What if the stories you grew up with weren’t just entertainment… but training?

Dr. Bailey Lang didn’t become a book coach and editor by accident.

Her path moves from hyperlexic child… to marketing professional… to PhD… to founder of The Writing Desk. And when you zoom out, none of it is random. Every season sharpened how she sees story, structure, mindset, and the humans behind the pages.

In this conversation, Bailey and I talk about creative writing beyond fiction, the realities of academia, the power of marginalized voices, and why standing out has less to do with tactics and more to do with telling the truth about who you are.

Highlights

Creativity processes are personal and they evolve

So many writers assume there is one correct way to be creative.

One correct routine.

One correct drafting method.

One correct productivity system.

And when their process doesn’t look like someone else’s, they assume they’re doing it wrong.

Bailey gently dismantles that myth.

“People kind of assume there’s one right way to do it. And that is where people get stuck. The same thing is true with our creative processes, right? The actual practice of showing up to write, I think people often assume, I’m supposed to do it this one specific way, right? And it’s, no, you can do it in infinite ways.”

Different seasons of your life require different approaches. Different projects demand different rhythms.

When you stop trying to copy someone else’s creative process, you free up energy to actually create.

Marginalized voices reveal universal habits of mind

One of my favorite parts of this conversation is when Bailey talks about her dissertation research.

She studied women writers outside academic spaces and asked whether the same “habits of mind” celebrated in academia showed up in their reflections on craft.

“I was looking specifically at women writers who were not working in academic spaces... And do we see these same habits kind of showing up in how they’re reflecting on their own work... But the answer that I found in my dissertation was more or less, yeah.”

This is why diversity is a strength. Different lived experiences expand the creative toolbox for all of us. When we spotlight marginalized voices, we don’t narrow the conversation. We deepen it.

Mindset will make or break your progress

Craft matters.

But mindset is often the real bottleneck.

Bailey works as both a coach and an editor, and she sees how the inner critic shows up when revisions land in someone’s inbox.

It’s not just about fixing sentences. It’s about facing fear.

“Mindset is huge, particularly in coaching engagements, right? So I also do editing. At that point, a lot of mindset stuff is like dealing with how do you make revisions once I give them to you.”

Revision isn’t a verdict on your talent. It’s part of the creative loop.

If you can separate feedback from identity, you unlock growth.

Authenticity Over Visibility Tactics

There’s a difference between being loud and being aligned.

A lot of creatives think standing out means reaching more people. Bigger audience. More noise. More reach.

Bailey reframes that completely.

“Standing out isn’t about broadcasting to a broad audience but about amplifying your unique perspective and personal qualities. Genuine authenticity attracts the right audience organically.”

The right people are not found through volume. They’re found through clarity.

Value of Authentic Self-Representation

We copy because it feels safer.

If it worked for them, maybe it will work for me.

But that instinct slowly erodes the very thing that makes your work compelling.

“Your unique personality, perspective, and vulnerabilities are your strongest branding assets—cloning or copying successful models dilutes genuine appeal.”

The more you sound like you, the less competition you actually have.

Adaptation Is Essential for Success

There is no fixed formula for a creative life.

What works this year may not work next year. What worked for one book may not work for the next.

“Different seasons of your life, different seasons of the year, different projects, they can all require some adaptation and flexibility.”

Flexibility keeps you in motion.

Rigidity is what burns people out.

The creatives who last are not the ones who find the perfect system.

They’re the ones who adjust without abandoning themselves.

Community is not optional

There’s a myth of the solitary genius.

Bailey rejects it completely.

“Find your people, make a cool thing, and then show it to all of the people that you know who like cool things. It’s great.”

That’s it.

Community accelerates courage. It also keeps you sane when the work feels heavy.

Writing is solitary. A creative life doesn’t have to be.

Closing Reflection

Bailey’s story isn’t about choosing the perfect path.

It’s about noticing where your skills, values, and energy intersect… and building from there.

From hyperlexic kid to marketer to PhD to book coach, every chapter informs the next. Nothing is wasted.

If you need help building a creative business, writing a book, or trying to find your voice in a crowded world, sign up for a free call and we’ll figure out your best path forward.

If you liked this conversation or want to share your own insights. Drop a comment and tell us what you’re building.

Your story might be exactly what someone else needs to see.

Ask three of your clients or customers some of those questions, right?

Why did they choose you?

What was it about you or your business that drew them to you?

And then you can start thinking about, like, okay, now you probably have this whole set of interesting words and images and values and things to talk about, and you can start amplifying those qualities.

You can put them on your website.

You can use it in your marketing.

That stuff is going to be like the bat signal for your people.

Right.

The more light that you can shine on.

This is what makes me me, and this is why working with me is so cool.

The easier it gets for the right people to find you.

Right?

That's the stuff that makes you visible.

It's always got to come from in here first.

Welcome to the Standout Creatives, where making money and creating meaningful work go hand in hand.

You're already passionate about what you create.

Now let's turn that passion into a standout business marketing.

Your work doesn't have to be overwhelming.

It can actually amplify your creativity.

I'm your guide, Kevin Chung, and this podcast is your roadmap to creative business success.

I'll show you how to turn your unique talents into a business that truly represents who you are.

Let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of the Standout Creatives Today on Bailey.

Language, Bailey.

Can you tell people a little bit about yourself and the work you do and how you got into it?

Awesome.

Yes.

Thank you so much for having me.

So, for those I have not yet met, hi, I'm Dr. Bailey Lang.

I am the founder of the Writing Desk, where I am a book coach, an editor, and a writer.

And I work with writers to help them tell the stories that matter, tell the stories that they are here to put out into the world.

And I do that by helping them build sustainable writing practices that actually work and helping people kind of figure out the path to the practice that works for them.

So there's a lot of writing studies scholarship that goes into that.

There's a lot of intuition that goes into that.

It's.

It's a pretty magical process.

It's a lot of fun.

Cool.

Can you talk about how you got into probably reading first, I would imagine, before you started looking at any sort of story stuff?

So can you talk about your journey into loving reading?

I'm assuming that you did and why you decided to go into education?

Yeah.

So I was like a hyperlexic Little kid, I was always like, I read super early.

I was very into books.

One of my earliest memories is I had a first grade teacher who had these like kind of pre made books.

They had like thick cardboard covers and there was paper in them and you could just like go and write and illustrate a story in them and then like decorate it with, you know, hot glue guns and lace and beads and whatever and take it home.

And it was just so cool to be like, oh, books aren't just things that like exist in the library or that your parents bring you.

Like, you can, you can make those, you can tell a story yourself.

And so like that knowledge was ingrained in me really, really early.

And I've just always loved words and writing.

I was a big spelling bee kid.

So there's a lot of like language love that happens.

And then I, yeah, once I got into college, I got a degree in creative writing.

I went on and I worked in marketing for several years and then kind of in a roundabout way like found a master's program in rhetoric and writing studies.

And I didn't know really what the rhetoric part of that was.

When I started the program, I was interested in the rhetoric in the writing studies portion and just really fell in love with the field.

So it's very, very interesting rhetoric for those who are not aware, like I wasn't.

Is the study of communication essentially what makes communication effective, persuasive.

So if you've ever heard somebody talk about like ethos, pathos, logos, that's a big rhetorical thing.

