#133: A Week in the Life: 7 Days Behind the Scenes with Savannah (March 2024)

Speaker 1: 0:25

Sometimes it's easy to take feedback to mean that your story is broken, when it's not. It can be super helpful to have a coach or a trusted writing buddy in your pocket to help you look at feedback in your actual pages and help you create an action plan. Sometimes the solution is easier than you think, but it feels overwhelming right and it's hard to see what you need to do when you're in the weeds. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week, I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. In today's episode, I'm taking you behind the scenes with me throughout my entire work week and I'm going to share with you what I'm working on, what big projects I'm focused on right now and basically anything that happens during the week, including any fun or interesting insights that come up as I work with other writers. I did a few episodes like this last year and I got so much feedback on these episodes. I heard from so many of you that these are some of your favorite episodes, so I've decided I'll do one about once a quarter this year and personally I love doing these kind of episodes because I'm always curious to see how people set up their day, what they're working on, how they choose what they're going to actually work on that week and things like that. So I thought you might be curious to know what I do all day as an editor and a book coach, what I focus on and how I navigate through all of my action items. So that's what this episode is all about and, without further ado, let's dive in for a Sunday update.

Speaker 1: 2:18

Okay, so this is my first entry for our Behind the Scenes podcast episode, and it's Sunday evening, which is when I normally sit down with my planner and take a look at everything I have coming up this week. I'm not going to go too deep into this and my process for this, since I did talk about it in the last Behind the Scenes episode, but basically I like to know what's coming up or what's on the schedule just in case I need to make any last minute changes or troubleshoot something before the week gets too hectic. So that's what I just did, and this week is kind of a mixed bag, to be honest. I have a lot of different stuff happening, from recording a few podcast episodes to meeting with a few of my private coaching clients, to attending some online classes, because I love learning about new things. This week in particular, I'm taking a two-day online course from Laura Belgrade, who is sharing a Behind the Scenes look at her most recent book launch, which I'm really excited about. I'll probably talk about that more on Wednesday or Thursday, just because that's when the classes are taking place. The other one I'm going to is a one-hour training with Amy Porterfield, who I just love for all things marketing and online business, so I'm really excited about that one too. The other fun thing I'm doing this week is giving a presentation for Pro Writing Aids Romance Writers Week, so I'm doing that tomorrow, on Monday, and I'm going to be speaking about writing interiority, which is one of my favorite topics, so that will be really fun.

Speaker 1: 3:51

On Thursday, I have two live Q&A calls, so one is with my notes to novel students, so shout out to all my season four students I can't wait to hang out with you on Thursday. And the other one is for my membership. So my membership I think I've talked about this before. It's for anyone who has gone through the notes to novel program and wants additional community support and accountability as they finish their drafts. And each month we have a live training plus a few different office hours calls where I answer questions and coach writers in real time. So that's what I'm doing on Thursday and I really look forward to those calls as well. Also, the third Crescent City book from Sarah J Mas comes out this week and I'm so excited to read that I'm almost done with my reread of books one and two and I can't wait to see what she has up personally for book three so excited to dig into that this week.

Speaker 1: 4:44

And then, you know, other than all of that, I have a ton of other small things to do in between those bigger things. So I'll definitely get into more details about those as the week unfolds. But those are kind of the big picture things I'm looking at this week and I'm going to end my Sunday update there because I need to go make dog food, if you've heard any of these behind the scenes episodes before, you know that I home make my dogs food every Sunday evening and I follow a recipe from a company called Just Food for Dogs, and all three of my dogs are absolutely obsessed with it. This week I'm making the turkey macaroni recipe, so it's pretty much what it sounds like. It's five pounds of turkey, some carrots, zucchini, broccoli, cranberries and whole wheat macaroni. It's all cooked together in an Instant Pot with some fish oil and this nutrient blend powder, just to make sure they get all their vitamins and minerals and things like that. But yeah, my dogs love it, no matter which flavor I make, and it's not actually that hard to cook. It takes me about 30 minutes to make their food for the whole week, and I'm cooking for three dogs. So if you don't have three dogs, it would last a little bit longer for you.

