I think it's really important to give yourself grace on days like today. Yes, there will be some things you probably have to do, but other than that, it's actually okay to take some downtime if you need it. This is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. I mean, I've been super burnt out before, I've been anxious and depressed before, and I'm not saying it's always easy but I've definitely learned that I work better and I feel better when I allow myself to have days like today. Learn that I work better and I feel better when I allow myself to have days like today.

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. You've probably heard me say this before, but every time I do one of these episodes, I get a ton of feedback, whether that's via email or DMs on Instagram or whatever and it's all feedback saying that these are some of your favorite episodes. So I decided to do them about once a quarter and personally, I love doing these kinds of episodes because I'm always curious to see how other people set up their day, how they decide what they're working on, 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 my action items, how I stay organized and things like that. So that's what this episode is all about and, without further ado, let's dive right in for a Sunday update.

Okay, so this is my first entry for our behind the scenes podcast episode, and it's Sunday evening, which is normally when I sit down with my planner and take a look at everything I have coming up this week. A few people have asked me what kind of planner I use, and I actually use one that's called the Planner Pad, which I have to admit is not the prettiest planner there is, but for some reason the way it's laid out really works for my brain. I will put a link to the Planner Pad in the show notes if you want to check it out. But be warned, it is not a very pretty planner. Now, what I like about it is that at the top of the planner, so across the top, it has seven short columns where you can kind of brain dump all the tasks from different areas of your life. So, for example, I have a column for the podcast, I have one for my notes to novel program and my membership, I have one that's for list building, one that's for business finances and kind of those repeating business tasks that nobody really likes to do but you have to do. Then I have one for personal stuff, one for my own writing and one that's a miscellaneous catch-all bucket. So what I do is I brain dump all the different things that need to get done at the top of the weekly spread.

And then what I really like about this planner is that underneath those seven columns there's a section for the seven days of the week. So if you kind of imagine this weekly spread, if you think about it horizontally, it's broken into thirds. So at the top there's those seven columns that I brain dump into and across the middle there's a section for each one of the days of the week. So the idea is that you start pulling from the columns above the ones that I brain dumped in and then you assign tasks for each day of the week. So for example, in my podcast column up top, let's say that I need to record this episode, which is episode number 159. Whenever I'm planning out my week, I can kind of grab that task from the top of the page and then I can put it down on a day where I know I can get that task done. So let's say I move that task to Wednesday Again, that's in the middle section of the page and then underneath that section, still on the same page, on that same weekly spread, is an hour by hour breakdown of each day. So after I've moved that one task to Wednesday, I can now say, okay, I'm going to record that podcast episode on Wednesday and then I can put it in the slot for, let's say, 10 o'clock in the morning and I can move things around from there. So, like I said, it really works for my brain.

I do like planning on paper, but I also use my digital calendar for everything as well. So I like everything to be synced up between my paper planner and my phone and computer, which, as I'm saying that, I realize some people might think that's extreme, but this is one of the ways I get so much done. I'm super methodical about capturing what I need to do and then allocating the time to do it. So that's my planner. I will link to it in the show notes for anyone who wants to check it out, and because I spent so much time talking about my planner, I will end my Sunday update there and just catch you up on what's on the agenda each day as I go through the morning updates. Okay, so I will be back tomorrow with a Monday morning update and I will talk to you then. Good morning, it's bright and early Monday morning and I'm here to update you on what I have coming up today.

If you've ever heard one of these behind the scenes episodes before, you probably already know that for me, mondays are the days I work on my business, so sometimes this looks like recording a podcast episode. Other times it looks like doing a bunch of admin type work. It could mean answering a bunch of emails or planning something specific for my business or updating financial records. I mean, it really just depends on where I'm at in the month and what my current focus is. But Mondays are all about me working on my business. So what this looks like for me today is I have quite a bit of stuff to do for the podcast.

