Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
In this week’s episode, I chat with bestselling author and book coach, Emma Dhesi. Emma shares with us the 4 Pillars of Author Success: Awareness, Acceptance, Growth, and Fun. We discuss how these pillars can make themselves known in all areas of our writing, publishing, and marketing journeys, and how we can use them to our advantage. We also chat about the power of accountability for getting our books written, why writing messy first drafts are encouraged, why it’s important to celebrate your one-star reviews, and the transformative power of writing your first book!
Visit Emma’s website here: https://emmadhesi.com/
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Find Emma’s books here.
Listen to Emma’s previous interviews on Alchemy for Authors here:
Other resources mentioned in this episode:
· Between: A Gothic Novella by Jo Buer. Purchase the eBook direct from me and use the coupon code ALCHEMY to receive 50% off until October 31st 2024. Purchase here: https://payhip.com/b/mckaF
· Find most retailers for Between: A Gothic Novella at https://books2read.com/BetweenAGothicNovella
· My gothic suspense novel Rest Easy Resort is on sale for $1.99 on Kobo in the US and Canadian store for the month of October.
US Store – https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/rest-easy-resort
CA Store – https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/rest-easy-resort
If you prefer, you can buy the eBook of Rest Easy Resort direct from me for a special discounted price at the checkout. Go to https://payhip.com/b/v6Uu (No code is needed – the discounted price will show up automatically when checking out.)
· Join me in Renee Rose’s Write to Riches 8 Week Course, but be quick! The course starts October 8th! The course is full price at $333 or 3 payments of $115. (Please note: these are affiliate links which support the show with no extra cost to you.) Pay in full: https://write-to-riches.teachable.com/p/write-to-riches-fall-2024?affcode=1373182_lozgyec– or Pay over 3 payments here: https://write-to-riches.teachable.com/purchase?product_id=5774828&affcode=1373182_lozgyec-
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Find the full transcript of this episode below.
Episode 90: The 4 Pillars of Author Success with Emma Dhesi
Jo: Hello, my lovelies. Welcome to Episode 90 of Alchemy for Authors: The 4 Pillars of Author Success with Emma Dhesi.
And I am so excited to share this episode with you. Emma has been on the show a couple of times, so she’s a repeat guest. She was in more recently Episode 53: Writing a Book with Emma Dhesi, but she was also one of my very first guests when I started Alchemy for Authors. In Episode 4, she came on to talk about Banishing Imposter Syndrome. So I had so much fun catching up with Emma again, and yeah, I’m just really excited to share with you some of her ideas around mindset and how we can utilise them to better ourselves in our author career.
So on today’s show, we will be talking about the 4 Pillars of Author Success, as Emma has named them: Awareness, Acceptance, Growth, and Fun. And how these pillars can make themselves known in all areas of our writing, publishing, and marketing journeys. We’re also going to discuss the power of accountability for getting our books written, why writing messy first drafts are key for many of us authors, why it’s important to celebrate your one-star reviews, and the transformative power of writing your first book. So it’s a pretty fun episode today.
Just in my personal update, as I’m recording this, I am presently on a short work from home break from my day job. As the name suggests, a lot of it is doing my day job from home, a lot of planning, professional development, all that fun stuff. I had hoped it would allow me a little bit more time to get back into writing and that. So far, not so much. But I have had the wonderful opportunity of interviewing some other wonderful guests for the Alchemy for Authors show. So that’s just a little hint as to what’s coming up in the next month or so.
We are in October. I love October, even though here in New Zealand Halloween’s not a huge thing. Because I write gothic suspense and I love my ghost stories and whatnot, the spooky season is always one that I personally celebrate. I really enjoy it.
On that note, Episode 89, the last episode of Alchemy for Authors: Behind the Scenes of Between: A Gothic Novella, I just want to thank those people who purchased an eBook copy of the book directly from me. Just a reminder that Between: A Gothic Novella, is available on most platforms. You can get it in paperback or eBook, but if you go to my website, https://jobuer.com, you can actually purchase a copy of the eBook directly from me, use the coupon ALCHEMY, and you’ll get 50% off for the month of October.
I also, this is usually the month where I usually have a few different promotions going on for my books, but I also have my first novel and one of my faves, Rest Easy Resort, the eBook is now available for $1.99 on the US and Canada Kobo. But on a bit of a secretive note, you could probably check out other platforms as well and you might find that the price is being discounted there as well.
So if you enjoy gothic suspense with just a little bit of a love story built in and you love ghosts and haunted houses, or resorts in Rest Easy Resort’s case, then, yeah, you might find that you enjoy my books, so go check those out.
I am super excited for an upcoming course that I’ll be attending and that is Renee Rose’s Write to Riches Course. I’ve had Renee on the podcast before and I talked about this a little bit in the last episode. I highly, highly, highly recommend her book, by the name, Write to Riches, if you are an author, which you probably are if you’re listening to this, who is interested in manifestation and mindset. Renee is really one of the authorities in this area. And you know what? Her sales and her accolades, she’s a bestselling six figure, maybe even seven figure author, speak for themselves that she knows her stuff. When this goes live, there still might be a chance for you to join her eight-week Write to Riches Course, if you haven’t already. There’s usually some pretty cool bonuses where you can get your hands on an eBook copy of Write to Riches, I think, on the platform when you sign up. Since last recording, I am now an affiliate because why not? Renee was able to sign me up for that and hey, if I didn’t think that this course was going to be amazing I wouldn’t have paid for it and signed up for it myself. But I would love if anybody else wanted to join me on this journey and maybe exchange notes and that on how it’s working for us. So if you are ready to up level your abundance mindset, get rid of some money blocks, just all in all, bring some positivity to your author journey, then you might want to consider joining and you’ll be able to find the link for that in the show notes. Like I said, it’s a small window because I think the course starts on the 8th of October, but hey, if it’s meant to be, I’m sure she’ll let you sign up.