Speaker 1: 5:51

And it's really funny because every time I mention making food for my dogs, I get a lot of messages asking for more information, which I love. I love that so many of you want to make your pets food as well, so if you do want to check it out, I'm going to put a link for you in the show notes. That's where you can go get more information. Or you can just go to savannahgilbocom forward slash food for dogs all one word food for dogs and take a look around on their website to get more information and basically you'll see. On there you can buy pre-made frozen food, or you can do what I do, which is get the DIY recipe, the fish oil and the nutrient blend and then make your own food. So you'll need to buy groceries and have a way to cook it. But it's not as hard as it seems. It takes me about 30 minutes now, but it used to take me a little bit longer when I was learning the recipe and they do also have food for cats, so cat lovers are welcome to check out that link as well and get more information. One more time, it's savannahgilbocom forward slash food for dogs. That's where you can learn more about this recipe and this DIY dog food I'm talking about. So, yeah, that's what I'm doing this Sunday evening cooking for my dogs, and then I'm going to finish my reread of the second Christmas city book, so I'm all prepared for when it comes out later this week. I will be back first thing tomorrow morning with a Monday update, so I will see you then. Good morning, it's a great early Monday morning and I'm here to update you on what I have coming up today.

Speaker 1: 7:18

So for me, mondays are days that I primarily work on my business, and this looks different every single week. So sometimes it's me recording a bunch of podcast episodes. Other times it's me doing admin type work like writing emails or clearing that inbox to zero, which seems so hard to do. All the time the specifics of my Monday kind of just depend on where I'm at in the month or what I have going on in the business. So, specifically today, I know that there are two big things I need to have done. I need to craft some emails for the Women in Publishing Summit which I'm speaking at in March. So I need to get those emails written and scheduled and things like that. Then I also need to do some work to get ready to present at that summit. So that's things like putting together a presentation, doing some just random admin stuff like they need a bio, they need a headshot and things like that. I'm going to take care of all of that today.

Speaker 1: 8:14

The other big thing I'm working on in terms of my business is I'm really trying to grow my email list this year, and one of the ways I'm planning to do that is to be a guest on as many other writing podcasts as possible. So I'm creating a list of 50 plus podcasts that I would love to be a guest on, and then I need to pitch each one of those podcasts to hopefully set up some interviews. Not all of them will say yes, and that's okay, but I do need to get some of those pitches out and that process takes a lot of time and focus. It's really important to tailor a pitch like this to each individual show and host and to properly express how I think I can add value to their show and things like that. So it's a time consuming process but definitely worth it in the end. And then after that I have some random stuff to do today that I will catch you up on at the end of the day. So I hope you have a good day today and I will check in later with my Monday evening update. Okay, I'm back for a Monday evening update.

Speaker 1: 9:13

I did finish some of my big to do items. I got the emails done for the Women in Publishing Summit and I crafted a few of those podcast pitch emails that have officially been sent out, so that's exciting. I also had to spend some time planning out future episodes of the podcast, which I actually love to do. So I have this running list of topics that people have requested and I kind of run through that list plus take into account anything I've seen around the internet. So if there are any questions that stand out that a lot of writers are asking, or topics that are coming up that people are talking about or that I want to talk about or that are timely, I look at those and then I also think about the writers in my notes to novel program or my private membership to think about what kind of episodes would best serve them where they're at in the process. So I think about all of that and then I come up with five to 10 topics for the next handful of episodes and then there are a bunch of action items that come with that. So if I'm planning to interview someone, I have to reach out to them, I have to set up a time that works, prepare for our interview and things like that. If I'm recording a solo episode, like the one I'm recording right now, I have different action steps than I would for an interview.

