciled in all the rest of the year and I need to really knock it down and get back to some serious planning.

Yeah.

Yeah, same.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much everyone for listening.

This has been obviously another fabulous episode from us.

Don't forget to like and subscribe and leave reviews and everything that you want to do and follow us on Instagram.

Hop onto the coffee.

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And we will be back next week.

Goodbye.

Bye.