Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Riley on Instagram

Save the Cat Writes a Novel [book]

Story Genius [book]

The Life Coach School

How to Coach Yourself as a Writer, with Riley Lindhardt

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community. In this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome writer, I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show. 

Rhonda:

Well, hey there Writer, welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. Today I have with me author and life coach Riley Lindhardt. And I'm excited for our conversation today – I think it's gonna be something we haven't spoken a lot about. 

Riley is a certified life coach through the Life Coach School, and she helps writers finish their first novel by overcoming their mental blocks. And she's also, of course, a novelist herself working on her own novel. So Riley, welcome. So glad you're here. 

Riley:

Thank you. I'm so excited to be talking with you. 

Rhonda:

So Riley, tell us a little bit about your own journey as a writer. Like, when did you start writing? What have you been focused on? And where does that bring you in your writing journey today? 

Riley:

Yeah, thank you. So, man, my writing journey started when I was young. I was in like middle school when I first got the itch to be writing my first stories. And I had all the confidence in the world and absolutely no skill or know how to back it up. 

I would start diving into stories. I would maybe get about a chapter or two in before I would start to get really overwhelmed by the vision of having to keep going until you have a full manuscript, I would feel lost and overwhelmed and I would get shiny object syndrome and have this new idea pop into my head and jump ship and go work on something else. That's the one that's going to be easy to write. Yes, that one that one's more exciting right now. It's more fun. So that one's gonna be the one that works. 

So anyway, that was about oh, gosh, I'm gonna expose my age here like 12 years ago, 10 years ago. Okay. Throughout those years I would often write, I wrote musicals, I wrote plays, but I always had that dream to write a novel. And It wasn't until 2022 that I really decided I was gonna batten down the hatches and commit to finishing my first manuscript no matter what. 

Rhonda:

Love it! 

Riley:

So that year I worked on writing every single day. That was my New Year's resolution that year. I'm gonna turn myself into a better writer this year. And so I did that and I finished my first 100k word book in June of 2023. 

And so since then I have been working on my second novel and have gone crazy in the planning and outlining of this novel and am about to dive into the drafting process on that one. 

Rhonda:

Wow, okay, so you're a plotter. I love that. Okay. I am a major plotter. Yeah, I'm not. So this will be fun. Really good conversation. Yeah. 

So you told me that you decided not to publish your first novel. I'd love to hear about that. I just feel like so many of us think that and we're kind of conditioned, you know, like you see in the culture in movies.

You know, someone sits down at a typewriter or a computer and they just type, type away, and they print out the pages. Next thing you know, they've got a publisher and the novel is out, right? Like this is how writing works, of course. So why did you decide not to publish your first novel? 

Riley:

You know, the decision for me kind of began before I had even finished the book, before I had even gone all in on writing that book, it was- Okay. So in that year, in 2022, when I was writing every day, I outlined a few novels actually. And I was just replaying that same pattern of, no, this one's not good enough. No, I can't stay committed to this one to finish the full draft, right? 

And finally, I just like, I realized I was replaying that pattern over and over. And I just said, look, stop telling yourself that the first book you write has to be the debut. You are going to learn so much from the action of just writing a full draft and manuscript that it's gonna help you, like what's the word I'm trying to think of? It's gonna be invaluable to you, right?

And so just pick an idea and stick to it. And when you get to the end of it, if you want to continue going all in, if you want to publish it, great. And if not, great. you did what you set out to do and you gained the knowledge that you were trying to gain, right? Right. 

So that's kind of what happened was, you know, I drafted the entire thing and I did some edits and I got to the point where I was like, this isn't the one that I want to go all in on, this isn't the one that I want to publish. And so I felt fully accomplished in having done what I set out to do, you know, and I... learned so much through that process. It totally made me a better writer. So yeah, that's kind of where that decision came from. 

Rhonda:

I love that because I think that so much of staying with, you know, staying resilient as a writer, staying with the writing process long term is about seeing yourself as someone who's always learning and growing as a writer, as opposed to being, you know, so like a lot more focused on the process and who we're becoming as writers. and less on everything I write must be published. 

Riley:

Yes, exactly. 100%. I always tell people your number one goal should not be publication. Your number one goal should be I'm going to turn myself into the type of person that can write amazing books. And publication will follow. 