Speaker 1: 10:26

So, like I said, I laid out the next five to 10 episodes and then I looked at my calendar to figure out when I can work on the action items that go with each episode. And this is really important because I know that I have a big project coming down the pipeline. So in order to have the time and space for that big project, I need to get the next five to 10 episodes done relatively quickly or sooner than I'd get them done if I didn't have this big project coming up. So I had to figure all of that out and I did. I feel pretty good about where I landed with the plan at least. Things always change when it's time to execute on plans, right, but for now I feel pretty good and I'm really excited about some of the upcoming episodes.

Speaker 1: 11:06

And then, after all of that, I went through my inbox. I replied to a bunch of emails, because Mondays are always busy inbox days and that's really it. That's what I did today. I got done what I needed to get done and I'm feeling pretty good about where I'm at. So now it's time for walk in the dogs and dinner and stuff like that. So I will sign off for today and be back first thing tomorrow with another update. Talk to you then.

Speaker 1: 11:32

Good morning, I'm here for a Tuesday update and this one's going to be quick because my Tuesdays are all about client work. So I have some calls today and tomorrow and then, when I'm not actually talking to my clients, I will be working through their pages, giving them feedback and things like that. So that's basically what I'm doing today, and I did want to mention that at the time of this recording. I'm not currently taking on private coaching clients. After I do an episode like this, I always have people reaching out asking about my availability, so I just wanted to throw that out there. If you do want to work with me on your story, the best way to do that is through my notes to novel program, which I will link in the show notes. Okay, so I'll be back later this afternoon with another update on how everything went today. Hey there, it's Tuesday evening now and I've had a really great day of client calls. I love all of my private coaching clients and I really, really get a ton of joy from talking to them and helping them with their stories. It lights me up and I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 12:33

But I want to share some things that came up today that I thought were interesting, because you might find them interesting or helpful as well. So first of all, a writer I worked with last year reached out to me because she was having trouble querying her story. So basically she had been querying and she had five full requests and four partial requests but no offers of representation just yet. So she wanted me to read through her draft to see if I could identify anything that might be turning agents off of her story. And the reason I'm telling you all of this is because if you ever find yourself in that situation, you can kind of triage what's happening to figure out what to do next.

Speaker 1: 13:12

So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna look at her materials in the order that an agent would read them, to see if I can identify where the problem is. So, for example, I might read her query letter and it might promise a different kind of story than what's actually in the manuscript, or it might make the story seem to have rich conflict and stakes. But maybe the manuscript doesn't quite live up to that expectation. I don't know yet because I haven't gone back through her pages since initially reading her draft years ago. But I do expect that I'll find something that doesn't quite match between the query and the synopsis, that's pulling those agents in and getting to the result of five full requests and four partial requests and what's in her actual story. It could just be a problem in the opening pages. So maybe agents like the story from the perspective of the query or synopsis, but maybe the beginning's too slow, you know who knows. So I'm going to dig into that and see what I find, and you can do the same kind of exercise when it comes to your story as well.

Speaker 1: 14:09

Now, the other thing I wanna mention is that about a week and a half after sending me her pages so this is before I even started reading them she got an offer of representation from one of those agents that had requested her full manuscript. So there could still be a mismatch between the query or synopsis and the manuscript and this agent, you know, might be willing to do the work with this author to fix that mismatch. Or there might not actually be a mismatch and it just took this long for the right agent to read her story. So it could totally go either way and, like I said, I haven't read her draft yet. So I can't say for sure you know what the problem is, but I do think it's interesting how much can change overnight. She went from reaching out to me, a developmental editor, for a second opinion to having an offer of representation in about a week, week and a half. So it just goes to show how fast things can change and why it's important to not give up.

Speaker 1: 15:04

But anyway, the other thing I wanted to share with you is that another writer I'm working with is working on two stories at once, and people ask me questions about this all the time. So they're like you know, should I work on only one story? Is it okay to have two different projects going? Or what do you do when you have a new idea for a story while writing another one, and things like that. As with most things, there's not a one size fits all answer, but I did want to tell you about what this writer is doing because I think it's really interesting.