Anyway, on a final note, I didn’t mention this right at the beginning, but I am also really excited this is Episode 90. We’re actually a few episodes beyond 90 episodes because I’ve got some mini episodes and bonus episodes as well in the back catalogue of Alchemy for Authors, but still 90 is pretty exciting because I feel like a hundred episodes is going to be a wonderful milestone and we are so close. We are so close.
So just before we dive into the show, I just want to thank you again for joining me on this journey. For showing up and listening to this podcast every two weeks when I release new ones. And for supporting me in all the ways that I know you do behind the scenes, whether it’s just by word of mouth, by telling a friend, by leaving me a review, or sending me an email or a DM, liking my posts on social media, or even buying me a coffee. Your support on this podcasting journey just makes it all that much more worthwhile. And like I said, I have been interviewing some more amazing guests to have back on the show that I think you’ll really enjoy. And I have some more solo episodes up my sleeve as well. So for the time being, Alchemy for Authors is not disappearing anytime soon. We will be around for a while.
So on that note, I think we will just dive into the show. It is a long one, but it is a really juicy one, particularly if you are new to the author journey. I think you will find what Emma has to share quite inspiring. But even if you’re not, there are some juicy bits in here that will get you maybe just reshaping your mindset towards your author journey.
So when you are ready, grab a favourite drink, find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy the show.
Jo: Hello, my lovelies. Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
Today, I have repeat guest Emma Dhesi back on the show. Emma is a bestselling author and certified book coach who educates and inspires first time authors to fulfil a calling and write their debut novel. Drawing from her own success and training, Emma guides writers to finish their first book through detailed feedback, accountability, check ins, and compassionate support in her year long one to one mentorship.
Emma lives in Edinburgh with her husband, three children, three cats, and is passionate about helping authors achieve their dreams through her individualized mentoring. So I am so excited to have you back on the show, Emma. It’s so good to see you again. Welcome.
Emma: Oh, it’s good to be here. Yes, thank you. No, I’m delighted because it’s been a little, well, it’s been more than a year, I think, since we last chatted. So it’s lovely to catch up with you and see you again.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. So it has been a little while, so I’m hoping we can start with you actually just filling in our listeners with what you’ve been up to in the last year. What’s been happening?
Emma: Oh, well, it’s been it’s been much of the same, I have to say. It’s been wonderful. I’ve been continuing to work with my beautiful writers who are producing such magical work. And it’s been lovely. It’s been a real privilege to be part of their writing journeys. Two things have happened sort of nice this year. One of my lovely writers, she’s come to the end of our time together. We worked together for 12 months. And she’d been working on this book for, you know, like 30 years off and on there and had written various iterations of this book and we got to the end of it. So she’s now written this book. And she’s got the beginning and the middle and the end and she’s absolutely delighted. And it’s a fabulous book as well. I’m very excited about it. It’s sort of got time traveling, it’s got mathematics and philosophy and all kinds of interesting subjects in it. So I’ve got high hopes for that book.
But my other lovely client as well, I co-hosted a writing retreat in Greece earlier this year, and she came, Janice, came to that and it was wonderful to meet her in person. It’s always really nice to meet people in person. It doesn’t always happen because all my people are mostly in the States and I’m in Scotland, so we don’t always get to meet up. But she managed to come to Greece, and so we met in person and it was just delightful, and at the end of our week in Greece as well, you know, she was able to realise and say confidently, I feel like a writer now. I have written one book, I’m halfway through another, I’ve been getting all this feedback and support, and so I feel like a writer. And I think that’s kind of what we all want to get to is to feel that that level of confidence.
So I’ve been sort of plodding on with my lovely writers and I’ve been really, really enjoying that. I’ve been hosting that fabulous retreat in Greece on the island of Lesbos, which was just delightful. I’d not been to the Greek Islands before, and I couldn’t have wished for anything better. And then on my own writing, I’ve slowly but steadily been working towards finishing my next book and where I’d say I’m in the last kind of throes of it. I’ve maybe got another two rounds of revisions to make and then it’s off, it’s going to go for a manuscript review before I kind of see what they say and make those changes. And then hopefully, I was saying to you before we started recording, I was hoping it was going to be out by the end of this year, but I wonder if realistically it might be the beginning of next year.
But it’s been, you know, this year has gone so quickly, hasn’t it? It’s just…
Jo: It really has, it really has. So when this goes live, it’s going to be October and I’m like thinking all these goals that I had, I’m going to try and squish them into the next three months. It’s going to be ridiculous.
Emma: We’re going to finish strong! We’re going to finish strong!
Jo: Yes! We will, we will. So you have had an amazing year then. So I know you said that you haven’t been quite as focused on your own writing, but that feeling that you must get from seeing other people come into their own as authors and getting their projects finished. It must be just indescribable. Just amazing.
Emma: Oh, it’s so lovely. It sort of gives me, it’s, you know, a lot of these women are older than me, so it seems silly to say it, but I feel like a proud parent, you know, coming to the road. And what I’ve noticed as well, laterally is that, you know, we start off our year together, we start off the mentorship with me very much being the teacher and them being the student, but I’ve noticed that around about the six, seven-month mark, the tone of the conversation changes and it becomes less the teacher and the student and more two writers talking about writing. Talking about this one particular manuscript – what’s working, what’s not. Where we want to make changes. Where we want to put in some depth and add some layer. And they are coming to me with, I think this, and I think that, and what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And so it just feels, it’s lovely to see them step into their own authority as the writer of that book, rather than in the beginning when they’re nervous and kind of like, Oh, what’s Emma going to say? Is she going to say it’s awful and start again? Or is she going to like some bits of it? So rather than that, they’re confidently coming into it and kind of recognizing themselves as well, what’s working and what’s not, and knowing where they need to make changes and also being able to say, yeah, I like that bit. I like that scene. And I thought that that works and I think this might be a good idea. So I really, I really love it. It gives me great pride to see them come into the road like that. It’s lovely.
Jo: Yeah, it must just be amazing being on that journey with them. And because you primarily work with first time authors, is that correct?
