 Hello, hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Bruce and Ed Live from New York. I'm Bruce. And I'm Ed. Who are you? Great to see you. What are you doing here? Great to see you. Welcome to another day in the life of Bruce and Ed. Today's episode is sponsored by Arvix, web hosting, a-r-v-i-x-e dot com and Dropbox and Mountain Rose Herbs. So we'd like to thank them for their support. Yes, thank you very much. You can always chat with us and give us feedback or questions during the live taping to the show in several ways. You can join the chat room, gmail, chat, Google talk, Twitter at reply, send us an email, text message, SMS, all sorts of different ways. Just go to breadtv.com, that's where we live, b-r-e-d-t-v dot com and check out the links there for live feedback chat. And you can also send us messages anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and we will read it like viewer email or even voicemail messages. There's a phone number you can call and we'll either read it or play it and address those on the next day's broadcast. So welcome, welcome, welcome. And wow, you said that very quick. Yeah, I told you I was going to shorten it because I was like, the last time it took like half of the show. Exactly. We're making baby steps, we're improving. You know, we're getting all kinds of great feedback on all sorts of things. The volume of the audio and the lighting and- Especially at the beginning of the intro, it was very loud. This morning when I woke up I looked at my email and there was a message that it said that they like the lighting dark better. Like when we did it at the night one time, all they liked that artificial dim lighting. We looked better. Really? Well, of course we look better, we look younger. Everybody looks better in the dark. I don't know, I don't know. This is natural- Was that an insult? I'm not quite sure, I'm going to have to pursue that. But anyway, this is natural lighting, like there's all natural lighting coming into that side and artificial lighting over there. But anyway, let's get right to our guest today. We have live with us from Albuquerque, New Mexico, live via Skype, award-winning author and writing and creativity coach and dear friend now, Mark David Gerson of markdavidgerson.com. Are you there, Mark? Mark David. Hello. I'm sure. Good morning. That's right, it's Mark David. I sure am. Mark David, welcome. I said it right, didn't I? Mark David. Well, you said Mark. Did I? I did it again. Mark David. Mark David. Mark David. I'll say it three more times, make up for it. Mark David Gerson. Well, welcome. You're like bright and bushy-tailed. It's the middle of the night in New Mexico. Well, I don't know what bushy-tailed, I don't know what bright, but I'm here. Well, we see your smiling face, so it looks like you're up in there. You're vibrating again. Is your laptop hot already? It's been on for a while. Did you remember the tray? Well, you guys have been setting up, that's right. Yes, those laptops, they burn my legs. I have to use a TV tray or whatever, like a breakfast in bed tray. I'm using that writing thing, you know, lap desk, lap desk. Oh, nice. Then your staff bring your breakfast in bed with the laptop on a tray and a little rose and a vase. Yeah, I don't know where they are. I'm waiting. I'm still waiting. You got to ring the bell. Well, we're printing it out there. Yes, that's right. We believe that. Whatever you think about a lot. It's too early in the morning. Yeah, yeah. Whatever you think about a lot, you're going to manifest in your life, so be careful what you think about a lot. But anyway, yes, so have you been to bed yet or you just got up? Can you hear me? I have been to bed and I'm up. I actually don't normally set my alarm, but for you guys because you're so special, I did that. Well, thank you. Great. Thanks for joining us. There's a lot of things. I was thinking about how to answer that. Let's see, should I be honest? I just got in from clubbing all night now. So what's going on in the world of Mark David? What's going on? What's going on in the world of Mark David? Wow. Talk about your open-ended question. Yeah. You're doing all sorts of book tours. I know that we just talked briefly right before we started about your award-winning. You've won some awards for your books already. Oh, yes. Got this day. Hold up your books. I have. Let's see. I have one. Let's see. I have one. Okay. So I've won two. This book is called The Voice of the Muse. Answering the Call to Right. That's your first one. Waiting for it to show up. There we go. Yeah. The Voice of the Muse. Answering the Call to Right. And it's won two awards. Two awards. Okay. I've won two awards, but I can't put two stickers on because it looks kind of tacky. Yeah. You've got one on the side, one on the back. Overlapped them. I don't want to be too much of a show-off. Yeah. This is an independent publisher's book award. And it also won a New Mexico book award because, hey, I'm in New Mexico, right? So that's one of the books. And The Voice of the Muse. This is a... Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, sorry. This is a fantasy called The Moon Quest, a true fantasy. A true fantasy. It's won an independent publisher's book award. It also won a New Mexico book award and it won three other awards as well, which is kind of cool. Wow. And I'm working on a sequel to that right now and exciting. I'm working on a screenplay adaptation that I actually have a producer tentatively interested in. Oh, my God. Coming to a big screen near you one of these days. The Moon Quest. Great. Cool. I hope. Yeah. We have a lot of, by the way... The Moon Quest. Interject Moon Quest. So we have a lot of friends because we're in New York. We have a lot of friends that work in Broadway, actors and screenwriters too. So we'll have to connect you. I'm sure they'll be learning of you through this if they haven't already heard of you and vice versa. But yeah, this city is full of talent, writers and actors and musicians of course. All of them. Half of our friends are in that business it seems like in this city. Yeah. We have one of our friends now is writing also screen, he's a screenplay writer as well. Yeah. And writing a show. Halfway through it. So the Moon Quest is a novel. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Yes. And the other one is not. No. The other one is a book about writing for anyone who either wants to write, wants to like to write, wants to find a new way to write. Wants to like to write. It's a combination of inspiration and practical tools and techniques and exercises. I like that. Wants to like to write. I want to like to work out. But I don't. I don't have. If you get that book, you can get me a copy of you. Wants to like to write. I like to write. You know what I'm doing? I want to like it. I'm doing book signings and I'm not famous yet except in my own mind. There you are. Book signings to be more of a hustle than big long lineups outside to the street. And so one of the things that I ask people as I'm shipping them when they walk into the store is do you like to write? And of course half the people will say no. And so the next question I ask, would you like to like to write, which usually gets their attention? Yeah. Tension of something. Yeah, that would be me. Because I would love to, I always say learn how to write I guess, but not that I don't know how to write. It starts with I'd love to be a writer, therefore I'd love to write, therefore I'd love to like writing because then all the rest would be easy. Well, I don't know if this probably won't pick up, but here on the back cover it says, let's see, my favorite is, you'll never feel the same about writing again. Oh, right. This is the writing, this is the music. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like everyone has a, not just a right voice, but you're able to, the ability to write, right? What about ability? What about skill? I mean, that's a whole nother book. Rating skill. Skill can be learned, but everyone's actually, I believe everyone's innately creative and anyone can write, which doesn't guarantee you're going to get the Pulitzer next year, but maybe the year after. But you certainly can write. And what are my favorite chapters and sections in the book, not because of the content, but because of the name of it is, I don't know if this is going to show up because it's at a funny font and, you know, it's not exactly clear. I'll just say what it's called. It's called, it's called birthing your book, even if you don't know what it's about. Does it have illustrations? Not that kind of. Birthing your book, even if you don't know what it's about. Well, everybody, you know, like I say, everybody's got a story and that's so true. Every human being, if you're trapped on an elevator with somebody, you might just, you know, long enough or on a desert island, maybe it'd be better example, you will hear their story and everybody's got an amazing story in them, at least one, at least one. The title of that section came to me when I was asked to give a talk in Sedona. This was before the book came out. I was actually doing a talk in a book store to promote the moon quest. And I used to live in Sedona and people would come up to me all the time and say, I keep being told to go for a second greeting. I keep being told to go to a book and I don't know what it's about. So I realized that you don't have to know what it's about to start. And that's where that section of the book kind of kicked in. I teach a workshop with that title as well because it's kind of catchy. You get your best stuff. Like everybody has your best stuff from talking to people. Asking them questions and things. Sure. This is kind of a sidebar where we decided that on the Bruce Wagner show we're going to do is the topic categories. That's where I got that because I did research and asked people, I did a poll actually on Twitter and I asked people, what is the biggest challenge facing you in your life? Well, first of all, make this short story. But I started with a mission of saying we want to help as many people as we possibly can in the most profound ways possible. So starting with that, I asked people in a poll, what issues or challenges are the biggest challenge facing you in your life right now? And number one was something to do with money. It always had to do, number one was money. Something around money, jobs, finances, something like that. And the second one was body. Something to do with health, fitness, nutrition, disease, obesity, something to do with health or body. And the third one was love. Something to do with relationships, finding Mr. Right, getting rid of Mr. Wrong, whatever, whatever. All these things about relationships was money, body, love. So those are the three categories. And then personal technology and celebrity, those are kind of like fetishes. Everybody sort of has somewhere in them. And then spirit is kind of like everything else that affects everybody in the world. So that's kind of the same thing. When you talk to people and you ask them questions, you get the best answer. And also another thing I noticed is that you get the same answer over and over and over again. You know there's some universality to our consciousness, right? When you ask someone, like, do you like to write? And then when you say, you know, a lot of them said, no. And then would you like to like to write? Yes. Exactly. Right? It's amazing when you can ask a whole lot of people in different places the same thing and they all say the same answer. Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. The universe is telling you something. A lot of people would like to write a book. A lot of, you know that the, I think it was the American Association of Publishers. Some publishers group with USA Today are going to pull some years back and discovered that 82%, 82% of Americans say they plan to write a book someday. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I wonder what percent bought a book this year. Well, yeah, well there's that. And I wonder what percent actually did anything about it. Right. They're going down to the two, not the 82 probably. Yeah. But still, there's a certain kind of cachet around that notion. By the way, you're bouncing your leg on a book. You're writing a book. You're bouncing up and down the ground. But you're right. People have read a book. That's a really good question. Probably not 82%. Yes. Well, you know, that's, I believe that totally. And also talking about, we were talking about video netcasts, you know, a talk show thing. I'll bet you if you, it'd probably be the same percentage. Everybody wants to do a talk show. Everybody wants to do a video talk show. But once again, they're not doing anything about it. And it doesn't, it takes, it takes a lot. I mean, you have to make a real commitment and devote yourself to it, to be serious about it and all that. But yeah, when it comes to writing, that's even more because it's creative. It's coming out of you. Right. Well, in fact, on one hand, the talk