Speaker 1: 15:31

So, basically, she finished the first draft of a fantasy novel and she put that aside to let it marinate. She knows some of the things she needs to do in editing, but she hasn't read back through the draft or dove into any of the edits just yet. Now, in the back of her mind, she's had this other idea, so a young adult romance novel that she wants to write, and so once she put the fantasy draft down, she gave herself permission to outline the young adult romance. She really wanted to get all those ideas out of her head and into some kind of outline. So that's what she did, and when I talked to her today, she told me it's actually really nice to have two different projects going, because sometimes she doesn't feel like outlining and revising feels like the easier thing to do, or vice versa. So I thought this was interesting and I think where a lot of writers go wrong is they have two projects in the same phase as each other. So what I mean by that is it's like trying to outline two books at the same time or trying to revise two drafts at once. This is super hard for most people's brains to handle, but because this author has two different novels in different stages of the process, it actually allows her to use different parts of her brain on different days, which I think is really cool. So, anyway, just wanted to share those two things that came up with you today, and I feel like this has been a super long update, so I'm gonna cut myself off there and then I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning for another update. Hello and good morning.

Speaker 1: 16:58

It's Wednesday now and I'm really excited for what I have on the calendar today. First I have a call with five other book coaches to check in and talk about business and things like that. It's always super fun meeting up with these women because we all became certified coaches together and over the years we've kept in touch, which is really cool. So in these calls we basically just catch up in, brainstorm things or troubleshoot stuff that's coming up and things like that. I'll update you on what we talk about once I come back for the evening update, but that's the very first thing I have on my calendar this morning.

Speaker 1: 17:32

After that, I'm going to attend a virtual class that Laura Belgrade is hosting all about how she launched her book Tough Titties, which I am so excited about. Her book launch was very successful and I can't wait to see the behind the scenes breakdown of how she did everything. I also have a little bit of a selfish reason for wanting to see what she did, because I have a book coming out later this year and I'm hoping to learn from what Laura did so that I can have a great book launch myself. Now I'm sure you're like what the heck is this book you're talking about? Don't worry, I will tell you more about that on Friday, because I am going to be working through some of the edits on it this weekend. So stay tuned for that.

Speaker 1: 18:10

After the virtual class with Laura, I'm going to record an episode of the podcast with Abigail, so we're breaking down the first chapter of the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and then at the very end of the day, I have a client call. So that's what I've got going on. I'll be back later with a Wednesday evening update with a little bit more specifics. I'll talk to you then. Okay, it's Wednesday evening now and I've got all three of my pups in the room. So Luna, forrest and Hudson are here and they're going to help me give a quick update on how the day went.

Speaker 1: 18:42

So, first of all, the class I took with Laura Belgray was awesome and I got so many ideas for what I can do with my own book launch. Again, I'm going to tell you more about that on Friday. But one of the really cool things that Laura talked about during the training is what she actually did during her launch and then what she would do differently now that she's on the other side of that launch. So she was kind of like, here's what I did, and if I was starting over from scratch, knowing what I know now, here's what I would do differently. And that was really interesting to hear about and it got me thinking how, as writers, we can do the exact same thing. So we finish a book and then we can kind of debrief the process with ourselves, right, what went well during the drafting process, what can you do more of next time, what didn't work out so well and what do you want to do less of next time, and things like that. But anyway, that was a really fun class and I'm really glad that I got to go to it.

Speaker 1: 19:36

I mentioned earlier that I had a call with five other book coaches today and it was really nice catching up with them and hearing about all the exciting developments happening with their businesses and their families and their clients and things like that. It was really, really wonderful. So, for a little context, the six of us we went through the author accelerators book coaching certification program back in 2018 or 2019. Can't remember exactly, and we were the first cohort to go through that program. So it's been really fun to see the trajectory of each person's career over the last five or six years, because we've all gone in different directions and it's really cool and interesting just to see where everybody's ended up and what each person's passionate about and how they built that into their business and things like that. So that was a really wonderful part of my day. And then the other thing I did today was I had a call with one of my clients and it was actually pretty easy, pretty straightforward call, not too much to report on that. She's almost done with the edits on our draft and is getting ready to move into line editing. So that's always really exciting.