Emma: Yeah. I work with debut novelists. Yeah. And I work with women who are looking to do that. I’ll sort of, I remember when I wrote my first book and it took me so long in amongst everything else that was going on with life. And I remember just having that feeling, I want to help other women do this as well. So that we know that it doesn’t matter if we are in the, let’s say the second half of life, we’ve still got ambition. We’ve still got stories and we could still do it. So yeah, women who are… who possibly, you know, like Heidi, my client who had been writing that book off and on for 30 years, who have maybe been doing that themselves and really kind of know, I want to finish this. I want to get this book done if it’s the last thing I do. And they kind of hit a brick wall and recognize they need help in some way, shape or form. And I get to be the lucky person that helps them through that. Yeah.
Jo: That’s amazing. And I think that really takes so much courage for somebody who doesn’t have at least one published book behind them to actually reach out and invest in that help. Because at that time, I remember with my first book and to be honest, like my second. And you know, it takes a little while, but you have all those insecurities of who am I to do this? Is my writing any good? Are people going to like it? Can I actually finish this thing? And so to reach out and invest in yourself and your self-worth to actually get this, you know, lovely project of yours out in the world, that takes a lot of courage. Well done you for being that person.
Emma: Yeah, no, I love how you said self-worth there as well. That it is about that individual seeing themselves as having, of being of value, or their story being of value or knowing that they deserve to at least give this a shot. They deserve to give themselves the best chance of finishing it. So it’s nice. I’m glad you said that. Yeah. It’s not just self-worth. It’s not just about the book. I do often say that writing a book is more than just the words on the page. It’s actually who you become in the process of writing it.
And so it is, I think these women are very brave and I sense it, you know, in the beginning when we’re working together and there’s a lot of nerves. And so I know it’s taken a lot of courage for them to do it.
Jo: Yeah. That’s amazing. So from your experience coaching different clients and things like that, what are some of the similarities with mindset that you see them coming to you with? Yeah, is a kind of a general theme there?
Emma: I think one of the things I notice most about a lot of them is that, you mentioned earlier that that not knowing whether their story is good enough. So for a long time, they’ve been writing kind of almost just for themselves, and that’s fine if you do want to do it as a hobby, but I know that the women I work with, they want to put their work out into the world. They’ve got something to say about the world and they want to put that out there. But for all those years, they feel like they’ve been writing in a vacuum. And so there’s been not been that kind of feedback coming in. There’s not been somebody who’s been as… who’s cared about their book as much as they do. And you and I know that as writers, no one cares as much about our books as much as we do. As you know, people wish us well and they want the books to be successful, but they’re not as invested in it as we are. But when you work with a coach, that individual is invested in your book as much as the author is because the author’s success is the coach’s success. And we want everybody to lift up in this upward spiral.
So that feeling of working into a vacuum, that is definitely a common theme. And you can almost see the sigh of relief that comes over people when they realize somebody is listening. Somebody’s reading their pages. Somebody’s thinking about their pages and asking questions about their characters and asking questions about where the story came from, why it’s important. Okay, what’s the flaw of this character? What are they trying to overcome? What is it that they want from life and how they might achieve that while putting in, you know, a lot of conflicts along the way, lots of obstacles along the way. But I think that feeling that they’re no longer just kind of writing into the wind, but there is that feedback.
And I think the confidence thing. Yeah, definitely for sure a lack of confidence around what they are putting on the page. They sort of know that the story is good, they can feel it, that there’s something in this, they’ve not given up on it. So they know there’s something there but they don’t have the confidence yet to kind of just run with it and go with it. That will come in books two and three and four as we know you get that bit of experience and that kind of evidence you can do it. So that will come later. I’d say those are the two biggest things that I see with the people that I work one on one with. Yeah.
Jo: And it really is like, I know I’ve said this before and I think you have possibly too actually on this show, but once you’ve written that first book and got that out in the world, it is life changing. Like, and I’m not talking like millions of dollars falling from the sky, but there’s something that changes within you. Like you transform a little bit as a person. Yeah. It’s really amazing. It’s that knowing that your book’s out in the world, that it’s connecting with people who aren’t even in your circle, who are, you know, could be on the other side of the world. And that you just, you created this thing and saw it all the way through to the end. Like it, yeah, it really… I can’t think of the words to word this properly, but it does change you.
Emma: It does change you. It changes you from the inside out, doesn’t it? Because it’s such a big project, particularly writing a long form novel, like a full novel. It’s a big, big project. And your first book can take up to seven, eight years, you know, even working on it consistently. It can take a long time because in that time the author is learning their process. They’re learning how they work best. Simple things like what time of the day do they work best? Do they like to do big, long chunks, or write in small bits and pieces throughout the week. Understanding the craft side, you know, we all read so many craft books, we listen to podcasts, we go to the webinars, we do all of the things, but it’s not until we start taking what we’ve learned and putting it into practice, that we see the benefit of that, that we kind of learn from that and grow from that. And so it does change you from the inside out and it’s being able to stick with the project that length of time to achieve something that you’ve always wanted to do that you had this hankering for, that shifts you and how you see yourself and the value that you see your role in your own life and the life of those around you. It might be you decide you’ve done it. You never want to publish another book. That was it. You’ve achieved it. And that is fantastic. And that is absolutely fine. You may also discover that you want to write forever and ever again, you know, and you love it and you never want to stop. But equally this, and this was something I thought, I kind of rationalized in my head when I first wrote my book, was you might hate it as well. You might just hate the whole process and wish you’d never started it. But if you get to the end, then you know you’ve scratched that itch. You can finally let it go and you can move on to something new in your life that actually gives you a lot more pleasure. On to that next challenge in life. So for sure, yeah, it changes everything, I think.
Jo: Yeah, it really does. And just with you saying that it did remind me. So like, I love writing, but there are definite times where I absolutely hate writing. And there’s always a part in the book where I’m like, this sucks. It’s not going anywhere. I don’t know what to do. And because I’m a discovery writer, you know, I write myself into corners all the time. And I’m like, I hate this. Why am I doing this? This is sucking all my spare time. And, you know. But seeing it through, like when I push on and see it through, there is always that magic for me at the end. Editing is both something that I love and is excruciating, but that’s when you start to see the real gold. But when it’s out there in the world, that like, well, for me, that huge dopamine hit kind of cancels out all the ugliness, you know, all the bad times. And I’m like, well, I’ve got to do this again. This is amazing. It’s the best feeling.