show requires more because you have to have some technological know-how. Or money. Or both. Yeah, or access. Or both. Yeah, exactly. To technology. Right. Whereas you don't even need a computer to write, although it's certainly easier. All you need is, all you need is, you know, a 49 cent pen and $2 notepad from Walmart and you're all set. Yeah. Yeah. Or a piece of chalk. Or something. Anything's right on. Yeah. Or a rock on your driveway. Yeah. In a cave. Yeah. You can pretty much, if you can write, if you have the ability to put words on paper. Yeah. It's true. So how do you bring out someone's innate creativity when they just can't find it within themselves as a coach? It's stuck on expressing it. One of the things I do in my workshops a lot is I use guided meditation and guided visualization because, for me, one of the most important things is to help people get out of their own way. We're all, in many aspects of our lives, we're all ultra-judgmental, ultra-critical, ultra-doubting, over-analytical, over-logical, and creativity doesn't operate on any of those frequencies. Creativity makes no sense. It's illogical. It's not analytical. It's magic. It's alchemy. So... To get people to a different state, I'll often use meditations. In fact, I'll hold this up because this is actually... It's the voice of the muse companion, guided meditations for writers to CD set. Nice. I love guided meditations, anyway. Because it's all about getting you into a state where you're prepared to surrender to your creativity. Yeah. So leave your ego at the door. Yeah. We spend a lot of time in resistance. We also spend a lot of time in our lives, as well as in our creativity, trying to control the process. And the way creativity works, at least for me, and the way I teach it, is you're not in charge to get over it. Yeah. That's the way I feel. The best stuff that comes out of your writing or your mouth or whatever is not coming from you anyway. It's coming through you. You're just a conduit. Exactly. And if you just let go... One time I gave a speech... Long story. I won't tell it now. But I gave the speech to a huge group. You know, I don't know. For me, it was a huge group. Like, 1,500 people in a big thing. It was a grand opening of a venture that he and I started. And I just didn't prepare at all. I was way too busy. And I just stood up there and spoke. And it was like standing ovations and everyone was complimenting me afterwards. And you know what? I could for the life of me then and now. I can't remember one word I said. I can't remember not even one word. But it just... Whatever it was, it just kind of flew through me like a static electric shock. It just went through me. And I think that's what you're talking about, is releasing the blocks and letting it flow. Absolutely. I have a similar speaking story as well where I thought I had done the worst thing I'd ever done because I was unprepared. I've been guided to be unprepared, which was also kind of scary. I was guided to... Don't prepare. ...prepare nothing except... Don't waste your time preparing. Forget it, that. And just get up there and do it. And I sat down after hoping the Earth would swallow me up. And I was told after it was the best thing I'd ever done. Again, because you're in that place of total surrender to spirit, if you want to put it that way. To your muse, if you want to put it that way, just to allow... I mean, what you did, Bruce, was you connected with yourself, your higher self, and the audience and gave them exactly what they came there to get. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't really for me. It wasn't for me. I just got all the credit, I guess. But it really wasn't for me. You get credit for releasing and letting go and just letting it flow. Exactly. Your intentions have to be good, right? I talked last week at this conference in Santa Fe, and I taught these same concepts, which were a little radical for screenwriters who were so structure-oriented and, frankly, controlling of the process a lot of the time, that it was... I mean, it was a little... It was somewhat radical. I was saying, don't let... Don't put structure first. Put content first. Yeah. That's kind of the old... There's so many kind of structural and... There's so many rules around screenwriting. It has to be this. It has to look like that. It has to be so many pages. Yeah. That can be constricting, but they have nothing to do with the story. Right. And for me, it's almost starting with the story and letting the structure serve the story rather than taking a structure and trying to bang the story into it. Yeah. The way I think of it is if you're writing the world's most wonderful letter, like the old-fashioned letter, the structure is when you're done. It's folding it, putting it in the right envelope, putting the right postage on it and addressing it and taking it to the mailbox, but that's not... The substance is the actual letter itself. The rest of it is just the fluff, the details, the trivia, really around it or after the fact. The substance is the meat of it, right? Obviously. Whenever I teach a workshop at every topic, I usually hand out a set of... It's often 13 because that's from my control. I want it to be 13. So-called rules. 13. Rules for writing. I read somewhere 13 is good. Building character rules for birthing a book. And the first rule in all of those and the 13th is there are no rules. That's why there's really only 12 rules. There really are 12 rules, that's right. So do you see I cheat? Because sometimes there's more material that will fit in 13. So I have like 6A and 7B. So do you- We all have control issues. That's where mine comes out. Can you fit them all into one tweet on Twitter? That's the question. See, that takes talent. But anyway, what were you gonna say? I was just gonna say, do you find that working in your workshops with your students or whatever you want to call them, do you find that it's hard for those people that have had like a structured system of writing or education, for that matter, as opposed to someone that's just getting into it and doesn't really have a formal education, is it easier or harder for them to get unstuck from that or what's your thoughts on that? Well, I think that's an individual situation. Certainly a lot of workshops are kind of un-teaching rather than teaching. Kind of reconditioning or maybe restoring. This doesn't happen quite so often anymore, but I first started teaching writing when I would go around the room with the beginning of a class or