So I just, I really fell in love with the field and I was doing a lot of research, I was doing a lot of writing.

And my professors in the master's program were like, you should really think about getting a PhD.

Like you, you're good at this stuff.

And I went on and did that.

I left my job in marketing was like, peace out, I'm going to go do this whole PhD thing.

And.

And by the time I was done with that, I'd been doing quite a bit of freelancing to supplement my stipend as a grad student.

Because grad students do not get any money in the United States and especially in the humanities.

So I'd already been doing quite a bit of like freelance writing and editing.

And I enjoyed that.

It was super fun.

And you know, I was writing my dissertation during COVID that were no jobs in academia.

Everything was very chaotic.

I was really burned out and I kind of made a choice at that point.

I talked to my, my husband who was My fiance at the time.

And I was like, look, give me a year.

Like, let me see if I can turn this into a business and do take this, all of this stuff that I'm learning in the PhD, and go out and meet people where they are out in the world working on their books and not, you know, not try to stay in.

In the academic environment.

And here we still are, four years later, still doing it.

So that's kind of the.

The capsule version of the trajectory.

Yeah.

I often like to think people have such interesting and long journeys, but all we ever see is the current moment into somebody's lives, and we're like, oh, how did they do that?

And no one really knows why people do the things that they do, which is why I love to talk to people about their journeys and how they.

They got into it.

Because usually it's like, oh, I did this and this.

I jumped around.

And yeah, it's not like a straight line for the most part, for anybody to go from here to here.

It's always like, oh, I. I accidentally found what I like to do because I was doing all this other stuff.

So it's always fun to hear those backgrounds.

Yes.

Yeah.

Fell backward into it.

Fell in love with it.

That's.

That's kind of the name of the game.

Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about creative writing and how that influences some of the stuff you do now?

And do you do any creative writing currently for yourself?

Yes.

Yeah, totally.

I love talking about this.

I think all human generated writing is creative writing.

Um, it's, you know, I. I think often what we think of as creative writing is like fiction.

But I think if you are generating writing of any kind, your grocery list can be creative if you really want it to be.

Right.

Like, you can do fun stuff with writing.

But yeah, I think the principles that we associate with, like creative writing and fiction storytelling.

Right.

That kind of imaginative component shows up in pretty much everything I do.

So I work with people who write both fiction and nonfiction.

So I'm very attuned to, you know, what is working in the space of a story to make the story function.

But then also when looking at a piece of nonfiction, you're going to be writing stories there too.

Right.

If you have something that you're trying to teach someone, if you have, you know, a memoir you're trying to write or a framework that you're trying to give to people that they can apply to their business or their life.

Stories are.

It's how we learn.

It's how we communicate.

It's how we empathize with each other and create possibility.

Like stories are a portal.

And so the principles of storytelling, they show up everywhere.

It's in everything.

Yeah.

Can you talk about the way that you look at story structure?

Because there's all different types of models.

Is there one that you use yourself to look at the way that stories form, or are you pulling from different avenues?

That's such a good question.

Yeah.

Like you said, there are a million different models.

Right.

There's the three act structure, there's save the Cat, there's, you know, if you're looking at something like memoir, you have circular memoir.

There's like the E shape for a memoir.

I mean, there's like a gazillion types of story structure.

And so for me, a lot of it always comes back to the writer, the project and the goal.

Right.

Who are you as a writer?

What, what structure makes sense for you to be working within?

How are you trying to tell this story?

What is the project that you're working on?

Right.

If it's, if it's a memoir, we're going to be looking potentially at some fictive type storytelling structures, even though the underlying narrative tends to be true.

Right.

In business, we're often looking at something more educational oriented.

Some sort of transformation is often going to come into play.

So it really varies from, from project to project and person to person.

So a lot of it just comes back to those conversations and a lot of it has to be what is your goal with this story?

Right.

Is it, are you writing a novel that you want to get published and it is like it's for entertainment and maybe there are some larger messages in there through the themes and the things that you're working on.

Or is this something where like you have developed this heuristic for helping people save time in their business or something and you're teaching a very specific process.

Right.

And so what does the, what does the story telling structure need to look like based on kind of the genre conventions and then what you're trying to do with that book?

So for me it's, yeah, it all comes back to those conversations and looking at that.

And that's why for me, it is really helpful to have this grounding in writing studies to be able to look like really broadly at a wide range of genres and say, what are the conventions that we're working with?

Right.

What are you trying to do in this space?

Where are you trying to break some rules perhaps?

And how can we do that most effectively?

Yeah, I think it's so important for people to know that there are, like, an infinite number of ways that you can do anything, especially something as abstract as writing its own, ultimately just a communication tool to get across a message so that somebody understands it.

So there's so many different ways to do that.

But I think a lot of people just assume there's, like, a single method that will work for everything.

So I think the importance of knowing what your end goal is is something that people forget.

And that's how you end up with stories that end up muddled and hard to follow, or they're not getting across as well as they could.

So I think it's always important to know what you want to achieve with your story.

Why are you writing it?

Who's going to be receiving this message and how?

What's the best method in order to get that message across?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's huge.

And I think.

I think you said something important there, too, which is that people kind of assume there's one right way to do it, and that's like, that is where people get stuck.

And I think the same thing is true with our creative processes.

Right.

The actual practice.

Practice of, like, showing up to write.

I think people often assume, oh, I'm supposed to do it this one specific way.

Right.

And it's.

No, you can do it in infinite ways.

Yeah.

There's always.

In the writing circles, people talk about Stephen King and how he sets aside, like, blocks of his day dedicated to writing, and you're like, oh, I gotta do it like that, because it's so successful.

He wrote, I don't know how many books at this point.

It's gotta be, like, hundreds at this point.

So how does he turn out so much work is because he does this in a certain method, and I need to do that if I want to be like Stephen King.

But the thing is, you're not going to work like Stephen King and his brain, the way that he thinks and writes.

So it's really important for everyone to figure out what is the way that works best for you in order to achieve the thing that you want to achieve.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love on writing.

It's.

It's a great memoir.

And I think having models like that can be extremely helpful.

Because if.

Especially if you're kind of starting new and you're like, I'm.

I've never written a book before, I don't really know how to do this.

Like, having someone like Stephen King say, here is what I do.

It gives you a starting point.

Right.

You can try it and, but you have to try it, right?

It's not.

You have to do this this way or you're doing it wrong.

You're running an experiment, right.

You're doing a test.

You're saying, okay, I'm going to try it this way and see what happens.

Right.

And if it works, amazing, and if it doesn't, you got that information too.

And you can go back and find a different model and try something new, or come up with your own model and say, okay, I tried to write every day and actually I kind of hated it.

So what if I just write on Saturdays, right.

And see how much I get done?

You can do anything you want to.

There is no right or wrong way to do it.

So that's, yeah, that's.

I love having models and talking about those.

But I also really like to emphasize that, like it's, It's a model, not a mandate.

Yeah.

I think the value of creativity is evident in this particular case.

How, how to write.

Your thing is you have to just do things and try things in order to see what works.

And you're pulling inspiration from all these different places in order to figure that out.

So what can we do to figure out what works for us?

So creativity isn't like a one size fits all formula for anyone.