Rhonda:

Right, exactly. Yeah, I love that. So what do you feel you learned? You know, you mentioned your learning coming out of that 100,000 word novel. What do you feel you learned most?

Riley:

Oh man. So many things. So first of all, you learn just a lot about the process itself. You know, the, what it means to write a hundred thousand words. Cause I had no reference for that. The most that I had ever written for one project was 10,000 words up until that point. And so. That is a big eye-opener getting to see, you know, what you're actually working with. That just really helps you have a point of reference for planning any future books. 

Kind of knowing how pacing is going to work, knowing how many words you're working with for chapters and things like that. But it also really opened my eyes about how much work it is and what it takes for me personally to get myself to do it. um you know what level of commitment it requires um yeah like for me I had to what worked for me was I had a daily word limit it was a minimum that I had to meet per day and I just wrote every day I what was your daily minimum it was 555 oh okay that's not bad that's yeah it was doable yeah for me writing about 300 when I first started the manuscript, I could write about 300 words in 30 minutes to an hour. So, 555 was a stretch, but it was good. 

You know, over the course of the months it took me to write it, there were some days where I could get that amount done in 30 minutes and there were some days where I would sit and stare at the computer for two hours, right? 

But yeah, that was my method. I was like, look, the deal is you write a minimum of 555 words a day and you can guarantee by the end of that period of time, you're going to have a 100K word manuscript if you just do what you say you're going to do. Right? So yeah, that's what ended up working for me. 

And yeah, I think that generally speaking, those are kind of the two biggest categories where I really learned things. Also, I learned a lot about plotting. Like for me, that's what turned me so much into a plotter was I thought I had a really good outline going into this first book, but I really didn't outline emotional character arcs at all. I just outlined the plot. Stuff that happens. Yeah, stuff that happens. And so my main character was really just this chess piece that I moved to different points. 

And I thought that by experiencing these things that the emotional journey would take care of itself, but that's just not what happened. Yeah, she was really a kind of a incohesive, jumpy type of character. And mentally it was hard to follow her or relate to her because she didn't have a seamless journey or like to learn a lesson. Yeah. 

So that's another major thing that I learned is that for me personally, I really have to pay attention to the emotional. I think it's really interesting what you've done there because, you know, when we haven't, when you haven't written a full book and you decide you're going to write a full book, your brain looks around for evidence that you can do it and it doesn't find any, right? 

Rhonda:

So writing that first 100, you know, whether it's 80,000, 60,000, 100,000 word novel, whatever the size of your novel is, is huge. Just to let your brain know, oh, I can do this. So, and then of course you learn so much along the way. As you've said. I think that's amazing.

You've learned you're a plotter or you want to be a plotter. You are a plotter. It comes, it feels, you know, natural to you. Can you talk about how you approach plotting? 

Riley:

Oh yeah. So I've changed my process so much from book one to book two. One of the most popular books about writing you'll hear online is Save the Cat Writes a Novel. Right. So for my first book, I just followed the Save the Cat 15 Beats. And at the time, that book really opened my eyes a lot to story structure and it taught me a lot about story. 

But when that was the only thing that my outline was made up of, like I said, it just didn't work out in the way that I was expecting it to work out. And so this time around with my second book, I have incorporated a ton of different strategies. You know, I've got the basic story structure of exposition, rising action, conflict, or climax, right? And combined that with Save the Cat and combined that with the things you'll learn in books like Story Genius of outlining your characters' emotional journey and really getting to know them. 

My method right now, I'm one of those plotters that basically has an encyclopedia on the book before the book is written. Okay. Because for me, I personally find it that outlining is basically me writing the entire story just in a shorter form. Because I find it easier for me to edit out the kinks and outline form than I do in 100k word draft form. 

So that's kind of the way I look at it is my outline is almost draft one. Yes, so very detailed. It's a very detailed thing that happens. Basically, yes. So I do, I outline act one, act two, act three, and I actually like to split act two in half. Then I'll break all those events into chapters. I'll break the chapters down into scenes and I'll break the scenes down into bullet points of scene details. 

Rhonda:

Wow. 

Riley:

Yes. So my outline is really extensive. 

Rhonda:

So when I outline and I'm sort of, I don't think that I'm either like you know, it's not, I don't believe in the whole like pants are versus plotter, you know, like me, I feel like most writers, you know, maybe we're different book to book or, you know, we use a little bit of everything and that works. 