workshop and ask them to share their names and why they were there and what their story was around writing. What I used to get a lot was I used to love to write until, dot, dot, dot. Sadly, that until was often a teacher or a college professor or a school experience of some sort that kind of shut them down because they had to write a certain way or they had to write about a certain thing. When you're connecting with your passion, which is what creativity is for me, there can't be a rule like that. You're writing what comes from the heart. I want to ask you about writing style also and get into that in just a moment. At this point, if you don't mind, we really want to take a moment and just thank our sponsors because we're so grateful for our sponsors bringing you to us, bringing us to you, whatever. Let's do that real quick. We want to thank, first, Arvix Web Hosting. It's A-R-V-I-X-E, dot, com. Arvix Web Hosting. I used to say Arvix, I don't know why because it looks like Arvix, but I guess it's pronounced Arvix. A-R-V-I-X-E, dot, com. Arvix Web Hosting is awesome. We use it for all of our sites. We're transitioning all of our hosting and our domain registration over to Arvix and we love it. Not only their uptime, but we've never had any downtime or outage with it at all, whereas we have with other Web Hosting companies. It's so nice. Some people who are technical like to, you know, the old-fashioned die-hard technologists sometimes like to host their own servers and all that, but not me. I've been in technology for, you know, longer than many of you have been alive, but I, you know, since like 16 at high school or whatever, I've been in IT. I am not a fan of hosting my own servers because as soon as, you know, somebody's blow-drying their hair and the circuit of the fuse goes out or I'm not home, I could be out of town and the electricity goes out or something goes wrong, the internet goes down, anything can happen, and your whole website goes down, so no way. I'll definitely outsource it. So I'm a big fan of having, obviously, you know, outsourced by hosting. Arvix is great. For one, you see limited bandwidth, unlimited storage, unlimited everything, unlimited traffic, even an unlimited number of .com or . whatever domain names hosted with one hosting account. So that's what we do. We're in the process of switching all of our hosting and domains over to it as they expire or come up for renewal. We're switching them over to Arvix. And we love it. The best thing I think about it is that I can call them, I talk to Ryan, 24 hours a day, I don't know if this guy works 24 hours a day or what, but he's here in the US and he speaks the same language as me and he understands that he's technical. Very, very technical. And helpful. Completely helpful, really, really, really nice. They tell you how to do it or they'll just do it for you or both, whatever. But they're excellent, excellent customer service 24 hours a day, whether it's by email or telephone. So thanks, Arvix, for your support. And then, secondly, we would like to thank Dropbox. Dropbox.com And Dropbox is we tell you about Dropbox all the time. We couldn't live without it. We have the first of all, they give you two gigabytes free and it's offline storage and data synchronization and sharing. So basically, the way I think of it is it's kind of like our personal and business file server. It's like a file server. But it's out on the web and local. It's both. It's automatically synchronized. When I save a file into my computer, first of all, I save all files into my Dropbox folder. So all my folder structures are inside of my Dropbox folder. And when I save a document, I create a document, a spreadsheet, presentation, it could be anything, even photos, music, video, anything. I save it inside on my computer like normal, but inside of the Dropbox folder boom, instantly, all the other computers go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, new file was just saved. And so there's a copy of it on every computer we own, even laptops, even your cell phone. You have an Android phone or an iPhone. There's a Dropbox app for everything. Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu Linux, as well as iPhone and Android. It's incredible. And it's free. It's two gigabytes for free. And they give you like they give you a link and if you invite other people that use that link, then you can get, I think, more free space up to, I think, up to 10 gigabyte, which is a lot. Yeah, you definitely get more free space by referring your friends. But if you need more space than that, like we do, of course, you can go, you can get a bigger and bigger and bigger account. So we have like, we have the 100 gigabyte account. And then, because we have 100 people, we get the maximum referrals. So ours is up to like 116 gigs. So we have 116 gigabytes of storage. So it's on every computer, on every phone. It's also out on the internet. And we can go to any computer anywhere. I can go to your house, get on your browser, go to Dropbox.com and log in to my account. And there's all my files and all my data. I can just click on a file and download a copy locally. So I can access all my information anywhere, everywhere, anywhere on the planet. It's brilliant. We love Dropbox. Yeah. And the other thing is that we believe that everyone should have Dropbox because they give you two free gig and then you can get up to 10. And the reason being is that, you know, a lot of people have a backup on like another hard drive. But, you know, if that hard drive fails or something happens, then you don't have that anymore. So it's not the best backup. It's completely automatic. There's nothing to do. There's no routine or anything. It's like as soon as it's saved, boom. As soon as it's updated, boom. It just happens automatically. There's no reason not to have it and two gig is free. So Dropbox.com, get it. Okay. And then finally, MountainRoseHerbs.com MountainRoseHerbs.com They're the, they're a co-op that specializes in organic and sustained, sustainable farming. So all of their products come from certified organic farms and they actually inspect them. And most of their products are bulk as in like one pound or, but you can get less as well. But the main thing is that their prices are some of the best in the industry, especially when it comes to organics. You'll pay about 25, well, 25% to 90% less than your general store nutrition store and stuff like that. What did they sell? They sell besides herbs. They sell besides herbs. They sell like oils, essential