Emma: Yeah. Yeah. It is. It’s like giving birth, you know. You forget the pain of it because you’ve got this lovely baby in your arms and that’s the same with birthing a book. Yeah.
Jo: Yeah. So you want to do it again? Yep. Exactly. Exactly. So I’m just curious: so you’re a book coach, what do you think with your clients is easier to teach or to coach about, or for them to, to take on board, is it the crafting aspect, like the development of their book or is it the mindset?
Emma: It’s a little bit of both. I think, well, there’s three parts to, I think. That I would actually say it’s the accountability that is the biggest part of it. So, these are women who, they’ve been writing for a long time, so they already have a level of skill. They’ve been writing this book in many different variations, so they already know, they know their characters very, very well. And they know what they’re trying to say in the story, they’re just kind of struggling with how to do that. So, by having to show up for a Zoom call with me every two weeks, it gives them that accountability. And some people are, and you might recognize this, I know in your other life you are a teacher. And so you’ll be seeing that there are some students who will work, you know, steadily over the week and they kind of do a little bit all the time. And then there are those students who cram the night before and come in and do it. Writers are exactly the same. So I’ve noticed that, you know, some writers will work steadily towards the deadline. Others will do it like three days before the deadline and shoot their papers off to me. And so having that accountability I know is a big, big part of it. It gives them someone to write for. So again, you know, just coming back to that idea of writing into a vacuum, they’re not doing that anymore. So that’s one part of it.
The craft for sure, for sure is another part of that. So as we go along, we talk about elements of craft, we talk about the inciting incident and crafting that first quarter of the book. Then we’re always looking at what problems are in that middle section. What can we throw in the character’s way? And we look at kind of the cause and effect trajectory that we want our characters to go on. And looking at, okay, how are we making one scene lead smoothly into the next? So the joyous thing that is scene structure, which is one of my favourites. And then also coming, you know, how do we formulate that end? How do we get to the end in a sustainable way, in an exciting way, in a climactic way. Because a lot of people do struggle with that. They’re not quite sure how to bring all those story threads together.
So these are things that we discuss and talk and educate people on, I’d say organically as we get to that bit of the story. Because they’ve got the knowledge. It’s there in the back of their heads but now when we’re talking about it in relation to their work, they can see, okay, okay, now I see how that works, now I can see how I can use that in the story. And they might not realize it at the time, but that’s knowledge and experience that they’re going to take into every story that they write thereafter.
Jo: Yeah.
Emma: So the craft element for sure is a really strong element of the work that we do together. But certainly, the mindset is a part as well. And even, you know, I have some clients who are very stoic, they know themselves very, very well. They know how they work. And at the beginning of our year together, they will say, I don’t think I’m going to need the mindset, Emma, but thanks for offering. You’re just going to need to focus on, you know, structure and craft. And there’s always, I’d say about a third of the way through and then the sort of, again, another third, the second third, and there’s always that bit where they come to the call, I just couldn’t write this week. I’m finding it so hard. I just don’t know if the story’s any good. I’m really struggling with it. And so then we will have that call that is predominantly about where they’re at in their emotions with the book and how they’re feeling about it. And we come back to the, you know, why are you writing this? What is it you’re trying to say about life with this book? Why is it important that you put it out? And by the end of the call, nine times out of ten, the person goes away feeling a lot more buoyant about what they’re doing and reinvigorated and kind of falling back in love with their story again.
And I think too, you know, Jo, them just being told, don’t worry, this is a normal part of the process, I think that makes them feel better as well. And they don’t feel like an odd bod with it, but understand that actually I go through that. You go through that. They’re going to go through that. Every writer goes through those phases in their book and that in and of itself makes you a real writer because you’re going through those very genuine emotions that we all go through. Exactly.
Jo: I couldn’t agree with that more. I think there’s so much importance in just getting it across, particularly to newer authors and that, that everything you’re feeling, all that self-doubt and that imposter syndrome, that is so normal and yeah. And it doesn’t necessarily go away. Like there are moments in everything that I’ve written that I’m like, ah, should I scrap this entirely? Or, I don’t know what I’m doing. And yeah, you just push on through, and we all feel that.
Emma: Yeah, you push on through. And I think as well, a lot of writers who haven’t written their book yet, they think that everything is done in the first draft and then you kind of tweak it. And the writers I work with, they’re realising, no, we go back and we seed that idea in, we mention it once we know it’s going to happen. And so things that are happening in the last quarter of the book, we didn’t know they were going to happen in the last quarter of the book. So in revision, it’s then we get to go back and put it all in and we’ve heard that phrase, you know, the magic is in the revision, or the writing is in the revision. And I think that’s a hundred percent true.
Jo: Absolutely. The best thing I ever did really for my writing, because I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist, was really early on, I taught myself, and NaNoWriMo at the time really helped me with this, but I taught myself to just get the words down and to not edit.
Now I have a friend who, she enjoys editing as she goes, but I think for a lot of us, if we can find a way to give ourselves permission to write messy in that first draft and just get the words and get the ideas down and just not get tied up in that perfectionism, then it is so freeing, and it makes editing really fun because that’s when we get to let our inner perfectionist out and really get to the gold. Right? But yeah, the best thing I ever did was give myself permission to write really messy first drafts.
Emma: I love how you described that, that it’s the editing where you give yourself permission to, it’s like delayed gratification. Yeah. Oh, my perfectionist. Yeah. That’s so funny.
Jo: Yeah. But that’s when it’s needed, right? That’s when you need a little bit more of that inner critic to come out because otherwise, you’re not going to get, well, I feel like you’re not going to get your story completed. For a lot of us, if we get hung up on trying to have that perfect first draft, we’re going to lose momentum, we’re going to lose confidence really early on, and it’s just not going to happen. If we can just get the bare bones, ugliness, messiness down on the page, then we’ve got something to work with. Then we can go and we can unleash that perfectionism and make things beautiful again.