But one of the things I find is sometimes in the past, when I have tried to plot within great detail, when I finished plotting it, I go, there we go, that's the book done then, and I lose interest in writing it. You don't find that? You still have energy to dive in and fully realize the book after such detailed plotting? 

Riley:

Oh, man, I fall head over heels for my books when I outline them. So I think for me, yeah, it's just like, the outlining process is me getting to see the full vision and knowing with a little bit more certainty that it's gonna come out to be a product that I'm going to be proud of at the end. And justifies me putting in that amount of work to get it drafted because drafting for me was hard. 

That was something that I had to be really, I had to stay really disciplined to get myself to make it to the finish line. And so for me, I think that outline serves as a little bit of a motivational boost. 

Rhonda:

Oh, so it's the fun part for you. 

Riley:

I love plotting. 

Rhonda:

Okay, oh wow, all right, cool, I love it. And have you designed your own process for plotting or are you using? uh, something that you're, you know, you're referring to, or, or is it basically like, you've created something that works for you? 

Riley:

Yeah, it's a little bit of an amalgamation of different things. Um, I wouldn't say I invented it by any stretch of the imagination, but I definitely have pulled from different sources. Like I said, I use the Save the Cat method a little bit. It's not like my diehard, but I will go back and reference it and make sure I'm kind of hitting the beats and I'll use a little bit of Story Genius and I'll use a little bit of the, um, what's it called? Like the four quarter structure. 

And as far as just the actual formatting of that outline goes, breaking it down into chapter scene and then scene details. That was just, that was just a way that I saw somebody else do it. And I was like, that seems to work for me. So Scrivener. Okay. All right. I'm a Scrivener girl. Hello. 

Rhonda:

I like Scrivener too, but I use it at a particular sort of point in the process. So this is fascinating to me. I really, yeah. Yeah. I'm talking about this. So, but I wanted to move to another topic because you trained as a life coach. 

So you're an author, but you're also trained as a life coach with, I think it's Brooke Castillo who has The Life Coach School, right? Yes. It's a fairly rigorous life coaching certification. Can you talk about why you became a life coach? 

Riley:

Absolutely. So I had no introduction to the life coach world of things until I was about 18 years old. My then boyfriend, now husband, introduced me to a podcast by a woman named Jody Moore. And I listened to like an episode or two of that and just absolutely loved the way that she was talking about taking control of your mindset and your thoughts and how doing that can hugely impact the results that you're able to create for yourself in your life. 

So I looked up where she was certified and she mentioned I'm a certified life coach. So I looked it up, found the life coach school and researched them. It wasn't long before I was all in with The Life Coach School. I just absolutely loved the way that they taught these things. And I was seeing changes in my own life just by listening to the free podcast, just by listening to that and starting to implement some of those changes. I saw huge results in my life and just knew without a doubt, like this is, this is something special. 

So yeah, I got certified. Um, gosh, what year? I believe my certification ended in April of 2022. And yeah, that was that, at that point, I knew that I wanted to have a business. I knew I wanted to be coaching people, but I didn't know what my niche really should be. I didn't know who I should be coaching. I really just wanted to coach anybody who wanted coaching. 

Rhonda:

Right. But it wasn't until about, sorry... And then you felt, Oh, let me combine this with my love of writing in books. 

Riley:

Yes, exactly. So that year I was using those life coaching tools to get myself to complete that new year's resolution of writing every single day. And then I knew at the end of that year, I was like, with certainty, I knew if I just decide that I'm going to write this book, it will happen. So why don't I just decide to do it? And so I did. 

And the rest was history. And as I was going through that process of drafting my first book, it was like that light bulb moment of, oh my gosh, I'm relying on these life coaching tools so heavily to get through this process. And there's just not that much information about how to overcome the mental obstacles of the writing journey out there and available for writers. And it was integral to me finishing. And so, it just made perfect sense that was who I should be. 

Rhonda:

That was just you. So I'd love to hear you say something about… so, I've had a life coach over the years, you know, at different points in my life, I've had a life coach and it's been really rewarding for me. 

And I do know the approach that Brooke teaches and the, you know, “The Model” – which came out of cognitive behavioral therapy is, you know, really useful. So, but I'd love to hear you talk about some of the tools of life coaching that you think are a really good fit for authors trying to finish that first book. 

