[00:00:00.250] - Seth Haines
It was really my therapy. I mean, the Journal that I wrote was my therapy, and I had no intention of publishing it.
[00:00:12.450] - Clarissa Moll
Do you write for therapy when life feels tough or overwhelming or incredibly joyful? Do you find that you need to put pen to paper? If so, you're not alone. Journaling is a great way to explore our thoughts and emotions as well as log the events in our lives. But as you write, what do you do if you start to feel a book emerging? Is it possible to turn your Journal into a book? I'm glad you asked. This is what this episode is all about. Hi, I'm Clarissa Moll.
[00:00:44.410] - Clarissa Moll
And welcome to The Writerly Life brought to you by Hope Writers, the most encouraging place on the Internet for writers to make progress here at the Writerly Life, we help you expand your creativity, explore new techniques and express your hopefilled words in a world that needs them. We'll help you learn to balance the art of writing with the business of publishing and learn to hustle without losing heart. You have words and your words matter, and as you write them, you can be you boldly, bravely, maybe even a little scared.
[00:01:18.290] - Clarissa Moll
Sometimes you can be you in your writing life. Welcome to the show Friends. Lean in. Grab a pen. Let's chat. If you're a writer, you've probably journaled at one point or another. Maybe you're a big fan of morning pages, a stream of consciousness form of writing that Awakens your creativity each day. Maybe you keep a careful chronology of your days in a bullet Journal or a special notebook. If you found journaling to be a satisfying form of writing, you might consider whether your journals hold the content for a possible book.
[00:01:55.930] - Clarissa Moll
Our special guest today, Seth Haynes, found his way to book writing through journals he kept during a tough season of his life, and he understands the path to becoming an accomplished writer. A recovering alcoholic, Seth chronicled his 1st 90 days of sobriety in his Journal, a process that eventually produced an awardwinning memoir. Lean in as he tells us more in this Hope Writers Tuesday teaching with host Gary Morland.
[00:02:24.010] - Seth Haines
So I had written this novel and I really loved it. And I found myself at this conference about a year and changed into drinking hard. And a woman walked into this conference. I was actually speaking on the topic. A woman walked into the conference and it was a woman that I had known. I thought she still lived in Minnesota. This conference was in Austin. She shows up in this Methodist Church lobby and she was recovering alcohol, and I went over to her. I was really hungover. And so the Church is kind of topsy turvy, and I walk over to her and I say, not good morning, which is what you should typically say.
[00:03:03.790] - Seth Haines
But I said, how did you know you are an alcoholic? And over the course of that time from that point for about the next week, week and a half. She helps me some there in Austin and some over the phone walk through. What does it look like to be dependent on alcohol? And she was a writer. And then I told her pretty much out of the gate. The scariest thing to me was that I had written this novel that I really loved, and I'd written it drunk.
[00:03:32.330] - Seth Haines
Some of my best work that I had done the year before, I had done drunk now wasn't read by a lot of people, but some of my best poetry, my best short stories, I felt like they were written when I was drunk. And so I told her this and she said, I think what you need to try to do is the best you can to sit down with your Journal at night and create as creatively as you can Journal this experience of sobering up. And she said, I think what you're going to find, she's not particularly Christian woman, necessarily.
[00:04:05.050] - Seth Haines
She said, I think what you're going to find as you do this is that the muse, the spirit is going to speak to you in a new way, and you're going to write with more creativity and clarity than you've ever written with at the same time, my therapist that I was saying said, You're not super good first draft with your words when you're trying to tell me things in therapy. So what I'd like you to do is go home and Journal this experience and give it to me so that we can have conversations about what you're journaling.
[00:04:33.990] - Gary Morland
Is it all the same Journal or two different journals?
[00:04:36.230] - Seth Haines
Same Journal. And I had told him about what this woman had said, and he said, yeah, go ahead and do that. And I'll see through some of the creativity.