Emma: Yeah, I’m a big believer in writing forwards. So you just keep writing forwards, writing forwards. ‘Cause I think you don’t know what the story is about until you’ve written the end. And then I think often, particularly for discovery writers, but I actually think for all writers, it’s once you get to the end and you’ve spent all this time with the character, you’ve put them through all these things and seen how they have responded to it, so only by the end of the first draft, and maybe even the end of the second draft, that you actually are really knowing this person. And that then gives you the insight you need to go in and layer in all these lovely details in the next revision, the next round of revisions.
And I’m curious about your friend who revises as she goes. Is she an experienced writer? Is she a newer writer? Has she finished any books?
Jo: Yeah. So, I’m sure she won’t mind me talking about her. But yeah, so she kind of took up, I think, writing like professionally and publishing books about the same time that I did. So I could be wrong with her timeframe, but I feel like we kind of released our first book around about the same time. So what was that? Maybe four or five years ago or so. So she has a couple of novels out and a novella and all of that. But she’s the only person, to be honest, that I’ve met who will fight me on this, that this is the best for her. And so like, and we’re all different, right? But yeah, she will edit as she goes. So when she gets to the end of the book, it’s pretty much ready to go out in the world. She’s really, really meticulous with it. But it works for her. And I think it is also important to keep that in mind that everybody’s process is different. I haven’t met, like I said, I haven’t met anybody else who works that way and seems to, like it works for them. It’s not holding her back in any way.
Emma: I’ve only come across it with writers say who have been writing for 20 or 30 years, you know. That there’ve been, they’re so practiced. They just so know the art of writing that they can do that. But yeah, as you say, it’s clearly working for her. She’s getting stuff finished and she’s getting it out in the world.
Jo: And she’s getting it published and yeah. So that is the downside, because I write messy. And I mean really messy. Like if I can’t think of the word at the time, then I’m leaving gaps and brackets with the word “something” as a place filler and that all through my manuscript. And it does mean that my, like I go back through and I edit a couple of times myself, and that’s pretty intensive and takes a long time. And I’ve got to fill in plot holes. And I usually have a notebook that I’ve kept with me during the writing process. Like, Ooh, I might need to go back and, you know, add in some stuff here. So I do all that. So the editing takes a long time for me. Then I send it to my editor as well, and she picks up on anything else that needs to change. And then, yeah, when I get it back, that’s my final kind of go through, accepting any changes that she’s recommended or not. And yeah. So the editing process is much more intensive than the writing. The writing is probably the easiest.
Emma: Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny about that drafting. And I wonder if that’s a discovery writer thing, cause we’re enjoying finding out what’s going to happen in the story and what trouble they’re going to get into and can we get them out of it or can they get themselves out of it? Yeah. Yeah.
And I don’t think I’ve ever asked you: do you handwrite your first draft? Do you type your first draft and have handwritten notes?
Jo: So I type my first draft and I usually do it in Scrivener. So I have, you know, the kind of chapter, you know, separate it into chapters, but I always have a dedicated notebook as well, alongside where, and there will be a million ways that is so much more efficient than the way I do it. It’s just the way I do it. So in my notebook, every time there’s a new character and that I’ll quickly scribble down, Oh yeah, I’ve said their eye colour is this, or, you know, just to try and keep some details and consistency. I still mess up a lot. But my notebooks also for like, in the back of my mind, timelines, making sure that I’m keeping in the back of my mind, I know when people are born and that, particularly if I’m doing dual timelines or anything like that. If I’ve got to do a quick sketch of the inside layout of a house or something, it’s to make sure that people are going in the right rooms and I’m not changing that.
So I always have the, you know, those bullet point journals with the dots, because I like, this is really ridiculous, drawing little graphs for word counts, so I can colour in little boxes every time I reach a certain word count. It kind of keeps me motivated and keeps me going. But yeah, but my notebook is really, that’s the part where I’ll do, if I inevitably get myself stuck into a corner, which I do like, you know, don’t know how to get my main character out of the problem I’ve put them in, that’s also my brainstorming. So I’ll brainstorm on paper all these different scenarios. And because I don’t plot, it’s my really messy kind of bible of what’s going on all the way through. And so I also return to that during my editing process to just make sure that, you know, I’ve kept those consistencies. What do I need to add in? But the actual writing is typed. So I have a notebook and the computer at the same time.
Emma: That sounds like a good process. That sounds like it’d be, cause then you’re able to keep your, Scrivener kind of keeps everything sort of neat-ish and then your brain can just go crazy on the notepad, but it’s all in one place and you can come back to it.
Jo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I will even, like I will put like chapter one or something at the top of the page in my notebook and any kind of notes as I go through. Ohh, I used this quote or something like that. Just so I can kind of go back. Because in Scrivener, of course, you can separate everything into your chapters and move those chapters around and yeah. So that creativity in some respects, and brainstorming that I need on paper. But yeah, but the writing: on the computer.
Emma: Yeah.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. It’s quite fun. So what I’m really excited to talk about is that you had sent me an email to come onto the show and that, and you mentioned that there are four pillars to author success that you talk about a lot with your clients and everything like that. And we all want to know what these four pillars of author success are, if you can talk a bit about those.
Emma: Yeah, for sure. For sure. I just kept noticing little patterns of, of stages that people were going through, no matter whether they were brand new or they were more experienced, if they were working one to one with me, or I was just sort of seeing comments on Facebook or in social media and things. And also talking to colleagues and seeing what they were going through and their clients were going through.
And I sort of noticed there were, I would say key pillars. I might as well use that word. The sort of pillars that people would go into at different times of all stages of the writing, publishing and marketing process. So I think it doesn’t matter whether you literally are just picking up a pen for the first time, or you’ve published 30 books and are a bestseller, you will go through each of these pillars one by one.