Speaker 1: 20:43

And then Abigail and I recorded an episode of the podcast. So you guys know what all that's about. We did a first chapter episode on the Hunger Games that I think actually came out before. This episode's going to go live. If you haven't heard that episode already, you can go check it out. But that was a really fun one to record. And yeah, that was pretty much all the stuff I had to get done today. I also got ready for a few calls I have tomorrow. So, like I mentioned earlier, I have two Q&A calls tomorrow, one with the students in my notes to novel class and the others with the writers in my private membership. So I'm all ready for those. And, yeah, I think I'll go ahead and wrap up my Wednesday update there. So I'll be back again tomorrow with another update. Talk to you then.

Speaker 1: 21:27

Good morning, it's now Thursday and, like I mentioned yesterday, I'm starting the day off with a Q&A call with my notes to novel students. So shout out to everyone who's in season four. We are currently in the middle of the eight week course and we have done all the foundational work already. So you know, brainstorming our protagonist and antagonist, choosing our genres and point of view and setting, uncovering our themes and a whole lot more. And now we're at the phase where we're going to dig into outlining, which is one of the most exciting and most nerve wracking parts of the course. I say nerve wracking because it's so easy to second guess ourselves when it comes to mapping out or outlining our stories right. There are so many decisions to be made. But that's also why I love these Q&A calls, because they let us troubleshoot things and ask questions in real time, so no getting stuck on my watch. Then later this afternoon I have another Q&A call with my private membership and, yeah, just getting caught up on a bunch of random things in between those two calls. So I'll be back with another update later this evening to tell you how everything went. Hey there, it's Thursday evening now and I'm back for our Thursday evening update.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Earlier I mentioned that I had two Q&A calls, so one with my notes to novel students and then the second with writers in my membership. So I did both of those. They both went really well and I wanted to share just a few of the things that we talked about during each call. I found them interesting and I think you will find them interesting as well. And the first thing I want to tell you about is how, as a part of the notes and novel course, students can submit different things for me to review during any of our Q&A calls. So in today's Q&A call, there were a lot of log lines being submitted, because that's where we're at in the course. We're writing our log lines and doing the foundational work and things like that, and we spent a good chunk of time looking at those log lines and I provided feedback and suggestions and things like that.

Speaker 1: 23:24

But I wanted to bring this up because this is an exercise I highly recommend you do with your story as well. If you don't know what a log line is, it's essentially a one to two sentence summary of your story and you can craft it before you've even outlined or written a single word of your book. Now that in itself writing and zeroing in on what your story is really about and putting it into a one to two sentence that's a really great exercise in itself. But I also like the idea of sharing that log line with other people and asking them does this sound interesting? What questions do you have after reading this log line? Does anything not make sense? And things like that. It can be a really good way to get an early read on your story and it can help you identify which areas might need some strengthening or further development. So that's what we did today. It was really fun. I love seeing everyone's ideas develop and get sharper and more specific as the course goes on.

Speaker 1: 24:19

It's also fun to see some of the patterns that come up, like today there were a lot of log lines where the conflict piece of it was really vague and we spent a lot of time saying, okay, what does this actually mean? So one of the examples was something like character X is prepared to risk everything at their disposal to do XYZ. So the part that I asked someone to get more specific on is well, what does that mean risking everything at their disposal? And like who are they risking this to? Right? I just needed some more context to really understand why that was important or why it mattered. The other thing we saw was something like character X has to navigate magical obstacles to do XYZ, and so my comment to this person was well, what are these magical obstacles? And like are they hard because this person has no magic, or are they hard because this person has magic but the obstacles are a different kind of magic? And also like, what's at stake? Like, why do I need to care if this person navigates, you know, multiple magical obstacles? Are they going to die? Is something bigger going to happen? Like you know, we just could get a little more specific.