[00:04:46.970] - Gary Morland
How did you go to where you thought was going to be a book?
[00:04:50.680]
Did you say, oh.
[00:04:51.160]
This is a great idea for a book. I'm going to go,
[00:04:54.350] - Seth Haines
no, I don't know if you guys are any grand folks, but I'm a five. Sure. If you guys are any grandfather, I don't have a lot of shame mechanisms built into me. My operating system doesn't really have that so much. I've always been a pretty vulnerable person. Like, I don't operate with a lot of shame, but this is one of those that I didn't really want to like out all of this kind of thing. I had hired an agent to represent this novel.
[00:05:29.910] - Gary Morland
You want to publish your novel?
[00:05:32.020] - Seth Haines
Yeah. And to be honest, man, I'm not going to say any names here, but he did not do anything for the novel. And so part of it was a connection issue. I was hoping to get it into a New York house, and he was more in the Christian industry. Anyway, he called me and he said, what are you working on? And I said nothing, and he said, Well, you're too quiet right now. And so I know you're working on something. I just left it at that. And he called back two weeks later, and he said, what are you working on?
[00:06:03.580] - Seth Haines
And I said nothing. And he said, You're still too quiet. But a month you haven't written word. Really? What are you working on? So finally he called the third time, and he said, I know you're working on something, and I need to see it today. This is the 8th. Yeah. It was a very gutsy thing to do. So that was probably about 60 days and 65 days in. Okay. Got you right. Yeah. So I sent him what I had at the time. I only had 65 days of raw material.
[00:06:36.160] - Gary Morland
You send in the Journal?
[00:06:37.760] - Seth Haines
Yeah, just the raw material. And I told him I said, look, man, this is what I'm working on. But if this doesn't have a through line with some sort of resolution and some sort of, like, universal tie at the end, I'm not going to publish it. Okay. And so he said, okay, well, just finish out your 90 days and let me know what you think. And at the end of 90 days, I still was like, I think this has a universal theme and thread. I'm still not convinced that it can sell.
[00:07:04.870] - Seth Haines
He said, Send it to me. I sent it to him. And then within two weeks, it was being shot. I had zero hopes for this. I hadn't staked my career on this. That helps, doesn't it? Oh, it's huge. And I felt total freedom. You know, nobody wanted to run. This is fine. I wanted to go write novels. And so I was going to begin to explore ways to get my work, my fiction out there. But as it turned out, this hijacked the whole process. And I haven't run any fiction anywhere because you have no idea what's going to happen in your writing career, right.
[00:07:37.750] - Seth Haines
But I think when you're honest to the craft, like I didn't do this to sell 1000 copies or 10,000 or a million copies of a book. I did this because it was a life raft. I poured my heart and soul into this work because it saved me. So for me, whether or not anybody ever published it, I had it in my back pocket for my kids. And I think I don't think I have a copy here. I wish somebody did. But anyway, the very beginning of my dedication when I dedicate the book and I meant it.
[00:08:13.990] - Seth Haines
And this is why I wrote it. I wrote to Amber. You are every reason to my sons. This fire alarm is for you. Break glass and pool in case of emergency. Amen to my grandchildren. See the above instruction to your fathers. So I wrote this book for me and for my family. But I think that helped me be a little bit more detached from the whole publishing process.
[00:08:40.860] - Clarissa Moll
Wow, Seth's vulnerability and honesty blew me away. The same journals that saved him also held words of truth that would bring hope to readers. But he didn't know that when he started, a vision of publishing emerged as he committed to the discipline of journaling every day as a ghostwriter, Seth Haynes has a lot of experience collaborating with others, so when writing his own story, he sought out feedback. In Seth's case, his agent offered helpful critiques of his writing as you shape your own Journal writing into a book.