It's figuring out our own brains and our own patterns and our own inputs and using all of that in order to come up with the best thing.

And obviously that can change, right?

Yes.

It doesn't need to be static.

So I think people are often stuck in, oh, this is what made me successful.

Successful when I did things originally and that I have to do it again like that or it won't work.

But.

Right.

Things change.

Yeah.

And sometimes, you know, like, if you're working on a new project, that project might need its own process.

It may need a completely different thing.

And your life probably looks different from how it looked when you, you know, wrote the thing that you're basing that model on too.

Like, if I was trying to write now, like I wrote my dissertation, that was four years ago, I lived in a different place.

Like, I, you know, my whole life looked different four years ago.

So what I did then, if I tried to just port that to now, it would not function the same way.

It would not work for me in the same way.

Like, different seasons of your life, different seasons of the year, different projects, it.

They can all require some, some adaptation and flexibility and I think being willing to give yourself a little grace and like, figure that out.

Like, what do I need right now to let myself be in touch with my creativity.

That's.

That is a much, much more productive question than, like, how can I follow this exact habit that used to work for me, that's not working for me anymore?

Yeah, I think we just all need to adapt when it's necessary.

Obviously.

Don't adapt when it's not necessary.

If things are working, try to keep it working.

Right.

Keep on trucking.

Yeah.

Be able to be willing, I guess, to change and adapt and really go with what works for you in the present moment, not in the future, not in the past, but like right now.

What is it that I can do to achieve what I want to achieve?

Can you talk a little bit about going from working as a marketing person in and going back into education?

Yeah.

What was that transition like?

And then I guess that transition from academia back into, like, business?

Because you made like a full circle moment.

Yes.

Yeah, it was very interesting because I, I was in marketing for like a multinational company, enormous company, and I worked for like a small company that they had acquired and was kind of in their, their marketing department.

And a lot of the writing that I was doing was.

You wouldn't think of it as creative necessarily.

Like, I was preparing reports for clients, I was working on advertising campaigns for the business, you know, a lot of email, that type of stuff.

But that's also kind of where I got my start.

I do some ghost writing occasionally.

And so I had, I ghostwrote several pieces for executives for trade publications.

And so, like, that was kind of where I got my, my first taste of like, oh, I'm.

I'm actually quite good at stepping into someone else's voice and helping that person communicate a message in their voice in these other environments.

So a lot of that transferred into work that I still do.

So I only ghostwrite books at this point.

But it's very, very similar types of work.

So that definitely has been a full circle thing.

Going from working on marketing copy and reports to being a PhD student was a huge, huge shift.

Right.

Because academic writing, very, very different from marketing copy.

It's a very different stance.

It's a different approach.

You have a different audience and different goals.

You know, all of those kinds of pieces that we were talking about, like, what's the genre?

What's the goal?

What are you trying to do with this?

It's all.

And the stakes are very different.

Right.

Like a paper that I'm writing for my class where I'm, you know, synthesizing a bunch of articles that I've read And like, kind of exploring my own take on it.

Very different stakes than, hey, this is a report that's going out to like one of our major clients about our performance over the past quarter.

You know, stakes for me might be higher in one arena than the other, but the professional stakes for a business are sometimes very high with marketing.

So yeah, it just, it was a lot of like, kind of stepping back into that academic framework and, and adopting that academic voice and then learning, like, is this the voice that I want to write in forever?

And how do I, how do I bring more of my voice to academic writing, which can be very, very dry and abstract and then kind of shifting back out of that into a space where now I am my own marketing department?

You know, it's like I'm able to look back at all of those experiences and say, like, what do I know about writing right?

From, from all of my experiences as a writer and how do I talk about that with people in a way that, that resonates with them and that makes them interested and curious about writing and excited about their own practice?

So that's, it's been kind of an interesting melding of what does marketing look like when you are like a solo business person versus like a cog in a corporate machine?

And what does it look like to take all of that work that I did as a writing studies scholar and bring that out into, into the world where I think, you know, it can do a lot of good and help a lot of people really get in touch with their creativity.

Right.

Did you ever consider going into academia because you got, obviously got PhD?

When was the point that you made that decision to nos?

Late in the process.

I was actually in the academic job search.

I'd finished.

I had defended my PhD.

You know, I was basically done.

And, and I was kind of looking in multiple places.

So I had applications out in academic job search.

I had been looking at.

I was like, maybe I'll just go back into corporate marketing for a while and kind of figure this out.

So I was looking at just kind of regular full time jobs.

And then I had this idea of like, I think that I could take the stuff that I'm doing and, and turn it into a business of my own.

So I had these like three paths in front of me and I had, I had decided before graduation that I was going to withdraw from the academic job search.

That is what I ended up doing.

I had, I had gotten a few interviews, but I was, the market was so bad.

But there had been this narrative all kind of through the program that like rec comp.

Rhetoric and writing studies was sort of insulated from some of those trends because a lot of people who teach rhetoric and writing studies, they're the people teaching like first year writing classes at a lot of schools, like required kind of general ed writing stuff.

So there was this perception that like our, our job field would be still pretty broad and that was not, not what we were finding in the jobs that were out there.

Like, the pay was terrible for almost all of them.

They were in places where I was like, I don't want to move there.

You know, it was just like, I just could see the windows narrowing for what felt like a fulfilling career and a place that would let me really do the stuff that I love to do.

And so I reached a point where I was like, I, I think I have to take a swing and like see what happens and bet on myself.

And if it doesn't work, I could always go back out on the market or I could get a, you know, a regular full time job somewhere.

So it's, I have fallbacks and that, that gave me a lot of security to, to kind of take that risk.

But yeah, I definitely reached a point where I was looking at those different paths and going, I, I know a corporate job is just going to make me miserable again.

I don't want to be there.

And I know these academic jobs are just not like, nothing felt like the right fit.

But the work that I was doing, the people that I was working with, the clients that I was serving, the books that I was getting to work on, I was like, I'm so jazzed, like to get up and do this work.

And so it really became like, why would I not go where that excitement is?

Yeah, I think it's always interesting when you're presented with the path that you're supposed to go down and other options that you can also take.

And just a lot of these people who go into academia and give it up, they, they figured it out way too late.

They're like, I'm already done and I just need to go with my gut because you're gonna have to do this for as long as, you know, you have the opportunity to.

So it's always worth taking a look at what are all your options and deciding what is the best path forward, regardless of what happened in the past because some cost fallacy can stop us from all, from, from doing the things that we wanna do or need to do.

Yeah, it's a big one.

There is especially, I think, if you have, if you've gotten a PhD, there is a lot of pressure to do whatever you can to stay in academia, even if that means trying to cobble together a bunch of adjunct roles, which a lot of people end up doing because full time and tenure track positions are just really, really scarce.

And adjuncting, it very rarely pays the bills.

I mean, I remember reading many, many stories about adjuncts who ended up living in their cars and, you know, not not being able to save money, not having good health insurance, not having what they need, having really, really poor physical and mental health outcomes because there's just no stability.

And so that for me, I was like, I would have to be in a tenure line role because I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go the adjunct route.

I can't do that to myself.

Like, I know, you know, I have, I'm chronically ill.

I have stuff going on like, that will not be great.

I can't do that.