Looking at my planner, I need to plan out a few episodes that are coming up in the next month. I need to answer a few emails about sponsorship for the podcast, which is exciting. I need to reach out to a few people that I'm hoping to have on the show as guests in the future. So basically a lot of random stuff to do with the podcast, which makes sense because I like to kind of theme batch my days. So if I have a lot of stuff that needs to get done for the podcast or for my course or whatever it is, I tend to group all of those activities on one day, just so I can stay in the zone, and so that's what I have to do today. I also have to clean up my inbox, because it's Monday and I am a bit behind on emails, so I will be doing that and then whatever else comes up. So, wish me luck. That's what I'm going to do today. I'll be back later this evening with an update, so I will talk to you then.

Okay, it's Monday evening now and I actually finished all the podcast stuff I told you about earlier, around one or two this afternoon, which meant I had some extra time to play with. So whenever this happens, or whenever I finish my to-dos early in the day, I basically have two choices I can stop working or I can tackle other things on my weekly to-do list. And when I find myself with some extra time, I always like to consider my energy levels, because sometimes I am mentally burnt out or I might only feel like doing a certain kind of work, or I might feel super creative but not very good at the details, Like it just depends, right. So today, when I realized I had extra time, I started thinking like, okay, how do I actually feel? And I realized my mental energy is actually feeling pretty good right now. I think I can start something new and even if I don't finish it, I can at least get a good chunk of something else done.

So because I was in the podcast headspace today, I started brain dumping what I want to talk about for a few upcoming episodes. So earlier in the day I had to do some pre work for a few interviews that I have coming up this week. I finished that and then in the second half of the day I focused on the episodes that I record by myself that are more craft focused, more how to you know, episodes that are just me talking through something. So that was actually really fun. I've had some requests come through over and over again, like doing an episode on romanticy or the difference between women's fiction and romance and things like that. So I essentially just wrote out some of my thoughts into each of the episode documents and then later, when I have more time or when I feel the urge to dip into those documents again, I will clean them up and make sure everything makes sense and then record the episodes and things like that. So I feel pretty good about today. I always love working on stuff related to the podcast. So for me it was one of those days where, yes, I was busy, but it didn't feel like hard work because it's so fun, you know.

So, with all of that said, I'm going to go ahead and end my Monday update there. I will be back in the morning for a Tuesday update, so I will talk to you then. Good morning, I'm here for our Tuesday update, and I actually have to make this really quick because I'm doing not one, but two interviews for the podcast this morning. So I'm about to jump on a Zoom call with my first guest of the day. I won't tell you who it is, but she's going to be on the show very soon to talk about book marketing, which is always fun and then after that, I'm doing another interview with an author I worked with, so that I'm sure will be fun as well, and that's what I'm up to today. I will be back later this afternoon with a more detailed update, once the day's over, but I do have to jump on that call, so I'll let you go for now and I will talk to you later. Okay, I'm back and it's Tuesday evening.

Both of my interviews went really well, and it's so funny to me because I tend to record interviews way in advance of when they're going to air on the podcast, just because it's hard to sync up schedules with my guests and things like that. So it's always kind of hard to be excited about what my guests and I talk about, but then having to wait to share the episode with you for like a month or sometimes two. So, anyway, it's just the joy of podcasting, I suppose. But the other thing I did today is actually really cool and I wanted to share with you about that. So this week ProWritingAid is hosting their Science Fiction Writers Week Virtual Summit and I'm one of the speakers presenting tomorrow.

So I had to finish up my slide deck today and I'm going to talk about crafting the perfect dynamic between your protagonist and antagonist, and I have some really fun examples from the Hunger Games and Ender's Game that I'm excited to share. So I finished up my slide deck for that. And the other thing I'm doing for them is I'm coming back to host another session for their VIP attendees on Friday and in that session I'm doing live critiques of first five pages. So five writers submitted their first five pages and I'm going through them live in front of the group. On Friday and earlier today I went through all five submissions and I made my inline notes on each one and then I summarized three things that they were already doing well and three things that could be improved, and I wanted to go through them all beforehand just to really give each writer the most value possible on Friday. So I'm done with that now, and it was super fun seeing the opening pages of five totally different sci-fi stories that were really just different and unique from each other. It was really cool. I just love seeing creative brains and imagination at work, so it was a really fun project to dig into.