[00:09:17.240] - Clarissa Moll
Who could be that voice for you? In an interview with Hope writers, author Sean Smucker shared some of his pro tips for finding readers who can help spot a manuscript's weaknesses before it goes to press. Often called beta readers, these early audience members can be an integral part of the writing process for any author. Consider these important tips as you find readers for your Journal Page's turned book. Manuscript number One Who to Ask The first step in choosing beta readers is deciding how many readers to ask.
[00:09:52.190] - Clarissa Moll
Recommendations vary among writers, but Sean suggests asking for feedback from three to five readers who belong to your target audience. The more readers involved, the more widely the opinions will vary. With too many beta readers, it can be difficult to find a consensus on what needs revising in your manuscript. There are three important factors to consider when asking readers to help you. Will the reader have the time to dedicate to a reading a full length book? Are they avid readers of the genre you're writing? Will they be willing to give you honest feedback and critique?
[00:10:28.790] - Clarissa Moll
Number two? When to Ask Before completing the final draft of your manuscript, your last step is to invite your beta readers to critique your work. It's wise to thoroughly edit your manuscript for content, sentence level copy, and word level mechanics multiple times before passing it on to your beta readers. Give readers your very best work so they can provide feedback on issues with your story that you may have missed or been unable to resolve. On your own. Number three, what to Ask Because beta readers aren't publishing professionals, they will need some guidance when offering you feedback.
[00:11:08.880] - Clarissa Moll
The questions you ask your readers will be specific to your needs, your genre, and your particular writing challenges. If you're not sure where to begin, Sean offers this list of basic questions to get you started. Ask your Readers does the story work? Are you interested in the story? How did you respond to the characters? Is there anything about the first three chapters you find off putting? Does the ending engage you as a reader? Be sure to ask readers to explain why they responded a particular way to elements of your work.
[00:11:43.170] - Clarissa Moll
Their why will help you revise your manuscript for a stronger final draft. Beta readers can be a helpful tool in the writer's toolbox, but remember that they don't have the final say in your story. Ultimately, you get to decide what will stay, what will go, and what needs. Revising. Seth's wife, Amber, and his agent both affirmed the lifegiving words he'd written in his Journal, and they encouraged him to find a wider audience for them. Born of difficulty and struggle, Seth's Words reached readers with integrity and hope when he turned them into a book.
[00:12:19.550] - Clarissa Moll
The same can be true for you. As you find helpful readers to offer you feedback, you can shape your Journal to reflect universal themes that touch your Reader's hearts and inspire them to live well.
[00:12:33.110] - Seth Haines
I don't care if it's poetry, if it's fiction, if it's general market, if it's Christian, if it's memoir, doesn't matter what it is, every act of writing is an act of spiritual formation. Every act period.
[00:12:47.870] - Clarissa Moll
If this episode was helpful to you, just imagine how helpful the entire hour long interview with Seth Haines would be every week. Hope Writers members have access to a new 1 hour Tuesday teaching with agents, publishers, social media strategists, and authors like Seth Haynes. Hope Writers helps you make progress in your writing life, whether you're writing blogs or articles on social media or in a book. If you want to be serious about your words and your reader, we're here for you for writing tips and encouragement. Find us on Instagram at Hope Writers or our public Facebook page.
[00:13:25.000] - Clarissa Moll
Hope Writers Community last a final word from author Jen Williamson. Journal writing, she says. When it becomes a ritual for transformation is not only life changing, but life expanding. You have a message to share and a reader to serve, and your journals may be the place you find your voice as you commit to a regular practice of journaling. Consider how the words you write may emerge as your next published work. What you write only for your eyes may 1 day be shaped into hope filled words that encourage others to thanks for listening, writer Friend as you step into this week, remember to keep writing your words matter, we can't wait to read them.
[00:14:14.570] - Clarissa Moll
If you found this episode of The Writerly Life helpful, be sure to hit subscribe and tell your friends rate and review the show and like and comment. If you're tuning in on YouTube, your reviews help others know you found the content helpful. See you next week.