Riley:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that some of the most important skills that you're going to develop for yourself as a writer and to allow yourself to finish your books. One is the skill of being able to be uncomfortable. So what I mean by that is, you don't wanna make yourself miserable, but writing is uncomfortable, right? It's out of your comfort zone. You've never done it before. You have no evidence that you're gonna be able to do it well. And the brain hates that. 

And so if you ignore those signals that the brain is sending to you saying, we don't know how to do this. This is uncharted territory. I'm uncomfortable right now. We should just give up on this. If you ignore those signals, you're stepping willingly into discomfort and you can't downplay that. That is uncomfortable. You're gonna be sitting with those emotions. 

And so the ability to do that willingly is huge. And basically the way that you do that is to remind yourself that emotions cannot hurt you, that you are safe, that writing... facing those uncomfortable emotions is the exact thing that's going to get you the result that you want and keeping that in focus. That's one huge one. 

Another is, and you know, that plays into everything. That plays into you've set a goal to do it and one day comes along where you don't wanna do it. You've got the urge to do something else, being willing to sit with that urge, being willing to push through that discomfort in that sense and say, no, I've set the goal to do it today, so I'm doing it today. it's only through those tiny daily decisions that you're going to stay committed that it's going to happen, right? That's one of the major ones. 

And then I think one of the other biggest ones is time management, learning how to schedule yourself out and do what you say you're going to do in the time you say you're going to do it. And that once again just falls back on staying disciplined and Yeah. So I don't know. Does that answer your question? 

Rhonda:

Yeah. I mean, there's just so much to that sitting in discomfort because we, you know, like you said earlier, you have this idea for a book, but you've never done it. And so you don't know that you can do it. Right. And so your brain is uncomfortable. 

And that's often where we bounce. Like we find ourselves scrolling social media. when we're supposed to be writing and we don't understand why. And it's just your brain looking for a more comfortable space. It's just, you know, it, it finds it really hard to sit in the difficulty. So I think that's huge. That piece of trying to coach yourself and learn the tools of staying in that space of discomfort. 

Riley:

Yeah. It's absolutely huge. And another thing is, sorry, one more thing is just, it totally ties back to that. Learning to recognize when your thoughts are and are not serving you and learning the tools to intentionally choose what you're going to believe and what you're going to think. That's the majority of what I teach writers to do, right? Is to swap out those thoughts for beliefs that they do believe. things that do feel true to them that are going to propel them towards their goal rather than away from it, right? 

So things like, I watched a video of yours where you were talking about how, you know, the brain gets scared away when things feel challenging, when things feel hard. And so please stop telling yourself that this is so hard. Right? Right. It feels true. But at the end of the day, how is that serving you? Right? Right, it's driving you away. And so maybe changing that to something a little bit more neutral, or even if you could venture into positive territory with that belief and practice thinking something different. 

And really that's, I'm not a fan of like affirmations, but I'm I believe in if you, every time that thought pops up that you know isn't serving you, if you swap it out with something that is serving you, it's going to drive you in the right direction, right? So that's another huge one. 

Rhonda:

Yeah, I do teach that a lot as well, that instead of saying, oh, this is so hard, can you tell yourself, oh, I'm learning and growing as a writer, that's my favorite, right? Yes, yes, it's hard. And I'm willingly choosing this hard because I'm learning and growing as a writer. 

And that small shift in thought opens up just enough light and enough hope to keep you in your chair for 45 minutes. And that's all you need. That's all you need. 

Thank you so much, Riley. This was a really helpful conversation. I love that we kind of, you know, ran the gamut from expectations of maybe not even publishing that first novel through to plotting and then, you know, how coaching and life coaching in particular, which is not, I don't think, you know, I think sometimes we think, oh, we need a book coach, but maybe you don't need a book coach. 

Maybe what you need isn't craft, maybe it's mindset support. And so that would be more of a life coach approach and from someone who's also an author. So I want to invite folks to find Riley on Instagram. She is at Riley Lindhart coaching, R-I-L-E-Y L-I-N-D-H-A-R-D-T coaching. And she is, I told her before we started recording, she's the Reels queen. So she's got some really great stuff on her feed for you. And I think you would really find it motivating if you were to follow her on Instagram. So I'll put that link in the show notes. 

And thanks so much for being with me, Riley. I really appreciate speaking with you today. 

Riley:

Oh yeah, this was so much fun and thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it. 

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writer's Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

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