oils, beauty products, soaps. I mean, you name it. Superfoods. That's what you buy, right? Yeah. Superfoods is what I buy. Like Chlorella, algae and a maca, which is like a root, powdered powdered spinach. I mean, there's tons of stuff. You can go through their catalog. They have great, great stuff. I highly recommend them. Ed makes green smoothies. This is all the rage of your, you know, even if you're not into necessarily vegan, raw, organic, just in the health, they, he makes these green smoothies. He's got a Vitamix, but used to use just a regular blender and he throws all these superfoods in there with greens, right? Organic greens from the grocery. Right. And he makes these green smoothies. You know, sometimes they taste better than others, depending on what he threw in there, but they're super, super, super nutrition. You can't get any more nutrition than that. Yeah. If you want to lose weight, that's the way to go. And it's like a meal replacement because it's very filling and super, super healthy. So you can get it, you're guaranteed of the quality, that it's organic, and that it's, you know, all about sustained agriculture and, I mean, their company is founded on that, but, and best of, perhaps best of all, the price, you can't beat it because, you know, it's an internet price. It's not the same as going to the local health food store or something that's definitely marked up high. So we want to thank Mountain Rose Herbs for supporting us and bringing us to you. And someone in the chat room wrote, Dropbox is one of the best apps to have on a computer. Plus, it works on Linux. I don't think we mentioned that, but yes, it sure does. I did. We use Ubuntu Linux. Was that you, Mark David, who said that in the chat room? No. No, I'm kidding. No. He's sitting there adding to the chat room. No, but you may have sold me on it right on the spot. Yes. Make sure you go to BreadTV.com and click on the link in the, when you go to BREDTV.com and then reach out to them. So that's it for this episode. There's show notes and the first thing is the link for the sponsors and stuff. And by the way, we didn't mention this. If you click on the Dropbox link there, you will get an extra bonus of free space. So it won't be two gig. You'll get two and a quarter gig or something like that. So you get a little bit more free space right off the bat. So it's worth doing that. Cool. Go to breadTV.com about writing style because I was raised as a good Catholic boy growing up and going to Mass before school every day at St. Nicholas in Zanesville, Ohio. And we were taught excellent education. So in spite of what anybody else may think about anything else, it was an excellent education. So I did learn English grammar and I think that my grammar is better than most definitely most people in the U.S. under my age. But what about when you're writing and even though my grammar is good and I can pretty much write well, grammatically, I like to write in a style like I speak just completely casual. Is that acceptable? Would editors approve of that or it depends on what you're writing? Well of course I go back to my rule number one which says there are no rules which you probably didn't learn in Catholic English class quite the opposite. There's nothing but rules. That's rule number one. And rulers rules and rulers. Rulers to enforce the rules. That's why they call them rulers. I just thought of that. Anyway what I would say is that when you're writing write using your voice I don't mean your spoken voice but write in the way that's most natural for you because that will support the subject you're writing about. You'll write different things in different ways. Grammar and spelling and punctuation are incredibly important because there would allow the reader to actually follow what you've written but you don't need to worry about that in your first draft. In fact I would suggest that's the last thing you need to worry about in your first draft. Your first draft is getting the material onto the page the story onto the page and when I use the word story I'm talking about everything and it could be non-fiction as well as fiction it could be an article as well as a novel just get it out and an important way to avoid getting blocked or to avoid getting into those places of judgment I talked about before is to keep writing and don't stop and don't stop to worry about grammar and don't stop to worry about spelling and don't stop to worry about punctuation and turn off all the spell checks in your word processor and turn off all the grammar checks in your word processor and turn off all the little bells and whistles and pings and dings that show you've done something wrong and just keep moving forward. That's really interesting because I never thought of that before. There's an app for that. There's an app. I can't remember what it's called but all of our computers run a boot to Linux wherever possible a plug for that. There's a book writing app and I thought it's really weird and I thought it was bizarre because what this app does it just brings up the whole screen white it's just a blank white screen and it inhibits anything else from beeping or pinging or anything it just completely takes over and gives you a white screen and there's nothing but your words with a lot of white space around them and there's nothing but your words and then you close it and it's saved and it has very minimal features except for chapters but other than that it's like really a big blank white piece of paper almost like a typewriter it's not going to bark at you about anything I thought that's very clever I also have a friend who's a grammar I'm sorry there's a little latency there I have a friend who's also a grammar buff who's accusing me of abusing the ellipse because when I type I go dot dot dot dot dot instead of commas sometimes I'll go dot dot dot because I want the reader to see a long pause and maybe that's stupid but I tell him that's my style I would tell your grammar fascist to get a life you hear that Rick? an expert he's laying off there sorry I just bounced it seriously again if you're writing an email if you're writing something online who cares if you're writing an article or you're writing a book or writing something more concrete there are certain things you have to be aware of but the bottom line in that first draft it doesn't matter because you've got lots of time lots of drafts to deal with that stuff you don't want to do anything in those early drafts that gets in the way of getting the words on