And for me it's, yeah, the, the vocational awe of academia was not strong enough to, to keep me risking my own health to stay in that environment.

Yeah.

It's also interesting to think about, like, where all this money goes that is going into education and how are we not able to provide to the people who are providing education to people.

So I think that's one of those paths that if you decide to take it, it's very hard to stay in it because these funds are going somewhere, but they're not going to the people who really make it happen.

It's.

Right.

Is it, is it worth pursuing that just for the sake of.

I already got the PhD, I might as well.

Right, Right.

And yeah, I had somebody recently asked me like, hey, you know, I've been thinking about grad school.

Would you Recommend Getting a PhD?

And I was like, yeah, like very briefly.

No.

You know, but I was like, let me give you a longer answer there.

I was like, if you go into it knowing that you are probably going to come out needing a different job if there's something that getting that Ph.D. is going to allow you to do that you could not do elsewhere.

So something you want to research archives you want to access.

I'm a big archival research dork.

You know, there are, there are great reasons to get a PhD, but go into it knowing the odds of you coming out With a tenure track role.

Slim.

Very, very slim.

Right.

So if you go into it with that mindset of like, I'm here to do this thing and to pursue these projects, get the credential, sure.

But like, I'm not going to be trying to stick around here.

I think that's a really healthy way to approach it.

Right.

Because you're still getting all of the benefit of being in the academic environment, doing the cool work, getting to do the research, like all the fun stuff, but then you're not at the end of it going, oh, shoot, how do I make money?

Right.

I have no options and no idea what I'm doing.

And that's kind of what I tell people is like be, be really, really thoughtful going in about where you're going to be when you come back out.

I think it's interesting because there's a parallel between that and artistic endeavors as well.

Right.

Because you have people want to do the thing, but the thing can sometimes not lead to the money you need in order to support yourself.

So there's a balance of doing work to provide for yourself and doing the work that you want to do.

And how do you make this thing work in that balance?

Because ultimately you as a creative person want to have this thing out in the world, but you, you have to be willing to, to sacrifice and do things that you might not want to do in order to make that happen.

Yes.

Yeah.

And like we need more funding for creative work and the arts.

Like we, we need people to have access to the resources that they need to, to do their creative work.

A lot of times it's not there.

Right.

Like I, I see people talking, you know, like the, just the cost of art school, for example, like if visual art is more your speed creatively.

I mean, it's astonishing what an art school degree can cost.

And then you are in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt with what career prospects, right?

And it's that disconnect of like what is available to people and what are we asking people to give to like get through those gatekeepers.

It's kind of astonishing.

So yeah, there's I think, being really clear headed about what is it you want to do in the world.

Like what is your creative work?

Is it books, is it poetry, is it zines, is it paintings?

You know, what is, is it all of the above?

What is, what are your mediums, what do you need to make that happen?

And, and how do you, how do you get those needs met to the best of your ability?

And sometimes that does mean like, you know, you have a different job and you, you do your creative work early in the morning, on the weekends, in the evenings.

You, you build it in around that until you get to a point where that creative work can support you.

You know, sometimes it means you move to a really rural corner of northwest Ohio where the cost of living is really low.

Speaking from experience.

Right.

And it's like this, you know, doing that has allowed my husband and me to make choices that, that maybe would not have been available to us otherwise.

Right.

About the type of work that I can do, the type of life that we want to lead.

So yeah, like being really, really honest with yourself about like the numbers side of stuff can help you make choices that support your creativity, even while recognizing sometimes the trade offs we have to make kind of suck because creativity is not valued in the way that it should be.

Yeah.

One interesting thing that I think the Internet has done is, has allowed us to at least begin to democratize the way that artistic things can be funded.

You no longer have to wait for somebody to say, okay, you can do it.

Right.

We have the ability to support people in the arts through Patreon, through Substack, through all these, all, all these avenues that exist now through Instagram and all of this.

And I think it's really going back to the, the way that things worked before gatekeepers started coming into place.

Not exactly, because those were funded by very large patrons.

Like back in the Renaissance, you had the Medici.

You were funding like arts just for everybody.

Right.

So I think it's really not having to work through the gates anymore and figuring out what it is you need to do in order to, to find the people who want to support you.

Because that's really what artists want to do, is find people who support them and not be willing to put yourself out there and not worry about, oh, I'm trying to sell to them.

Because yes, obviously you're trying to sell to them so that you can support your art and continue to create art.

So it's not.

There needs to be this idea that you can and should be willing to make money on it, otherwise you're not going to be able to support yourself if that's what you want to do full time.

Obviously you can do it on the side, anyone can do it on the side and just do it for fun or for art for its own sake.

But if you really want to make a living of it, you really have to be open to the idea of selling.

And it's not really selling so much as getting it to the people who want it, because people are out there who want the stuff that you need.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's.

Yeah.

I mean, we.

We had a.

Even here in our little rural corner of Ohio, there was, like, a local Comic Con hosted in our very haunted mall.

And we, like, it's.

I've been in there after it's closed, and I'm like, there are definitely ghosts here.

But it's.

I mean, it was amazing.

Like, the whole mall was filled with vendors who had just the coolest stuff.

And I, like.

I was, like, running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

I was like, I want to look at this.

And I. Oh, there's zines over here.

And look at.

This person has made these little mushroom sculptures.

And, like, there was a person there working on a video game.

It, like, people are out there who want the stuff that you're making, and they are willing to help you make it and to invest in your creativity, your ability to.

To build your skills and feed yourself off of that work.

And it.

Yeah, like, find your people.

We're out here.

It's huge.

Yeah.

And I think community is often the biggest overlooked aspect of trying to promote yourself, because anyone trying to do something by themselves is going to have a difficult time until you've reached a certain threshold.

Right.

So who can you either get in contact with or be friends with or work in conjunction with if.

In order to propel yourself and others in order to really gain traction?

So that's one of the things that I'm working on currently, is writing a group anthology.

And through the power of group creation, we have people coming in from all different areas, and it gives you exposure to people who wouldn't know you but know this other person.

So how can you find that community for yourself in order to really gain the traction that you need?

It's.

It's not always a solo pursuit.

Oh, I need to post on Instagram once a day and whatever saying, buy my art.

Right.

It's.

How do we make connections with people in order for them to support us?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

The anthology project is so cool.

I can't.

I can't wait to see what comes of that, because that's.

Yeah.

Like, that's exactly what we're talking about.

Right.

Like, find your people, make a cool thing, and then show it to all of the people that you know who like cool things.

That's.

It's great.

Yeah.

And have them tell people, because they probably know people who are similar to them.

And it just creates this chain effect really yes.

Be willing and open to share your stuff, obviously.

Be willing and open to accept money for it, and then be open and willing to further your connections.

Even if you're an introverted person, you can find ways that work in your capacity.

Like if you like to write.

Obviously, if you're an author or a writer, you write.

So what are avenues for writing, like threads or substack or medium or any of those things in order to support yourself and to work in a way to find the people that want it?

Yeah.

Yes.

It's.

It can be a lot of fun.

Yeah, we just got a get over.

There's so many mindset issues that we deal with just because of the ways that society brings us all up that prevent us from really doing the things we want to do.

Because we're supposed to go into the, you know, the corporate machine and do all this stuff for the corporations and grow the corporations and money.