And so the first pillar really is awareness. Just being aware of where you are in the publishing landscape. And as I say, it might be that you’ve just opened the gate and you’re kind of standing there and you’re looking around at the landscape around you and thinking, I do not know what I’m doing and where I’m going, but I’m just going to put one step in front of me and do that short story or go to that class. Equally, you could be the debut novelist, so someone who’s just published their first book, and you’re in a very different place to where you were when you first started and you just came through the gate. Then you might have published 10 books. And again, where you are along that pathway in that landscape and that writing landscape is going to be very different.
And you know, I know indie writers who have written 200 books, so they’re going to be in a different place altogether. And so just being aware of where you are. And so it’s got nothing to do with looking at the page per se, you know, what’s happening in a particular novel, but actually lifting your head from the page and kind of looking around.
And I, if I remember that my own, when I just kind of started and I’d say just come through the gate, I found, Joanna Penn. And I’m sure you did too, The Creative Penn. Oh my goodness. I just binged the whole back catalogue of her podcast, trying to get that awareness of where I was, you know, had I learned anything, what did I still have to learn, what was possible in the future and just kind of sort of being aware of that. So that’s very much the first pillar that we have.
The second pillar is acceptance. So accepting where we are in that landscape, and that can be a hard thing to do for a lot of us, and it’s not just me, I know this. Often we want the book written already, we want it edited already, we want it published already, we wish we had our agent already, we wish we had that first review already. We’re always kind of chasing something, we’re always looking to the future, to the future. And so I encourage people, myself included, to just have an acceptance of where you are in that landscape. And where you are is where you’re meant to be right now. And there’s no right or wrong about it.
Now acceptance doesn’t mean that you kind of sit back and think, well, it’ll happen when it’s meant to happen and I don’t need to do anything. It’s not that at all, but it’s just to give yourself a bit of, um, take the pressure off yourself to stop thinking you need to be doing more than you’re doing, but just kind of knowing, okay, I’m doing this first manuscript and it’s really messy, but that’s okay. Or I am, I’m investigating book covers. I have no idea what I’m looking for. That’s okay. I’ll find out. Or you might be down the other end and you’re going for your first meeting with an agent, a possible agent. That’s okay. Let’s just accept that we’re where we’re meant to be at any given time. And that’s good. Yeah. Awareness and acceptance. I think they are two kinds of key things that we just need to be aware of.
Jo: And I think that really works, both of those, that awareness and that acceptance will stop us from too much of that comparisonitis that can really hold us back if we get too much in like, well, that person selling all these books, why aren’t I there yet? Am I just not good enough? Or anything like that. But if we can just, yeah, accept that. We are on our own path and as long as we keep, you know, working on our craft and our marketing and the rest of it, we will get where we need to be in our own time.
Emma: So a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I love that. Yay. The idea of you kind of stay in your lane, you know, not comparisonitis, just run your own race. You’re there. It’s going to be fine. You’ll get there. And if you know, if you and I, I think we probably published our first book around the same time. We think of where we were back in 2019, 2020 and now 2024, where we’re at. How different is it?
Jo: And honestly, I think that’s from memory, that’s how our paths crossed. I think we did a book, like a newsletter swap or something like that for our first novel and, or something like that. I think that’s how our paths crossed and yeah. Yeah.
Emma: And that’s how communities are made, connections are made. And I remember when we first met, you hadn’t yet started your podcast and it was something you were thinking about doing. So it’s awareness that writers and coaches and are having or hosting podcasts. And this was something that you could do and maybe you wanted to do. And then there was the acceptance of okay. And I remember this, I remember admiring your patience because you were like, I do want to do it. I just can’t do it right now, so I think that’s going to be for next year. I was like, Oh, she’s so got so much acceptance, but cause I jump into things too quickly. I do not accept all the time where I’m at. So I remember being very admiring of your restraint and kind of level headedness there. I like that.
Jo: Well, yeah, I mean, inside I was probably like, Oh, I’m so desperate to do this. But yeah, I, there are times when I actually know my limits, not always, but yeah.
Emma: You did it. You started it. And here we are, what, three, four years on and it’s still going strong. So it’s fabulous. Yeah. So awareness and acceptance.
And then the third pillar is the hardest pillar. Of course, that’s the pillar of growth. And that’s what comes through doing the do. You do the writing, you do the revision, you do the reaching out to agents, you get the rejections, you get the first one-star review, all of these things that we have to go through, but we don’t necessarily enjoy in the moment. But it’s through doing those difficult things that actually, you know… I was talking earlier about how my clients have, they’ve read the books, they understand the craft kind of intellectually, but it’s only when they are forced to put pen to paper and think about it and go in depth with it, that that’s where their real growth happens. And not just on what’s on the paper, but in themselves as well. So, again, that happens in the drafting process, it happens in the revision process, it happens when you’re going to start publishing, if that’s what you want to do, indie publishing. Or if you’re wanting to find an agent. Then it also happens again, you know, when we have to then go and tell people about our books and do the marketing side of it, which I know terrifies a lot of people. But at every stage along the way, there’s growth.
And I think about when I first started doing Facebook ads for my books. Oh my goodness, the fear around that and you know, I’m going to pour money down the drain. Was it worth doing? I don’t write series. You’ve got to write series. Otherwise there’s no point. You know, there was a lot of fear, but I had to kind of keep going with it, plough through it, keep doing my learning and grow through that. And so now, a number of years on, I’m so much more comfortable with that than I was before. So at every step of the way, there is that growth. And although it can be the most challenging of the four pillars, it’s also, I would say, the most rewarding of the pillars as well.
Jo: I agree. I agree so much. Absolutely. We need that and we do, we totally learn through doing and yeah.
Emma: Yeah. So we have that very difficult growth period but then thankfully we have the fourth pillar, which is fun, and we get to have fun with it all. Yeah, and I think this is worth mentioning because, especially in the early days, when we decide that we’re going to write because we want to put a book out into the world, rather than it just being a hobby, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and suddenly we become very earnest about it. And the thing that had given us so much joy and we always turn to the evenings or the weekends, we start to shy away from and we find it a bit hard and there’s a pressure on it. And so I think it is important to remember to have fun. So if you finish that very first chapter, that is worth a Mars bar or, you know, a chocolate bar or something. Or you finish that first draft of your first novel, that too is worth celebrating. Maybe you celebrate finishing a round of revisions that you’ve done or finding your first editor or getting your first review, even getting your first one star review. That is still worth celebrating. And you might be thinking, why would I celebrate that, Emma? And I’ve always thought, you know, when you get your first one star review, that’s proof that it’s not just your friends and family who are reading your books, but actually it’s the public. That’s to be celebrated.
