Lessons from Goal Getter School: Lori howard

Episode 16

Lessons from Goal Getter School: lori howard

Sue Campbell

The new year is coming and I want you to be well prepared to set goals in a new and more effective way, so I’m bringing you interviews with students from my Goal Getter School for Writers.

In this episode, we look at how one writer met her goal to finish her first (aka zero) draft.

Lori Howard is a fantasy writer currently working on her first full-length novel. A bookkeeper by trade, she also teaches Scottish Country Dancing. She lives with her husband, daughter and cat in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In Goal Getter School, you will set a big goal for your writing career and learn a framework to manage your mind to achieve it.

The goal of the program is to teach you to manage your mind so you can better realize your creative potential for the rest of your life.

If you’re interested in learning more about Goal Getter School and maybe even applying for the January 2023 cohort, visit http://pagesandplatforms.com/goalgetter

transcript

Sue Campbell: Hey writers, you're listening to the Pages & Platforms podcast with Coach Sue Campbell. I'm so happy to bring you a mini season on goal setting. With the new year coming, I want you to be well prepared to set goals in a new and hopefully much more effective way. So I'm bringing you interviews with my students from Goal Getter School for writers. Lori Howard is a fantasy writer currently working on her first full-length novel. A bookkeeper by trade, she also teaches Scottish country dancing. She lives with her husband, daughter, and cat in the San Francisco Bay area. And she came to Goal Getter School to finally finish her zero draft. Let's hear the interview.

Sue: Lori Howard, welcome to the Pages & Platforms podcast.

Lori Howard: Hi Sue, thanks for having me on.

Sue: Oh, I'm so happy to have you here. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're writing?

Lori: Well, I am a bookkeeper by trade, but right now I am writing a fantasy novel, my first.

Sue: Fantastic. Congratulations. So tell us a little bit about why you decided to join Goal Getter School.

Lori: I decided to join because I had gone through the Story Path course and I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot from it. I really like Sue and Anne and Rachelle and how they put things together. But for all that I had learned, I was not able to actually sit down and write what I wanted to write because I had a lot of stumbling blocks, life getting in the way, and other priorities that were keeping me from getting in there and writing my book. So I decided to join the Goal Getter School with the intention of forming a new habit that I could take forward into the rest of my writing career that would help me get to where I want to be.

Sue: Fabulous. And so tell us exactly what your goal was for the three months of Goal Getter School.

Lori: My goal was to finish a zero draft and write 65,000 words.

Sue: Fantastic. And how are you tracking with about a week left?

Lori: I am done with my first pass on the zero draft. Right now I am adding bits and pieces for different aspects of my story path and I've got about 45,000 words. So a little shy on words, but I'm really pleased with how this is shaping up.

Sue: Fantastic. And how long had you been working on your novel before you joined Goal Getter School?

Lori: Two years.

Sue: Okay. And you got all the way through this time. What was your word count when you started? Do you remember?

Lori: I had very little when I started, so maybe a couple thousand. At most.

Sue: Yeah. And now you're at 45 and you've gotten all the way through every scene and every chapter.

Lori: Yes.

Sue: I love it. I love it. I love it. Love it. So what has been the most helpful aspect of Goal Getter School for you? What made the difference?

Lori: Part of it was the accountability. Having every other weekly calls with you really helped because I knew I was going to have to bring something. Having every other weekly team meetings were very helpful as well because I got to see where other people were in their journeys and that was inspiring. I think one of the things that you do is you helped me reframe what success looks like, whereas before when I was trying to write a zero draft, I thought I have to be writing my zero draft in a particular way in order for it to count. In order for my words to count, it had to look a certain way. And you broke me of that habit and it gave me the idea that any words, no matter what they look like, no matter what the format — they count. And that really helped me break through the roadblocks to getting this down on paper.

Sue: So what have you learned about goals during this process?

Lori: When I think about goals in general, it always feels like the end, the end in mind. I need to have a zero draft, I need to have words on the page, and that's only part of it. Goals also include the micro transactions, so to speak. Getting up and sitting down and looking at what you've done and taking another step, even if it's a very little step, even if it's just a couple of hundred words or figuring out one little piece of the puzzle, it's still a step. It's still part of your process and it still counts. And that is so helpful in keeping the momentum going.

Sue: Yeah. And creating that feeling state that's going to get you all the way through, right? The showing up for yourself every day and kind of building on the previous day’s win of getting those words down.

Lori: Yeah. And the importance of prioritizing that. Showing up every day and just giving myself permission to show up every day and to set aside this time that's just for me and just for my writing. And nothing else gets in the way unless I'm like sick.

Sue: Yep. I know one of the obstacles you had was you have a day job as many, many writers do.  So talk about what it used to be like to try to get your writing done in relation to your day job and what you did differently during these three months.