But you can work outside of the system where help.

It can help you.

So you work the system.

That doesn't mean you need to be like a salesperson, but at least be willing to explore ways to.

To really gain exposure.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mindset is.

It's huge in really every part of the creative process, mindset stuff is gonna.

Is gonna come up.

And that's something that I talk a lot about with writers, is like, how do you.

How do you deal with those voices, those concerns when those start popping up and address that in a way that acknowledges often a mindset issue.

Is some part of us going, ooh, this feels scary and dangerous.

We should step back from it and be safe.

How do you signal to that part of you that, I got this, we're gonna be safe.

Yeah.

It's different and new, and maybe it's a risk in some way, but it's not risky in like, I'm gonna walk in front of this lion carrying a stake.

It's risky in, like, ooh, somebody might tell me no.

And that doesn't always feel great, you know, like the.

Again, the stakes are very different.

Yeah.

I think it's important to either find people that have done it before you, that can show you the way, or work with people who specialize in the thing that you need help with.

So it's.

I. I think we are all conditioned to believe in the lone genius myth, and that really prevents us from finding the people that we need in order to help us succeed.

So how do we like going back to the idea of community?

Work with other people, regardless of whether the purchasers or the funders or the people that you need to pay in order to get the thing done.

So really just stop believing in this idea that I need to do everything by myself.

Yes.

Nobody does it all.

Nobody does it all by themselves.

And it's.

I.

When people start kind of like, oh, it's all on me.

Or like, I have, you know, I shouldn't need outside help.

Like, I should just be able to do this myself.

You know, all of those kinds of ideas.

Or this idea of, like, oh, it's some lone genius, like, locked away in their garret, and they, you know, drop a draft out and it magically gets published.

I always encourage people, like, go pick up your favorite book and flip to the acknowledgments and just look at the number of people who get thanked there.

Right.

And it's.

I'm not just talking about, like, publishing professionals, too.

They'll probably be there, but just like the people in that person's life who supported them, who read their early drafts, who, you know, brought them tea or coffee while they were working, the people in their lives who are like, your creativity is important to us too.

You need all of those people.

It's your, you know.

Yes.

Writing might often just be you sitting with your notebook or a piece of paper or your computer and thinking about stuff and coming up with ideas and putting those words down.

But the practice of writing is so much bigger than that.

Right.

It is everybody you interact with who fosters your creativity and encourages it and helps it grow, who's involved with the book, you know, as a reader, a fan, a loved one, a professional.

Like, all of those people create this network, this web of support that could really hold you up in those moments when it is just you in the paper and you're like, oh, no, like, what do I do now?

Knowing, like, you, you already have a lot of those people in your corner.

You may need more of them.

Right.

And part of your work may be to go find them, but that support network is there and you can draw on it.

Yeah.

Just find your people, regardless of what you're doing.

You could be an author, you could be a journalist, you could be anything.

It's just always a team effort.

Even if you're the one that ultimately has to do the bulk of the work.

Right.

Think of it like you're in class and you had to do a team project and everyone else dropped the ball.

You have to take the majority, but some people will be helping you along the way, too.

Yes.

Can you talk about how your PhD has helped you with the people that you work with.

Yeah.

So my, my area of focus in my dissertation was on what are called the habits of mind.

So I was looking at women's self culture practices in the late 19th and early 20th century.

It's very, very niche, as a lot of academic research is, but what I was really looking at, so.

So there's this research in the field of writing studies that talks about habits of mind.

These are like mental habits, thought patterns, orientations to learning how to write and practicing writing.

And this research identified eight kind of core habits of mind that are associated with effective, successful writing practices.

So my question was, can we find evidence of these practices at other points in time and in populations of people?

So this original research was looking specifically at like, college student writing.

And I was like, do these apply elsewhere in other writing environments?

So I was looking specifically at women writers who were not working in academic spaces.

So women who were in social clubs, women who were writing books, keeping diaries, writing a lot of letters, doing these kinds of, like, marginal forms of writing that we wouldn't necessarily think of as professional writing.

And do we see these same habits kind of showing up in how they're reflecting on their own work?

And so, like, I could talk about it forever.

I know it is not as interesting to anyone else as it is to me, but the answer that I found in my dissertation was more or less, yeah.

Like, we, we see these patterns really commonly across people who have full.

Like, by success, I don't necessarily mean like, oh, they wrote a bestselling book.

I mean, they had a writing life that they were very invested in and felt very proud of.

Right?

They produced work.

Um, and so for me, like, those habits form kind of the basis of a lot of what I do with people now who I coach.

They can be kind of a diagnostic, right?

Like, are you.

So one of the habits of mind is metacognition, right?

The ability to think about your own thinking.

So do you have any type of journaling practice?

Do you have a, you know, a mindfulness meditation practice?

How are you reflecting on your creativity, your writing?

How do you talk to yourself about your.

Your creative practice?

Right?

Because often the voice that is the loudest is our inner critic.

Right?

And so practicing metacognition can help us, like, intervene in that a little bit and notice, like, oh, I am not being super nice to myself in this moment.

Like, can I shift this a little bit?

Right?

And so a lot of those habits show up in how I work with people.

Kind of the issues that I see people running into and then how we solve them.

So like we talked about earlier, flexibility is another one of those habits.

So the ability to look at your writing practice and go, hey, my life looks different now than it did six months or a year ago.

Maybe my, my creative, my writing practice needs to change a little bit too.

Right.

To reflect that.

So they, they show up everywhere in, in the work that I do.

And so having gotten to, to do the work of a PhD, to really dig into the research of, like, what helps people get writing done, that translates so naturally into my work as a coach, which is how do I help people get.

And it's.

Yeah, like, I, I offer workshops, I do occasional, like, teaching on these kinds of concepts and things that I've developed kind of around them.

So it really just, it kind of threads through everything.

And I go back to, to retconf rhetoric and writing studies, work fairly regularly and look at, like, what are people publishing?

What are people finding?

What's, like, what's interesting right now in the field.

I like to stay in touch with it a bit.

I'm not nearly as engaged as I was, you know, during the PhD, but yeah, I like to be really up to date on, like, what is going to make the biggest difference for the people that I am trying to help now, which is often people who have, you know, a story, a book idea, something that they are really, really passionate about, and they are really, really stuck working on.

And like, how do we, how do we dig you out of that hole and get you to a place where you feel creatively sovereign and like, really excited about the work that you're doing again?

And that's the, yeah, the, the PhD work is very helpful for that.

Yeah.

And then your specific case, it's obviously very helpful because you're helping writers.

But I think what we often ignore is the lesson that we learn from things that we're not currently doing and bringing those into our current practice.

So what is it that you can take from.

I don't know if I, for instance, I was a sushi chef at one point in my life.

What can I take from that specific moment in teachings in my life and apply it to writing or, you know, anything like that?

Because those are often the ways that you find creative solutions to problems that you're having is working outside of what usually works for people but doesn't work for you and seeing if it makes a difference.

And I think it's great that you're applying obviously, all that great stuff that you Learned in your PhD.

It definitely helps to have been in the same area.

But yes, yeah, it's very relevant, especially

helpful because you have that research backed data and all that stuff to support you and it's great that you're able to use all of that in your current thing.