I'll share more about this on Friday, but I'm going to sign off for now and my partner Nathan and I are going to sign off for now and my partner Nathan and I are going to take the puppies on a walk. So I will see you tomorrow for a Wednesday update. Hello and good morning. It's a Wednesday now and I have a few big things on the schedule today. First, I'm going to take part in a coaching call for this business mastermind that I'm a part of and I'm super excited for that. I was actually picked to be in the hot seat today, so I've got some questions for the woman in charge of the group and we're going to troubleshoot some things that I want to tweak or change in my business and, yeah, I'm just super excited about that.

You might not know this about me, but I love owning my own business and I could talk about business stuff all day long. I love marketing, I love planning things out. It's actually a lot of fun for me. So I'm doing that, very excited about that, this morning, and then I'm presenting at Pro Writing Aid Science Fiction Writers Week virtual summit later today. After that, I'm going to record a different presentation for another virtual summit that's happening later this year. So most of the virtual summits I present at are all live, but some of them are not.

Some summit hosts actually prefer that you pre-record your session, either with the host or on your own, and then they release all the presentations to their attendees at once when the summit goes live, and, honestly, I like both options. There's something about attending a live summit and there's also something about being able to pick and choose which talks you want to listen to if you only have a limited amount of time, right? So, anyway, I'm recording an interview with the host of an upcoming summit today and I'm looking forward to that, and then, honestly, I'll probably be really tired because that's a lot of extroverting for me. So I will 100% enjoy all of the things on my calendar today, but I also know I'll be 100% exhausted by the end of the day. I am an introvert through and through and when I do a lot of extroverting I just need a lot of rest to balance things out. So, anyway, that's what's on the agenda today.

I will be back later on for a Wednesday evening update. Hello, hello, it's Wednesday evening and, surprise, surprise, I am exhausted. You might be wondering why I schedule so many speaking engagements on one day if I get this exhausted and it's actually on purpose. I would rather be exhausted after one big day of speaking than halfway exhausted if I were to spread out these speaking engagements over three days. I find that for me it just works better that way. So I do plan days like this intentionally and because I'm so tired.

This is going to be a very short update. I also need to run because we are babysitting a dog for the next 10 days and he is about to arrive any minute. So I have two golden retrievers and they are brothers. They have the same parents, but they are about eight months apart, and my older boy. It's his litter mate that is coming to stay with us, and this dog and my two boys are the best of friends, so it's going to be a really fun and funny 10 days. My Shiba Inu Luna will probably just avoid them for the next 10 days, but we will see. Sometimes she does surprise me. So, anyway, that's where I will leave you for today. I will be back tomorrow with a Thursday update, so I will talk to you in the morning.

Good morning, it's Thursday and I have a quick update for you. Today I'm about to jump on two back-to-back coaching calls with two of the writers I work with. One is writing sci-fi and the other is writing romance, and although I'm not taking any new one-on-one coaching clients for the foreseeable future, I do have a few that I'm still working with, and in both cases, these writers are so close to being done with their books. They're both currently working on what we hope will be their final edits. They've both locked in the next phase of editing, so they've both booked their line editors, and I'm just so excited for them to be, at this point in the process, to be almost done with their books and to be gearing up to the publishing phase. It's just such an exciting time. So I'm going to hop on two calls, one with each of them, and then I have a bunch of miscellaneous work to do the rest of the day, which I will fill you in on later. So bye for now. I will see you later today with our end of day update.

Hi there, it's Thursday evening now and I have to admit I didn't quite get as much done as I wanted to today. Part of it is because I'm still pretty tired from yesterday, and the other part is that I have three excited golden retrievers in my house who go from being very cuddly and clingy to zooming around chasing each other at 100 miles per hour and, as you can imagine, it's been a little bit nuts in here. So after my coaching calls which went great, by the way I was just feeling a little blah, a little tired, a little unmotivated. So I looked at my to do list and I pushed out anything I didn't absolutely have to finish today to tomorrow or next week, and then I said okay, I can either take a break now and come back to work later, or I can power through this for another hour and then take the rest of the day off. So what I ended up doing is I ended up powering through my remaining to do's, then took the dogs to the park, did some chores and basically took it easy for the rest of the day.