Lori: My work is seasonal and cyclical, so there were times when it was quiet and it was easy to sit down every day and have a little bit of time in the morning before work started, before the household started to get a few hundred words in or to work on an outline or to work on a character sketch. But then something would happen. I'd have a crunch time at work. A client would suddenly need me to do something over and above what I normally did, and I would feel guilty about taking the time for myself. I would push that aside and do work for other things instead of prioritizing my writing. Even at just that one hour or hour and a half in the morning, I would feel bad about not doing something for other people. And with the Goal Getter School, I was able to give myself permission to honor my why, honor what drives me to write, and to sit down and be able to push everything else aside and focus on what is driving me for my writing.

Sue: I love that so much. That's such a huge game. It's not just about the goals, it's about the habits that we cultivate and that we are prioritizing our own creativity and what matters to us too. And you're still employed? 

Lori: Yes.

Sue: Nothing horrible happened?

Lori: No.

Sue: Sometimes our brains are kind of like, well, sometimes our brains are kind of jerks, right? So it's super common with so many of the clients that I talk to where we have this fear-based story that we tell ourselves about what will happen if we do X. If I prioritize this for myself and I say no to somebody else, oh my gosh, the consequences will be absolutely devastating. And then when we do it, it's like, oh, actually everything's just fine. So for you to have that shift in the way that you think about it and to really put that into practice for yourself is just something you're gonna be able to do forever.

Lori: And I feel more energetic during the day when I've had that time in the morning to work on my writing. Especially if I've been particularly productive and gotten a couple of scenes written. It just buoys me for the rest of the day.

Sue: Yeah, absolutely. I know there was also a period of time where you had planned right, cuz you were gonna go on vacation. So we put a break in your project plan that we charted for you in the 13 weeks. We built in a deliberate break of, I don't know, it was five or six days or something. Can you talk a little bit about how you got yourself back on track when you got back?

Lori: I think the day that I got back, we got back pretty late at night and so I think I didn't work the next day, but the day after that, as soon as I could get myself back to normal schedule, I started getting up again and okay, this is my writing time. I find that writing every day, or at least showing up to write every day is super important. Having that regularity is very important. If I take a break, it's more difficult for me to get the momentum back. So just saying, okay, vacation's over, I'm back at it and getting up and doing my usual routine really helped.

Sue: Yeah. And that's something that often derails people. It's like they'll get some momentum going in a steady habit built up of every single day, and then they'll take a break, they'll take a vacation, they'll go on a trip, or something will come up and then it's very hard to get back into that routine. So that's something like when we're planning out our future goals — this is for everyone, whether you're in Goal Getter School or not — it's like, if you know there's going to be a break in that habit that you've created, you've gotta go into it knowing how you're gonna get back on it on the other side. So you and I like talked about that ahead of time and how important it was that you picked right back up on this day, et cetera, et cetera. And that's something everybody can use. Also it’s important to know that you're the kind of person where a little bit every day will keep building that momentum. And I'm the same way. If there's a day's break, it's so much harder for me to overcome inertia and get going again. I just know myself well enough to know, like if I'm gonna write, if I'm gonna exercise, even if I'm only doing a little bit, I sit on my exercise bike, then I'm more likely to actually pedal. But the rule is I have to sit on it. If the rule is you have to sit down at your desk and open the document every single day, even if you're not putting words in every single day, that will often help so many of us just keep that momentum going and keep the words flowing.

Lori: And I think also planning for it helps, but if something happens that is unexpected and throws me off track, giving myself the grace to go back and start again and not beat myself up, that I failed and I didn't do it and I'm so bad because I missed a day. I just say, it is what it is. I missed a day. That's fine. I'm gonna get back into it now.

Sue: Yes, exactly. And like being so gentle with yourself. One of my favorite expressions that I say all the time is like, be hard on your characters and easy on yourself. Save the drama and the horrible internal monologues for your characters in your books. And then work on your own nurturing of yourself throughout this whole process. And you just get much further. You can only like white knuckle it and whip yourself for so long. It just doesn't work in the long term.

Lori: Yeah.

Sue): Tell us a little bit about what you're thinking for your future projects. So now you've got a manuscript, you're gonna go into revision mode. What lessons from Goal Getter School are you gonna take into your next phase?

Lori: I'm definitely going to use the do goals, creating specific goals for specific time periods. This month I am going to do this. Okay, now this week I am going to do this. So I'm definitely going to do that. I’m also revisiting my why and just reiterating why I'm doing this and what the end goal years from now is. And also just thinking about what do I want my writing life, my writing career to look like? What are some of the big audacious goals that I want? That's kind of daunting but also inspiring.

Sue: I love it. I love it so much. Well, it was an absolute pleasure to have you in Goal Getter School and I'm so happy you're going to be in the club now. So I'll still get to see your face and see how you're going with your novel and your revisions. And I just wanna so warmly, thank you for participating and letting me be a part of it.

Lori: Thank you so much. It was great fun to be there.

Sue: If you're interested in learning more about Goal Getter School for writers and maybe even applying for the January 2023 cohort, visit pagesandplatforms.com/goalgetter.