But if you're not so much in the same area, you can still do something similar with the lessons that you learn.

Yes, yeah, that's every.

Everything is a source of information and yeah, I mean even something as seemingly different as like being a sushi chef.

Right.

There are things that you learn from that that apply in other places.

And that's one of the things about like especially like a metacognitive practice, a journaling practice, something reflective.

You can think about that stuff very deliberately.

Like what did I learn in this environment and how is that showing up here?

Like what are the patterns that are the same?

What's different here?

What can I take from this place over here and pull over here to get a better outcome?

It's.

Yeah, like there are, there are always opportunities to reflect and learn and do really creative, interesting things.

Yeah, you see that a lot in like articles that people are writing for something like LinkedIn.

Let's say they just think like, oh, this is a lesson I learned from.

I don't know, here's what fly fishing taught me about B2B marketing, whatever.

Yeah, but what can you do in your capacity to make it specific to yourself?

So instead of using that person's lessons to help them, what is something in your life that you did that you can draw on yourself in order to help yourself?

I think one thing that is often overlooked is, like you said, just writing stuff down, even if it's just for a journal or something.

Because all this stuff is floating in our heads.

But until we can write it down in a form that is like physically done, whether that's typing or using a pen and paper, it doesn't really stick.

It's up here, but you can't like draw from it specifically.

So once you do that physical act of writing and even if you take a step further, you can say it like, you can say it, you can write it as many different ways to really ingrain these ideas into your mind, they're going to help you because you have just too much going on in your mind at any given moment.

And yes, it's too busy.

Yeah, I like we are bombarded with information and so anything you can do to carve out space to slow down and think is like the dividends that pays you would not believe.

Right.

Just even if it's 10 or 15 minutes of, like, gonna not look at my phone.

I'm just going to write about whatever.

Right.

And give yourself that space.

It makes an astonishing amount of difference.

Yeah.

And I think those are often the things that, if you're trying to gain an audience or attention or whatever it might be, those are like, interesting perspectives that only you could come up with.

And that's what people are looking for.

Right.

They're not looking for, oh, how does fly fishing help me?

I don't fly fish.

Right.

So what is it that you provide to other people that gives your perspective on things?

And it's one of the ways that people find you is just by, oh, this is kind of interesting.

I never thought about that.

Especially if it's in a space where people are interested in that thing as well.

So someone's interested in fly fishing, obviously they're going to.

So what is it that you provide as a unique individual that makes you unique and your perspectives unique?

And that obviously translates mostly into your work.

And they'll see that reflected.

Yeah, yeah.

There's only one you.

So your, Your thoughts, your perspective, it's going to be a little bit different than everybody else's.

Yeah.

Did you find.

I don't know if you looked at this at all, but did you find that those same practices applied to the way that men write?

Is it.

Is it the same as the fact of being human or is it a little bit different?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So I, I was just specifically looking at women writers.

This is not a gendered phenomenon in any way.

That was just the population that I was focusing on.

You need to narrow the scope of stuff.

I was interested.

I've always been interested in writing that happens kind of at the margins.

And so historically.

Right.

That's going to be women, people of color, queer people, disabled people.

Right.

Kind of similar to now.

So that, that, to me, like, those are the stories that we don't often hear, the people that we don't often see.

And so that's.

That was just the focus that I.

That I took for that.

But yeah, the habits of mind, like, that's just kind of broadly applicable for folks.

So I figured it was.

But it's a.

No, it's a really good question.

Sometimes it does make a difference and you don't really know, but usually when it's a mindset sort of thing, it's usually a broadly applicable.

When you're talking about physiology and that stuff, that's where things start to change or chemistry.

But I Think mindsets.

We all for the most part have a very similar mind, even with shades of differences like neurodivergency and all that stuff.

The mind generally works in the same way for everyone.

Yes.

Yeah, there's, yeah, there is a lot that's very interesting.

Um, so I, I am neurodivergent.

I, that was not something that I knew about myself at the time that I was doing my research.

That might have pushed my research in a different direction at that time.

But yeah, I, I would be very interested to know, you know, what, what do habits of mind related to writing look like across different expressions of neurodivergence?

And like how does that, how does that show up for different people?

Because, yeah, they are, they are very broadly applicable.

But there's, and I have some of this in my dissertation too.

There's like, there are critiques of the habits of mind as well.

Like not everything is like set in stone.

It's, it is very complicated.

It's very interesting.

But yeah, it's, I mean it is a fascinating subject.

Like what, what does help people get writing done is so unique to each person and their circumstances.

Yeah.

And I think like we were saying earlier, obviously it works generally for the mind, but there's always a caveat, right?

Whatever works for you the best is what you need to do.

So don't follow generic events.

That is the drum that I will beat forever.

It's like it is, you know, it is what works for you.

The only practice that works is the one that works for you.

And the one that works for you right now might not be the one that works works for you in six months or a year or six weeks.

So it's, you know, like it's, it's never a static thing.

We can look at trends, we can find commonalities, but each, each person gets to be their own messy self.

Yeah, I did like the fact that you brought up spotlighting these marginalized or people on the, the fringes, because that's one of the things I'm doing with my other series, which is standout Authors Unbound, which is spotlighting those types of voices.

So is there a reason you are attracted to that?

Is there something that you found working with those people that it's different from working with other people?

Yeah, so I'm multiply marginalized.

I'm white, clearly.

But I'm neurodivergent, queer, I'm non binary.

I am chronically ill.

I have a lot of invisible stuff going on that particularly being autistic has always Meant feeling a little bit on the outside, looking in at basically everything, right?

And there's.

There is a degree of, like, how do I understand what is going on with other people so that I can connect with them better, so that they can connect with me better?

Um, and so, like, that has always been there.

I did not know I was autistic until I was well into my 30s.

So that has been a very interesting journey over the past several years of, like, figuring out what that looks like and what that means.

Uh, but yeah, I just have always been like, we know what the dominant narratives are, and they're not awesome.

Like, we are living out kind of the consequences of some very not awesome dominant narratives.

And so what other stories are out there, right?

What other visions, what other possibilities, what other paths to a different future can we find?

And for me, that is often in the form of stories, right?

Like, like I said earlier, stories are a portal stories.

Telling a story is an act of magic.

I firmly believe that.

And so where do we look for the magic that gets us to somewhere better?

And that.

That includes all of us, right?

That brings everybody along.

So that's.

That has always been a really, really significant motivating factor for me.

Yeah.

And I think the more diverse your perspectives are across the board and whatever it is that you're talking about, the easier it is to find ways to.

To connect with people and not as ultimately as a creative person.

What we're trying to do, right, we're trying to take something that's inside of our mind and really bring it out.

And usually that's to give it an audience so that people can see our own reflections of what, what, what we're thinking inside, into the outside world.

Obviously, that there's cases of that not happening, but the more that you're able to see other people, you're actually able to see the commonalities.

Right.

And I think that helps us to not be afraid of those voices and seeing them shine more than us.

Right?

It's not about that.

It's about putting everyone on an equal field versus, you know, this, this class of people obviously gets preference at this point, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Diversity is a strength.

Like, it's, you know, I mean, you see this everywhere.

Biodiversity, right?

Like, all forms of diversity are our strength.

Sameness is stagnation.

And so that's.