This is one of the perks of owning your own business. It's also one of the perks of kind of monitoring your energy levels and knowing they're not going to be 100% the same every day, because remember, on Monday I said I had a lot of that go-go, get-her-done energy, and today is kind of the opposite. So, personally, I think it's really important to give yourself grace on days like today. Yes, there will be some things you probably have to do, but other than that, it's actually okay to take some downtime if you need it. This is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. I mean, I've been super burnt out before, I've been anxious and depressed before, and I'm not saying it's always easy, but I've definitely learned that I work better and I feel better when I allow myself to have days like today. So just my two cents on that.

Tomorrow I'm doing my live critique session for ProWritingAid's Sci-Fi Writers Week and I want to bring all of my energy to that. So I'm going to sign off for today and I will be back tomorrow with a Friday update. Hello, hello, happy Friday. I'm recording my update with all four dogs in tow today and it's funny because they're all laying around me in a circle around my desk chair right now and I feel like they're trying to keep me safe or something, but it's really cute. So I'm actually recording this update a little later than normal and there will only be one today because it's mid-afternoon now, but I just finished my live critique session for ProWritingAid's Sci-Fi Week and it was so much fun.

So, as I mentioned earlier, five writers submitted their first five pages and I went over them from a developmental editor's perspective on the call, and it's really interesting because after doing all five of them, I noticed there was a pattern to the feedback. So all of these writers had amazing imaginations I think I said this before but each one of their stories was so different from each other. There was a dystopian story, one that was more of a space opera. I mean, they were each so unique and so different. But in my feedback I kept talking about grounding the reader in the point of view character at the start of each scene and making sure to give readers enough of their internal thoughts and feelings on the page. So almost every set of pages needed to work on that. And what's funny is that that's very similar to what I used to see when I did a lot of manuscript evaluations.

There's usually a lack of interiority in first drafts, second drafts, and my advice is to always let us into the character's head more. So I thought that it would be fun to kind of learn from this critique session, even if you weren't there with us. So I'm going to link to a few episodes I've done on interiority in the show notes and I encourage you to check out at least one of them this week or this weekend if you have time. So the first one is episode 94. It's called how to Reveal your Character's Inner Life on the Page, and the second is episode 94. It's called how to Reveal your Character's Inner Life on the Page, and the second is episode number 102, three Common Interiority Mistakes and how to Fix them. And I'm giving you this homework, if you want to call it that, because I do think the sooner you get the hang of interiority, the sooner you embrace it, the better your writing will become, and it can make such a huge difference in the quality of your story. So, like I said, I'm going to link to those episodes in the show notes. I highly encourage you to listen to them, especially if you're not familiar with interiority or if you've never heard the word before.

So, yeah, overall today the live critique session was awesome. I think it's just so cool and so brave when writers share their work with a group of people that they don't know right. It can be a little scary sometimes, but I was seeing in the chat that a lot of the people who didn't submit their pages or who didn't get chosen to put their pages up on screen, they were still learning a ton of stuff. So I think that's pretty cool. Now, the other thing I have to do before I close out the day kind of my last big thing of the day is I have to go through Abigail K Perry's draft of her StoryGrid Masterwork Analysis Guide to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. So, yes, we are already hard at work on our analysis of book two in the Harry Potter series, and this time we are flipping roles.

So Abigail was my editor on the first book. I wrote the book, she edited it, and now we are flipping it. So she's writing the analysis of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and I am going to be her editor. So I have to go through her manuscript today and I have to leave all my comments and questions and things like that and I'm super excited to dig into that. So that is what I'm going to do after this update right now and that's how I'm going to end my work week, which is super fun, super exciting.

I won't be doing a weekend update because I'm really not going to be doing anything that fun. Like I said, we're babysitting a dog, so we're going to do very dog-friendly activities maybe go to the beach, maybe go to the park I'm not sure yet and then you know just the average stuff, like chores and all the non-fun things that I'm sure you don't want to hear about. So that's what I'll be doing this weekend and that brings us to the end of this Week in the Life episode. I hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride this week. I know I had fun sharing things with you. It's fun for me to share things that I typically don't get to talk about on the podcast, because I'm usually talking about how to write, edit or publish a book, and it was just fun taking you behind the scenes and sharing some of the things I don't get to talk about much. So that's it for today's episode.

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 savannahgilbocom 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.