Speaker 1: 25:26

So it's always a challenge to get really specific in one to two sentences. Right, that's not very many words, but it's totally possible and very worthwhile to do an exercise like this. And if you want to go through the exercise that I teach in Notes to Novel. You can go back and listen to episode number 54, called how to Test your Story idea Before Writing. I will link to that in the show notes, but that walks you through how to craft a log line that is specific and that encapsulates the big picture of your story as well. So, again, this is why I always say that, even though I'm not taking one-on-one coaching clients right now, you can absolutely get specific and personal help if you join me inside the Notes to Novel course and if you participate in the Q&A calls. It's also what I do in my membership. So we have what I call office hours twice a month and literally what I do is I put pages up on the screen and I help people troubleshoot things, or I edit something in real time or coach someone through an issue. So, basically, whatever someone needs to finish what they're working on, that's what I help with during these calls.

Speaker 1: 26:26

And today a writer submitted a short story along with another editor's feedback and some notes that he got from the judges of a contest that he entered the short story in, and he was kind of like okay, I think the short story works. But I got this feedback and I don't know how to execute on it. So can we talk and make a plan, and that's pretty much what we did. But what's interesting is that, looking at all of the different feedback he got, there were definitely some patterns to it. So one of the big things we saw was that every single piece of feedback said something like readers want to know more about this character's motivation, or I don't understand what this character's motivation is, things like that. So this topic of character motivation came up on all the different feedback reports.

Speaker 1: 27:09

And I'm telling you this because the solution was actually really simple. We read through his story and there were one or two locations where his character's Interiority was missing. So interiority is that internal reaction or that internal processing that the character does in response to something. I have episodes about interiority if you want to go check those out their episodes number 94 and 102, which I will link to in the show notes. But basically all this writer had to do was add in another one to two lines showing his character's internal reaction or that internal Processing, and it fixed the issue. So readers didn't understand this character's motivation. The writer knew the character's motivation but it wasn't on the page and all it took was adding in one to two lines of interiority.

Speaker 1: 27:55

So, again, I want to tell you this for two reasons. One, sometimes it's easy to take feedback to mean that your story is broken when it's not. Which brings me to the second thing I want to tell you, and that is it can be super helpful to have a coach or a trusted writing buddy in your pocket to help you look at feedback in your actual pages and help you create an action plan. Sometimes the solution is easier than you think, but it feels overwhelming Right and it's hard to see what you need to do when you're in the weeds. And it's funny because, as I'm saying this, I'm getting a strong feeling that someone out there needs to hear this. So if this is you, let me know, send me a DM on Instagram I'm at savannahgilbo or leave a review and say I'm the person that you were thinking of an episode 133. You were talking to me. I'm so curious, but anyway, my calls, like I said, they weren't really great.

Speaker 1: 28:45

I get really energized after spending time with my students. It's so fun to see stories develop from little nuggets of an idea or, you know, a messy draft that turns into something that is actually getting attention from agents and things like that. It lights me up. It's one of my favorite parts of my job and it's why I love Thursdays. I love hanging out with my students and the writers in my membership. So that's my Thursday update. I'll be back tomorrow. On Friday, I'm gonna tell you more about this book that I'm publishing later this year and what I have to do for that this weekend. So I'll be back tomorrow morning with an update on that. Hello, hello, happy Friday. I'm recording my update with all three dogs and toe, and one of them loves to dream and yip in his dreams when I'm recording things, so prepare your hearts for that.

Speaker 1: 29:33

I don't have any calls today because Fridays are kind of my catch-up days or days when I finish big projects and things like that. And speaking of big projects, I am writing a book that's going to come out this year. It's an analysis of the first Harry Potter book, so it's a craft book for writers that's going to dig into the big picture and the small picture to find out how and why this story works so well. And very long story short. I'm working through some edits today and all throughout this weekend. So that is my primary focus today, along with some miscellaneous admin work, to you know, get things wrapped up for the week and I'll be back later this evening with some more information, some more details about what I did today. But, like I said, the edits on my Harry Potter analysis are the big project for the day and the weekend. So that's what I'll be doing and I'll talk to you later for an update.