Jo: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I totally believe that. I remember when I got, uh, I got an email once from an ARC reader who loved my story. Didn’t like some of the language I used in my story, and was quite upset about it and wrote to me quite a rant about it. And, you know, like in other areas of my life, I would have been really upset by that, but at the time I was like, well, this kind of makes me a real writer now, because like, you know, if people are that upset by my writing, I’ve evoked emotion, right? I’ve had other, you know, people say, Oh, I loved your book, but oh my God, the antagonist, I hate him. I want him to die. And I’m like, you know, I’m really glad that you’re that wound up about it. So even though sometimes the emails can be a little bit, you know, like, Ooh, ouch. It’s worth celebrating because it’s that, you know, I’m sure Stephen King gets plenty of hate mail, you know. I’m sure there’s lots of amazing authors out there that get their, yeah, unhappy readers. But the fact that a reader has taken the time to express whatever their issue is with your book or how you emotionally affected them, yeah, I think that’s actually really powerful and something to celebrate because your words reached somebody might’ve triggered them, but it reached somebody.
Emma: Yeah. So true. Oh gosh. I think that’s amazing that people have taken that time. I think that’s wonderful.
Jo: Yeah, I actually do, like I do. Yeah. And it makes me feel like, you know, if I’m doubting myself, it makes me feel like a real author. So the fact that I get emails from readers is amazing and worth celebrating. It’s cool.
Emma: So those are our four pillars and we’ve got the fun in there as well. And remember you’ll jump through each of these for every book that you write, every stage that you’re at, every new challenge that you set yourself in terms of the authorpreneur journey, because even if you do have a traditionally published book and the publisher will do things like the book cover and they’ll get their editors in there and so you won’t need to do that. You will need to be doing the promotion for your work. So you will be asking book clubs, Hey, can I come and talk to you guys? Or you may wish to go and have a stand somewhere at a book fair or craft fair somewhere locally to you. All these little ways that we’re trying to tell readers about our books. It might even be the first podcast that you do. That’s going to be a new challenge for a lot of people. And if you are an introvert and are very scared about that, then that is something that is going to be a real period of growth for you. But you will have such joy when you hear it being, you know, and the other end and people are responding to it and enjoying what you’re saying and resonating with the story that you’ve told.
We all go through them. And I think it’s worth pointing kind of people might be thinking, yeah, but I’m at the beginning. And you know, if I was a bestseller, if I was, um, Harlan Coben, for example, or Lisa Jewell, I do like my thriller writers. But if I was JK Rowling or whoever it was, that was doing very well, I wouldn’t have to go through these pillars. I’d be okay. But I think you’re also a follower of Denise Duffield Thomas. And so she often says, you know, “New level, same devil”. And so you are going to experience, no matter what level you’re at, you’re going to experience these same levels of imposter syndrome and should you be here and should you be doing it? I’m sure at one stage Harlan Coben was thinking, should I be on this panel with all these other writers who I admire? Now I’m sure he feels very at home and has a lot of fun with those other writers, but that will have been a little bit of a growth spurt for him. And I recently took a class that he was doing. So he’s another, a very, doing very well author, you know, actually, I think he’s probably very much in the fun pillar right now because he just seems to be, I follow him on social media, and he just seems to be loving life right now. Everything seems to be good right now. But I can’t help but think he’s been on pillar one. He’s had a level of awareness of where he’s at and he’s looked in around and he’s thought my books are doing really well. My writing process is feeling good. I’ve got so, so many ideas and accepting that, but then it’s looking around and thinking, well, what else can I do? So his growth period recently has been to go into the TV things with Netflix and he’s been doing all these TV shows that have been coming out and doing very well. But then he’s also gone into teaching with one of the subscription offerings. So that’s a new challenge for him, a new level of growth for him. And either he’s going to have fun with it and love it and do it again. Or he’s going to say, that was fine. I’m done with that. I’m going to go back to my book writing. That’s okay for me.
Lisa Jewell is another writer who comes to mind again, ‘cause I follow her quite a lot. And she was recently in Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Book Festival. And she has just published a book. Marvel came to her. So again, you know, she’s reached this really great place in her career, publishing every year, bestseller after bestseller. Marvel have come to her and said, we have this character, would you write a story about her? So she’s thinking, well, yeah, okay, I’m seeing that everybody, a lot of other people are doing this. I want to be part of that too. As she’s kind of said in interviews I’ve seen, it was a very much a growth period. She did not really enjoy it for many different reasons. Interestingly, one of the reasons she said she didn’t like it is because it’s a super, you know, it’s a superhero world. So there’s no limits to what these people can do. And that not having a boundary, she said she found it really challenging that way because where do you stop? Yeah, exactly. So she had that growth period there and she’s openly said, you know, I found it really, really hard and she’s having fun now because she’s on the press tour and enjoying it. But from what she said, if she sticks with it, she’s got the awareness that she did not enjoy it and she’s not going to go back to it. She’s going to stick with what she knows and what she enjoys. We’re all going through at different times, no matter what stage of your career you’re at.
Jo: Yeah, absolutely. And I do think too, that those four pillars that you’ve talked about, the awareness, acceptance, growth, and fun, they can happen all at the same time as well. Like there’s no, it’s not necessarily that you must go through one to get to the next because they can all hit you at the same time or in any order. And yeah, I think I do really love that growth one, because you know, it’s that whole, if you’re not growing, then you’re stagnating. And sometimes you don’t know what you like, or you don’t know where your skills are until you give something a go and yeah.
Emma: Yeah. Give it a go. Exactly. How do you know if you can do it? You might surprise yourself.
Jo: Yeah.
