Mark Lefebvre, Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations for Kobo is the host for this episode, and introduces a memorable clip from Episode 279 of The Creative Penn Podcast where Joanna Penn talks about her experience in the “Race to the Stones” and compares walking the 100KM journey with writing.
Joanna Penn with some of the books published on her writer journey
In her talk, Joanna goes into the details regarding 9 Lessons Learned About Writing from Walking 100K in a Weekend:
- Deadlines and specific goals help you achieve more
- It’s good to have a goal, but training (and the journey) is the point
- Stamina builds up over time with practice
- You need a support team, but nobody can do the steps for you
- There are fun parts, but some of it will be hell
- Don’t compare yourself to others. The race is only with yourself
- Follow the path others have set before you
- It’s worth spending money to get the right gear
- A lot of people give up along the way – persistence is the key to success
Mark then talks a bit about the beginning and end of the year as common goal-setting times for writers, and shares 5 of the bigger writing goals he had set for himself in 2016. He goes into detail, explaining the highs of meeting deadlines and goals, and the struggles with not achieving a goal. He shares his own 10 year struggle with getting his novel A Canadian Werewolf in New York written, edited and published – (he started working on it on a series from The Writing Show Podcast back in 2006) – he shares this because he is certain that there’s something like this that every writer faces and ends up beating themselves up over.
Links of Interest from this episode
Episode 279 of The Creative Penn Podcast with Roz Morris
Joanna’s Blog Post: 9 Lessons Learned About Writing From Walking 100km In A Weekend
Joanna Penn’s books on Kobo (About Writing)
Joanna’s J.F. Penn novels on Kobo
KWL Episode 32 – Interview with Dan Rubinstein author of Born to Walk
The “Getting Published with Mark Leslie” episodes of The Writing Show
Mark’s A Canadian Werewolf in New York on Kobo
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Goal discussion is always helpful! It reminds us not to change the end result, just the timeframe to reach it.
my for this year is to create an audio book from my golf short stories and finish a smaller project.
Fairways and greens,
~Richard E Todd
Author, Speaker, Golfer ⛳