the page I think it's all part of structure like we were talking about before let it go that's part of structure you deal with it later you can strike a happy compromise with your editor later after it's finished I love what you said I'll give a minor plug for max pages program because it does have a similar feature it's not quite as all or nothing as that but you can use it a key combination to blank out everything else on your screen and just have the docs which you're working on I got it on the chat room they're saying that's great advice or you can just use notepad instead of having to turn everything off that way it's easier right? and then they write it's not stupid typing on the web chat emails different than writing a book or marketing material dot dot dot I wanted to ask you about your about your book the voice of the muse that you write about the myth of writer's block and do you really believe that writer's block doesn't exist there's your video well I guess what I would say to that is that writer's block as we define it doesn't really exist there are lots of reasons why we can get stuck and there's no reason at all why we need to stay stuck you know frankly there's a section of the book called the myth of writer's block and I titled that kind of to be intentionally provocative but basically we get stuck for lots of reasons we get stuck because we were in judgment we talked about judgment before because we're looking at every word and trying to make it perfect perfectionism is a great way to get stuck we get stuck because we're writing something we don't care about we're writing about something that maybe we think is a good idea but isn't an idea that really fires us up at a certain point we just run out of fuel we get stuck because maybe we're writing something and it's not the right time when I was writing the moon quest I stopped working on the book for five months and when I went back to it and a whole bunch of life stuff got in the way which is the reason I stopped but when I got back to it I was kind of concerned that maybe I had moved beyond the book and when I re-read what I had written and began to write again I realized that I hadn't moved beyond the book I had to catch up with the book I had to have life experiences that prepared me to continue with the story and so sometimes when we get stuck we think we're stuck, we're not stuck we just actually need a break to catch up with the material so there are all kinds of reasons why we get stuck and perhaps the best way to avoid getting stuck at least in terms of those judgment perfectionist issues is to put your fingers on the keyboard or hold that pad on the pad and write through without stopping for any reason especially for those perfectionist editing, spelling punctuation grammar reasons and just keep going keep going and those are ways that will really keep it going because ultimately when we get stuck it's because we're not prepared to surrender to the material it's because we decide that we're in charge we're smarter than the story we're smarter than the characters we're smarter than the book we're smarter than the material and frankly we're not one of my birthing your book rules says your book is smarter than you are and I don't know about you but everything I've written has been way smarter than me you know it's what I call let go and let God whatever your spiritual beliefs are whatever your higher power universe, muse, whatever the heck whatever the world you want to call it I call it God but let go and let God that's all it is let go and let God and then Nike that's the number one thing in the Nike rule just do it start, go, don't stop that's it it's like us with these shows you just start you're going to get criticism probably the harshest criticism is going to come from yourself that's terrible or you read it and go oh my God that's horrible and that's why you keep writing through that because generally what happens is you say oh my God it's horrible I better stop or I better change something you gotta keep going, that's right you write through the judgment you get past it because frankly the things we're most judgmental about in the moment are often most powerful pieces of the work that's true and they're the biggest lessons that you can learn from and improve too as you go along you may improve like if there's any flaws or whatever you can't help but notice it but as long as you don't stop your work will get better well the other spiritual principle things you brought up let go let God that is critical in writing I think one of my rules for writing says forget everything you ever learned about writing remember everything you ever knew about spirituality so I'm definitely on the same page but one of the other things that's really important is to be in the moment we spend so much of our lives and so much of our creative lives worrying about what we've just written and judging it and worrying about what's going to come next and being afraid that nothing's going to come and if we just stay in the moment with each word and move forward word by word then we're fine you know unless you've got some kind of respiratory ailment you don't worry about where your next breath is going to come from it just comes and there's nothing you have to do to make it come and frankly your words are exactly the same way if you let the words come they'll come if you struggle and fight and worry and judge then they don't come that's true that's exactly right and I can see so many parallels I know we're talking about writing too because I've got two or three books in me but at least we're talking about writing but I see so many parallels with doing a show like what we're doing you know video net casting you know everybody so many people want to write a book and so many people want to do a show like this we were just talking on our way to dinner last night we were talking about how what keeps people from doing it as far as doing a show actually reading this little manual about audio it was actually audio issues and things I was learning about because I'm not an audio expert anyway one of the things that they said and this is a microphone company that made this manual they said people don't do video podcasts as much as audio podcasts because they're afraid of the camera they're intimidated by being on the camera it's as simple as that and that goes back to ego and I said you know the difference is that most people get their self-esteem from their ego and we don't we're not attached to our ego you know we don't