Emma: But even if it’s challenging, you still enjoy, you enjoy the challenge and that can be good as well. Yeah. So I just love it. And I can recognize it in other parts of my life as well. Not just in my, fiction telling, but everything that I’m kind of doing. All the coaching that I do, you know, there’s a growth period in for that with me as well, each time I’m doing podcasts as well, you know, all of these things, they’ve always got a growth element to it. I like having them there because it reassures me, okay, this is normal, this is natural, this is just part of the process. Don’t give up just because you’re in the growth phase, you’ll get through it and you’ll have the fun at the end.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. And we all want that fun. Like we, at the end of the day, there should be a lot of fun built into your author journey, because if you’re, yeah, it’s, well, like any kind of career or professional passion or anything, if you’re not enjoying yourself for the majority of it, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. I just think we need to have, we all need more joy in our lives and we should be spending our time and energies doing those things that bring us joy. So yeah, well, that is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.
So just as we wrap up here, how can people work with you or where can they find you? How can they contact you and yeah, pick your brain some more on all this wonderful stuff.
Emma: The best place to find me for everything is at my website https://emmadhesi.com/. And to be honest, if you put my name into Google, I’m pretty much the only person that will come up. It’s such an unusual name. But if you do want to get more of a feel for me and how I communicate and how I teach, then YouTube. My YouTube channel, again, Emma Dhesi is the best place to go for that. And there on both places, you’ll find that I have my 12-month mentorship. So where I work one on one with women who are looking to write their first novel. But I also offer manuscripts evaluations. So if you have a draft of your book and you just want feedback on it, for men or women, and I work across genres, because you don’t want to write into that vacuum anymore. You want to get some feedback and understand what’s working and what needs tweaking. Then I also offer a manuscript evaluation as well. So those are the two ways that I work with novelists.
Jo: Amazing. That’s cool. That manuscript evaluation, I don’t think I’d heard you mention that before, so that’s really exciting that you’re doing that. That’s awesome.
Emma: Yeah, it’s good fun. I enjoy it.
Jo: Well, thank you so much for coming back on the show. It’s just so good to see you again and to chat with you again. And yeah, it’s been such a joy chatting with you.
Emma: Oh, thank you, Jo. So good to see you.
Jo: Takeaways from today’s show:
- As Emma says, writing a book is more than just the words on the page. It’s actually who you become in the process of writing it.
- Writing your first book is life changing and transformative.
- Accountability, like working with a coach and mentor, can be helpful for authors with seeing their project through to the finish line.
- All authors suffer self-doubt and imposter syndrome at some point in the writing/publishing process. You are not alone. Pushing on through, or writing forward, are tactics to keep going.
- Most of us need to give ourselves permission to write messy first drafts.
- The 4 Pillars of Author Success happen in all areas of your author career in no particular order and sometimes simultaneously, and they are awareness, acceptance, growth, and fun.
So there we are, my friend. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I always love chatting with Emma. She is just so much fun. We could chat forever.
Make sure that you do go check out her website at https://emmadhesi.com/ if you are interested in learning more. She’s got a newsletter you can sign up for. She’s always doing just cool classes, and I don’t know, she’s always got some amazing things going on, so it’s definitely worth checking out. And of course, she does manuscript reviews and coaching. So if you need somebody who is going to be there supporting you and the completion of your book and who is as invested as you are, then she is definitely somebody to go check out.
So again, just as I wrap up, I just want to thank you again for all your support and for listening to the show. If you have enjoyed the show or any of the episodes of Alchemy for Authors, remember, I have more than 90 now in the back catalogue, then please consider supporting the show by leaving a review. That is amazing. That helps the algorithms on different platforms actually pay attention to my little show and brings new listeners my way. Telling a friend, honestly, that is probably my absolute favourite way of supporting anybody, whether author, podcaster, artists, small business, tell a friend, let them know, encourage them to give the show a listen if you feel that it would benefit them. You can also, if you prefer, buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. That is always appreciated as well. I know it’s not always possible in this day and time, what with the crazy economy and the world at the moment, but of course it’s highly appreciated. It helps go to production costs of this show.
But also, you know, if you were looking for some slightly spooky reads, then I’ve got you covered with that as well. If you like Gothic suspense and that kind of thing, you can, if you haven’t already, you can go to my website at https://jobuer.com and my gothic novella, Between, is available at 50% off if you use the coupon code ALCHEMY at checkout, and that is valid for the month of October. Also, if you are a Kobo reader in the US and Canada, Kobo at the moment has Rest Easy Resort, my debut novel, one of my favourite books to date, on sale for $1.99 so you can check that out. I’ll have the links in the show notes for that. And if you’re not a Kobo reader, I suggest you just take a little bit of a browse at different platforms or maybe secretly also look on my website and you might be pleasantly surprised to see that it is also a really good price.
And finally, I’m just going to throw it out there because I’m excited and I love sharing things that I’m excited about with other people, but I have signed up for the eight-week Write to Riches Course with Renee Rose, who has been a guest on the show before. So you can always go back through the back episodes and listen to her if you want to check out whether she’s somebody that might resonate with you. Her course is probably open for the day that this goes live, maybe a little bit longer. My understanding though is the course starts on the 8th of October. So I have signed up. If you want to join me in uplevelling your mindset and your manifestation skills and working towards that abundant, healthy, wealthy author career that I think we all want, then there is a link in the show notes that you can sign up there. It is now an affiliate link because I had that opportunity and hey, I’m happy to get a little bit of a kickback for supporting things that I’m excited about. And I only ever take on being an affiliate for things that I really do believe in or I’m excited to support. So there’s that.
Anyway, again, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I hope you got something out of this idea of the 4 Pillars of Author Success. Think about also how this may permeate into other areas of your life. Keeping these things at the forefront of your mind: Awareness, Acceptance, Growth, and Fun, can be quite transformative in the way that you deal with maybe obstacles and setbacks and comparisonitis, and all those other lovely mindset issues that we all come up across in our lives.
So thanks again for joining me today, my friend. I am wishing you a wonderful writing week ahead. Until next time. Bye.
author mindset, Author Success, book coach, imposter syndrome, indie author, writing a book