Speaker 1: 30:26

Okay, friends, I'm back for a Friday evening update and, like I mentioned this morning, I was working through the edits of my Harry Potter analysis all day today. I'm at the point where my eyes feel crossed and I can't look at the text anymore, so I had to walk away and I will pick back up first thing in the morning, as, as writers, I know, you can a hundred percent relate to the feeling of staring at a document for too long and realizing it's time to take a break, right? Well, I'm definitely there, but I do have to say that the edits I'm working through are very fun. Abigail K Perry, who you've heard on this podcast before, is actually my editor for this project. She's a super Harry Potter nerd, just like me, so it's been really fantastic to have someone care just as deeply as I do about doing this story justice through our analysis, so I really love reading her feedback and implementing her suggestions. It just makes the whole editing process that much more fun.

Speaker 1: 31:19

Now I know you probably want more information on what this book is and you want all the details, but you'll have to be a little patient with me and trust that when I know more, I will share more with you. This project is something I started five plus years ago and it got shelved for various reasons, but it's now coming back into the spotlight. So I don't have a ton of details, but I do have a wait list up where, if you sign up for the wait list, you'll be the first to know about any new developments and I'll also send you a playlist of all the first chapter analysis episodes that Abigail and I did for each book in the Harry Potter series. If you sign up for the wait list as well, the book is going to be very similar to the analysis that Abigail and I have done for the first chapter, so think of this as a little sneak peek. If you do want to be the first to know more information about this book, go to savannah gilbo comm forward, slash HP. So HP as in Harry Potter, and I will make sure to send you that playlist, as well as updates, as soon as I get them. So one more time to get on the wait list for this book. It's savannah gilbo comm forward slash HP. I will link to that in the show notes as well for easy access.

Speaker 1: 32:27

So this is what I'm gonna be doing all weekend I'm gonna be working through these edits and I know I have multiple other rounds of edits ahead of me. So this is why I was saying back in my Monday update that I had to make space for a big project. If I hadn't taken the time to make the time and space for it, I would feel super overwhelmed and I'd be all over the place probably dropping the ball on many different things to accommodate the workload. But because I knew it was coming and I was able to, you know, pause and reevaluate what's currently on my calendar and then carve out the time to actually work through the edits, that was a big help. So this is why it's really important to a have some kind of calendar or planning system to keep track of everything and then be to be really realistic about your time. Otherwise, any unplanned opportunities or conflicts will essentially blow up everything you're working on and really, you know, mess with your productivity. I mean, that's the case for me at least. So anyway, that's what I'll be doing this weekend and that is the end of this week in the life episode.

Speaker 1: 33:26

I Hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride this week. I know I had fun taking you with me. I got to share some of the things with you that I typically don't get to talk about on this podcast, because I'm usually talking about how to write or edit or publish a book, and it was just fun taking you behind the scenes with me and sharing some of the things I don't get to talk about much. So I hope you enjoyed the journey with me and I will be back next week with another new episode, so I will talk to you then. So that's it for today's episode.

Speaker 1: 33:59

As always, thank you so much for tuning in and for showing your support. If you want to check out any of the links I mentioned in this episode, you can find them in the show notes listed in the description of each episode Inside your podcast player or at savannah gilbocom forward slash podcast. If you're an Apple user. I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to leave a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews tell Apple that this is a Podcast that's worth listening to and, in turn, your reviews will help this podcast get in front of more fiction writers just like you. And While you're there, go ahead and hit that follow button, because there's going to be another brand new episode next week, full of actionable Tips, tools and strategies to help you become a better writer. So I'll see you next week and until then, happy writing.