We need as many perspectives as we can get, and we need to.

We need to hear particularly from people that we don't always listen to because they often see what is going on most clearly.

Can you talk A little bit about the way that you work with writers and how you work through these mindset issues, or do you do other things?

Yes, totally.

Yeah.

So mindset is huge, particularly in coaching engagements, right?

So I also do editing at that point.

A lot of mindset stuff is like dealing with how do you make revisions once I give them to you?

But in coaching, right?

I'm working with someone who is trying to make progress on a manuscript that is unfinished.

Mindset is huge, right?

Writer's block, procrastination, distraction, the inner critic, all of these things pop up.

How do I find the time to write?

Am I even the right person to tell this story?

Hasn't this book been written before?

Um, I'm not even that good of a writer.

Like, all of these things pop up that we tell ourselves that are often incredibly cruel, right?

And.

And just unkind and also unfounded.

How do you deal with those?

Right?

And I think a lot of us, particularly when it comes to stuff like the inner critic, we're like, how do I make this go away?

How do I.

How do I never have to listen to that mean little voice ever again?

Bad news is it doesn't.

It doesn't.

Like, it's always going to be there because it is a protective force, right?

Like, your.

Your inner critic may be a real jerk.

Like, I will acknowledge that up front.

Mine is nasty.

But they're trying to keep you safe, right?

Like, at the root of it, it is something in you is going, I am trying something I have not done before, or I am doing something that feels like there is a poss.

Rejection.

And rejection feels unsafe.

It feels like social death, which is a huge risk, right?

To, like, our hind brains are like, social death leads to literal death.

Like, you will die, right?

Even though that's not true anymore.

It's.

That is very, very ingrained in us.

So there is some part of us that goes like, nope, just play it safe, be small.

Don't, like, don't take any risks.

Don't write this thing.

You're not ready.

You're not good enough.

It's never going to be ready so that you stay contained and safe, right?

So the real work is not like shutting that voice up.

It's identifying what is at the root there.

Like, what is the fear that's coming up?

And how do you.

How do you work with that?

How do you integrate that so that you, your whole brain, your whole writer self, feel safe, feel sovereign, right?

Feel capable of saying, yeah, this is like, maybe it is scary.

Maybe it is a Risk, but it's possible, right?

And the outcome could actually be really, really good.

So a lot of the work is identifying, like, okay, here's the kind of surface block.

Oh, I have writer's block.

I can't get anything done.

Right?

Then we, like, we go a layer deeper.

What actually physically happens to you when you sit down to try to write?

And we just kind of tease out all those layers of, like, what's the fear?

You know, what is coming up that is keeping you from doing your creative work?

And how do we.

How do we integrate that?

Not how do we get rid of it?

Because you're never gonna.

But how do you integrate it?

How do you.

How do you partner with it?

So there's.

I've been reading Story is a State of Mind by Sarah Selecki, who's also a writing coach.

Phenomenal book.

And she has this exercise on kind of the inner critic and, like, what it's about and what it's doing.

And she refers to it as like a protector without a job.

Right.

And so if, if you don't give that protective impulse a job, it's going to turn on you because it's got to do something.

And so I really like that model of, like, what can this protective impulse be useful for?

How can you turn it to your advantage to say, okay, you know, maybe your inner critic really does have a very finely tuned ear for style and tone.

Can you use that voice to help you identify?

Like, maybe I need to do some work, level up my skills a little bit, right?

Like, do some practice.

Maybe I need to submit this to a critique group that I really, really trust and get some feedback and do another round of revisions, right?

So you can use it as a source of information.

Sarah Zalecki in this book recommends, like, have it as you're sitting there writing, tell that part of your brain, like, let me know when half an hour is up so I can get up and stretch.

Like, it can be as simple as that.

So that's a lot of the stuff that we work on in coaching is like, what are the things that are getting in your way?

And how do we turn those into stair steps rather than blocks?

Like, how do we build the structure and the scaffolding so that you keep moving forward, you keep climbing up instead of staying in that stuck place?

And how do you.

How do you build that, like that self knowledge, that self trust that lets you go?

Yeah, I hear, I hear whatever's going on.

I hear that desire to pick up my phone and check my email because I'm feeling stuck in this scene and it would be so easy to just go scroll for 10 minutes instead of like sitting in this discomfort and trying to work through it, recognizing that and going what is really actually going to feed the project, feed myself and help me move forward.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So much good stuff out there.

I love the fact that you're working with what you perceive to be an enemy.

Obviously it's just you, right.

Using that to your advantage versus letting it get to you.

So what is it that we can do in order to make our strengths, our weaknesses and find a way?

Because that voice is just going to go.

Yes.

Until you figure out what it is that you actually need to do.

It's.

It's trying to help you essentially.

And you just need to listen to the way that it's trying to help you versus like saying go away, go away.

I don't want to hear right.

Yes.

And the more you try to suppress it, the louder it's going to get because it's like, ah, you're in danger.

I got to help.

You know, like.

And it, it can help by being a real.

But.

But it like that is the impulse there is like I am trying to protect you.

And so.

Yeah.

How do you, how do you work with rather than against those impulses?

Yeah.

Awesome.

A few more questions left.

Do you know anyone personally who also runs a standout creative business?

Yes.

I'm so excited to talk about this.

So I send so many people to Paperwing Studios.

So Carolina, she's a book layout and design wizard.

She's amazing.

She, she does just incredible work.

She works on self published nonfiction and she helps people produce these absolutely gorgeous books.

So I have sent a couple of clients her way and the books that she has produced for them are just stunning.

Like she really does amazing work and she's also, she's just a really generous person with her time and her attention.

She runs a monthly workshop, it's called the Indie Book Lab.

And so she invites guests on to talk about writing and publishing nonfiction.

And it's just if you are interested in self publishing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, I would recommend checking out her Indie Book Lab because she just has like she has super cool people on to talk.

I know she's had people like come on and talk about marketing.

I was on to talk about different types of editing.

She's having somebody on next month to talk about self publishing without Amazon.

So just like a huge range of topics from very process oriented to really practical stuff.

It's just an Amazing resource and she does just fantastic work.

She's great.

Awesome.

What is one extraordinary book, podcast, documentary or tool that has had the biggest impact on your journey?

Yeah, for, for me, from a business perspective, it's gotta be off the grid.

Um, Amelia Hruby is amazing.

She just, again, somebody who's like extraordinarily generous with time, expertise, energy.

I have been listening to off the Grid pretty much since it started.

I think I came in at like four or five episodes in and like just listen to everything in like one sitting.

And then ever since then I'm like, this is my, this is like my business education.

And so she, the ways that she talks about like, you can have a successful business without being reliant on social media to, to find clients, to get the word out about your.

Your work was really transformative.

For me.

I, I found off the grid pretty early on after I'd started my business and was like, I don' Want to be on social media for my business.

Like I'd had some very bad experiences with social media visibility.

I was like, this is awful.

These platforms are horrible.

Like, I don't want to be here, but I don't know how to have a solo online business and not be on social media.

And so having that perspective of like, hey, here's, you know, she has a list of a hundred different things that you can try to get visibility without resorting to social media.

It's like that alone is just, it's really, really helpful.