really care because we're not getting, we're not relying on our ego or what other people think of us for our own self-esteem we're already happy with ourselves we're very very very happy we don't care what anybody says we're not attached to that most people are very very attached to what others are thinking of them it's devastating to them if somebody criticizes them well that's how we're conditioned and so again it goes back to the unlearning we talked about before you've got to unlearn that but it's a journey and it's a journey that's not widely supported out in the world whether we're talking about aspects of our lives or talking about our writing and our creative process interesting you talked about the webcam I offer a coaching group through a conference call in fact I got one starting up on Sunday but I do it, I've been doing it that way not through a webcam kind of setup because I keep hearing from people that they don't want to be on camera are so self-conscious both about the camera and about the tech and they're afraid of the technology so you know conference call all you need is a telephone with long distance access it's not as personal but it's safer that's right I have a term for that I call it there's two things I call it hiding behind a keyboard there's the hiding behind the keyboard syndrome where people this is a universal human thing apparently when people are texting or online in an internet chat room or an internet forum or twitter anything because it's associated with your identity but anything like a forum or a chat room where there's the more anonymity also the better for this people hide behind a keyboard and they could be very mean they treat people in a way that they they're not people they just vent and spew all kinds of garbage and it's the hiding behind the keyboard syndrome they would rather hide behind a keyboard in 20 some things with their technology and texting multitasking that I can carry on some sort of a conversation with 35 people at once if I'm texting it's a machine gun rapid fire no attention span culture but hiding behind the keyboard I can say things and you would you might say something to somebody that you really wouldn't say face to face whatever then there's the next level up which is hiding behind a voice on the phone because I can be on the phone with you and I might say something same thing as a podcast or audio like that's why there's 100 million times more audio podcast because I can be behind a microphone maybe I'm okay with my voice and I can just talk into the microphone and I can do that or I can talk to you on the phone but I don't want you to see me and that's why we don't have video telephones because nobody wanted them nobody wanted them until now I mean people are using Skype but they're really not using Skype as a video telephone they're using it for what we're using it for they're using it for adult purposes which is like 85% of all internet traffic but they're not really and they're also grandma looking at the grandkids and stuff like that but people are not using it for everyday communication it's going to happen because it's going to be de facto built in it's not going to be an option but people still will turn it off I'm sure well I remember this is going to date me I grew up in Montreal and Expo 67 was the big world's fair celebrating Canada's 100th birthday and the Bell pavilion, the telephone pavilion back in 1967 was showing video calls and here we are how many years later and we're still very reluctant to embrace that I remember that the other piece of that is I can talk to you in my pajamas on the phone I'm not going to do that on a video call well how do we know how do we know you don't have your pajamas on right now I could have not so there are things that we need to do to present to ourselves things to comb your hair and stuff comb my hair whatever make sure for us that the lighting is good whereas if I'm on the phone I could be downstairs where it's darker or in my car or whatever I didn't even answer the phone in the shower before you're in the phone not in the shower my phone doesn't waterproof I can put a bathtub it's true it's true I wanted to say one more thing about that obviously I wasn't born until 79 but I do remember the commercials for the AT&T video phone and all that by 1980 everyone will have a video telephone but actually now Ed's new phone there's a total sidebar but Ed's new phone he ordered the HTC EVO it's just unbelievable we were played with it for hours at Best Buy the other day they only have one they actually have a display model but they can't get them in otherwise but anyway he's going to get it probably today and it has two cameras so it's got the video calling and all that so we know about that our chatter saying iPhone 4 might change that yes Bruce Apple can do good things wink wink and previous to that I just wanted to mention the previous topic the chatter I don't know who it is it's Vaso Crida I think our culture is too focused on the end result often feeling it is unrealistic and not focused on simply the journey and leaving the end to unfold and shape itself basically amen yes I believe that a lot of the coaching work I do is focused not on the product but on the process and a lot of the creativity coaching writing coaching work I do strays into life coaching because frankly if you've got an issue with your writing you've probably got the same issue in your life and I can't we can't fix one without dealing with the other right and it really is the journey you know in again when I teach I say how many people would like your first draft of course everyone raises their hands and and how many people believe your first draft can be your last draft and very few people raise their hands it is a process it is a journey and one of my rules for something rather is relax it's only your first draft yeah that's nice because we're so again we're so conditioned that everything has to be perfect which is of course why my hair is combed and I'm dressed for the for this interview put your pajama bottoms on we don't allow any space right we don't allow any space to make mistakes and again it comes back to judgment and comes back to fear and comes back to all the ways that we're conditioned to get it right from the outset with no space to grow or learn in the process and that's as true in life as it is in writing I have a couple quick questions from someone who's never written a book or anything a couple of questions I've always wanted to know and you can help like for example when you write a first draft like you say you just let it flow and you just don't worry about the form or anything just get it on paper and you just write write write write just let it flow then you have a first draft then what happens next typically how many drafts are there and who do you let read it things like that there's a whole bunch of questions packed into that yeah I'm spewing questions now I'll do what I can the first thing to remember let's say we're talking about a book for example is that your book truly is smarter than you are and let's get all woo a metaphysical for a second and I'll suggest that the completed book published version of that book already exists kind of somewhere in the ethers new energy field and what you're doing is you're traveling that journey within your own being to get from blank page to that you're birthing it so if you can trust at some level even if it's a stretch for you that finished book exists somewhere and can surrender to that and listen to that and get out of the way to let that come through then the editing and revision process is a whole lot easier I also teach a revision class which is again kind of radical because we're taught that editing is all kind of a left brain activity and creativity is all a right brain activity and I say no they're both kind of full brain activities and you need to edit with both sides of your brain and do that as intuitively as you write so for example I finished well two stories the first draft of the moon quest was a single chapter because I didn't know the story how could I structure something how could I throw in chapter breaks but I didn't know what I was doing except as I was doing it because when this story happened to me I was teaching a writing class and for some bizarre reason I felt called to do the exercise to never do what I'm teaching what came out of me that night was the first scene of the first draft of a story I knew nothing about absolutely nothing about it this is fiction though right it's fiction yes because it says a true story but it's a true fiction I called it true fat the whole true thing is a whole other story which we can get to but it's not a true story except in a very except in the sense that all fiction is true it's an expression of the human heart right and as I revised the book as I began to see what the story truly was I intuitively I didn't sit down and say well every chapter has to be 10 pages so I'm going to stop it right here I began to feel out what the structure of the book was I began to sense what the book was I began to listen to the book and its structure and ended it that way so that's fiction the voice of the muse also happened to me in a similar way and with the voice of the muse I ended up with a stack of a stack of pages with no sense of how it was all going to come together I had actually written a bunch of the inspirational vignettes in that book for me when I was feeling in need for inspiration and one day I wondered if I had enough material for a book and I printed everything out and I went to a cafe in Sedona and I stared at this stack of pages and said if you're a book you better tell me what you're about I have no idea what to do with you and I went through each little little segment piece by piece started making piles started organizing not in a strictly logical mind centered way but again in a whole brain way I just felt it out I think that if we goes back to what I was saying before about surrender my attitude is that the book is smarter than I am that the book chose me to write it that the book knows what it's about better than I perhaps ever will and so if I just get out of the way and let it guide me then I'll be fine I know that in the Moon Quest some of the theme is creativity and also self-esteem so you incorporated what you do into the even though it's a novel that's great I kind of joke that the Moon Quest is a fictional version of the voice of the Muse but once again with the Moon Quest I sat down to write every day not knowing what what I was doing and the themes emerged organically I didn't know I was writing this story about block creativity or a story I didn't know what I was doing I was just writing and because I trusted the book to be smarter than me that's key those themes emerged organically and of course when I went back to revise the book I could strengthen the themes but they were already there another example I'm working on a sequel to the Moon Quest it's called The Star Quest I actually talked a bit about this in the blog post I just put out last night it's a fantasy again there's a villain who one would think would have to come to a sorry end because that's usually what happens in these stories that's my thought I've got a nasty villain who's going to come to a bad end in the final scenes of the book so I'm writing on the very last day of the first draft and suddenly as I'm writing the this character does not go down on flames she has a profoundly redemptive experience and becomes good and I was incredibly startled because there was nothing I could have consciously come up with and incredibly amazed because at that moment I recognized that redemption was a theme of the book I didn't know that when I started but I knew it by that point I thought how profound and how much stronger the theme becomes because this character doesn't go down on flames but is redeemed that was not something I thought up that was something the character did on her own and I'm simply writing it as it's happening wow that's great well we're out of time we want to tell our viewers how the names of the books again and how to buy them sure the voice of the muse answering the call to write and let me just reach over for it and the moon quest a true fantasy and of course the voice of the muse companion there we go they're all available on my website markdavidgerson.com they're also available on amazon.com however if you order from my website and make that request I'm happy to sign the books for you and everything you want to know about what I'm doing and where I'm doing it and how I'm doing it is really available on the website one last plug if you are writing or wanting to be writing in a group, either in a group setting or not I do do coaching I actually have a coaching group starting up at that conference hall markdavidgerson.com markdavidgerson.com let's check our show notes on friendTV thanks for joining us thanks for being here we're glad you've really got to do it it's awesome we'll see you tomorrow thanks for joining us