And the podcast, I think she just wrapped up like the seventh season and there've been just so many incredible conversations with other people who have businesses about all different aspects of like, what it's like to leave social media.

But also how do you have, you know, a product or a service based business, like what is your business model?

How do you build these things?

How do you find your people?

Yeah, just, just an amazing, amazing resource.

If you are out here kind of doing the, the small business thing.

Yeah, that's actually how we met.

Yes.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And I think if you are stuck in this social media rat wheel, you can, you can jump off and just figure out another way.

So, yeah, check that out.

If you are having trouble with the idea of needing to use social media and you don't need to do anything, you can really figure it out.

Yeah.

What do you think makes a creative business stand out?

And what is a piece of advice based on your experience, how something can stand out?

Yeah, it's such a good question because I'm like, I'm a book Coach, I'm an editor.

I'm a writer.

Not exactly rare, right?

Like, a lot of people do the kind of work that I do.

So some of the things that I think the main thing really that I think helps the writing desk stand out is me, right?

It's like I bring.

I bring me to coaching and editing and writing.

So I have, yes, I have the credential of the PhD, and that's phenomenal, right?

Like, it really informs what I do.

So I have that information, I have that knowledge, I have that scholarship behind me.

But I'm also someone who, like, I'm a very intuitive coach and editor.

I have a really deeply embodied sense of what makes writing work.

So I'm like, I am equally happy to sit and talk about structure and plot and characterization and themes, or like, let's pull some Oracle cards and like, talk about what we get, you know, like, all of those tools are helpful.

So that combination of, like, yeah, we can come at this from a really analytical perspective, or we can come at it from a really intuitive perspective.

And really, you're going to get the best results when you do both.

That's like, that is the.

That is the vibe that I'm trying to bring, right?

And I think that people who, who like that really, really like that.

So I think the advice that I would give to help somebody stand out is, you know, think about, right?

Like, what is it that makes you you?

How does that show up in your business?

And the other piece of that is you also have to do really good work, right?

Anybody can have a nice website and a good brand that the visual online elements of, like, this looks like a legitimate business that's pretty easy to achieve at this point.

But the results, that's where the rubber meets the road.

Like, that's the stuff that is going to be what keeps you in this for the long haul.

And that's whether you're offering a service like I do or creating something.

There are always opportunities to be working on your craft, to be learning something new, trying something different, getting just to that, like, little bit next level to get the next best result.

And then of course, like, you have to share that.

You have to be able to talk about what it is you're doing, how you're improving, how you're helping people with, whether it's a service again or a product, right?

Like, what are people doing with what you offer them?

So for me right now, like, the vast majority of my clients come to me through referrals.

It's people who have already worked with me, who are like, Bailey's the person you need to talk to about this and that, like, that to me is always a sign that I'm.

I'm doing something right.

If people are willing to send other people to me.

Because that's.

There's a social risk there.

Right.

Of, of making a referral if it's not a good fit.

So that, that to me is always an indication, like, yes, I've put in the work to, to earn this person's trust.

Yeah.

I love it.

I, I love it when people say that you are the thing that makes you stand out because it's not replicable.

You can't.

Unless there's even.

I think even if you cloned somebody, the clone is going to have a completely different experience than you.

Right.

And therefore you're still different.

So no matter what, you are the only version of you that can do the thing that you do.

So really lean into it and be willing to take some chances on alienating people.

Because sometimes you do want to.

You just want to weed out the people who don't like you anyways.

Why even bother trying to happen.

Like you.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's not going to be a good working relationship.

It's.

I have.

This is something that I've been working on with my, with my business coach is like, I'm kind of weird and like, I want to, I want to make that very visible for people.

Of like, we're gonna, we're gonna do some like, intuitive stuff.

We're gonna.

It's going to be kind of funky.

We're going to have a lot of fun.

And if that sounds good to you, like, by all means, come on in.

And if that sounds weird and off putting to you, by all means, like, let me refer you to somebody that I know who does similar work, but in a way that's going to work for you.

Because I, I don't want to be for everybody.

I want to be for the people that I am for.

Yeah.

And I think it's so important to know who you don't want to.

And also having the ability to reference them to other people is also great because even if they don't work with you, maybe they know somebody that is in your wheelhouse.

Right.

So if you put out into the world exactly what you are and what you offer, people will see that and either they'll be attracted to it themselves or they'll somebody else.

And the more goodwill that you build, the more willing that people are going to be to want to help you.

Even if they don't work with you directly, right?

Yes.

Can you give the people who are listening or watching this a challenge that they can take action on right now to start standing up?

Yes.

I again love this question.

Very excited to talk about this.

So this is going to go back to kind of what we were just talking about.

If you feel like you're not standing out enough, my challenge for you is to take a step back and do some of the kind of metacognitive things that we've been talking about.

Do some reflecting, do some journaling.

Think about what makes you different from other people who do what you do, what makes you unique, right?

And that might be your approach, it might be your personality, it might be your values.

How do those things show up in your work, right?

And really like, let yourself kind of go wild on the answers to that and like really think that through.

If you want to take that to the next level up, get a little bit bolder with it.

Ask three of your clients or customers some of those questions, right?

Why did they choose you?

What was it about you or your business that, that drew them to you?

And then you can start thinking about like, okay, now you probably have this whole set of interesting words and images and values and things to talk about.

And you can start amplifying those qualities.

You can put them on your website.

You can, you know, use it in your marketing.

That stuff is going to be like the bat signal for your people, right?

Like the more light that you can shine on.

This is what makes me me, and this is why working with me is so cool.

The easier it gets for, for the right people to find you, right?

Like that is, that's the stuff that makes you visible.

It's.

It's always gotta be, it's gotta come from in here first.

Yeah, it's so interesting because it's so counterintuitive to think that the less people that I want to attract, the more likely it is that people are going to want to work with me.

Because you would think the larger your audience, the more ability you have to find people that fit you, but that often just like haves you drown out into the sea of sameness with everyone else who is also doing the exact same thing.

So it's, what is it about your unique perspective that can really attract the right type of people?

And that works for service based businesses and physical things that you sell.

It could work for products.

Even if you're selling like a cereal or something, it still works.

Like no matter what it is, you just got to find the right people in the way to that your thing matches their want for the thing in order to have them buy from you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think it goes back to what we talked about earlier too.

It really is about finding your.

Finding your people, building that community.

Right.

Like there are going to be other people out there who their weird lines up with your weird and if you combine your weird, you get something really cool out of it.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Well, Bailey, this has been amazing talking to you.

I'm sure we could go on forever.

Yes.

We can have some more conversations in the future.

Can you let people know where they can keep up to date with you and all the work that you're doing?

Absolutely, yes.

Thank you so much for having me.

This was such a fun conversation.

So the best place to find me online is going to be my website.

It's usetheritingdesk.com so if you go there, you can check out all the stuff that I'm doing.

You can sign up for my newsletter, Word to the Wise, that comes out once a week.

And I have weird, witchy writing advice and regular interviews with authors who are coming on to talk about their process and their books.

And those are really, really fun conversations.

Awesome.

Well, yeah, thanks again for coming on.

It's been a pleasure.

Yes, thank you.

Okay, bye.

Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Standout Creatives.

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Thanks again for tuning in and as always, lean into your creativity and curiosity.

I'll see you again on the next episode.