In this week’s episode, JP and Crys the use the tarot card, The Fool, to answer the business question: how do you come into new projects and set yourself up for success?
Show Notes
Fast-Draft Your Memoir by Rachael Herron
Transcript
Crys: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Write Away Podcast. This is an intro to tell you that I made a big oopsie this week, and JP and I just got off of recording 35 minutes, basically three episodes — two Patreon episodes and a public episode. And because we’re using new software, I attempted something new, invited him a different way, and it recorded none of his part of the conversation. It only recorded my half.
I was too upset to go back and say, hey, let’s rerecord right now. So instead of you getting that episode this week, we’re going to share with you one of our exclusive Patreon episodes where we’ve been asking business questions inspired by the tarot cards that we’re going through right now.
So normally we do a question inspired by the tarot that’s on craft for the public episode, and then a business question for our Patreon. And today you’re going to get one of those business questions. So I hope you enjoy.
And next week we’ll be back with book club. We’re reading Rachael Herron’s Fast-Draft Your Memoir. And then the next week after that, we’ll be back to normal episodes.
JP: Hello friends. This is a special Patreon episode of the Write Away Podcast: Journeying Through Tarot. This week’s card is The Fool.
Crys: If you haven’t listened to our regular episode, we describe in much more detail what our new focus is, but the short version is that we are going to be prompting ourselves to create a craft and business question based off of tarot cards. And we’re starting with the Major Arcana going from 0 to 21. Or we may go further, we don’t know. But we’re at least going to do the Major Arcana.
And over on the regular podcast, we had our craft question, which is: how do you introduce your main character or world and show what they need to become without overloading the reader? And over here, we’re going to have more business focused episodes and probably a bit more personal info, like how we’re applying this to us and ourselves. So this goes pretty hand in hand with our monthly review episodes and also might help us to keep our monthly card a bit more top of mind throughout the month.
If you listened to the other episode first, this part will be a bit redundant, but we’re going to describe what The Fool card stands for.
JP: So normally when this card is presented, it is shown with a person, usually a man, taking his first step off of what looks to be a cliff. And usually there is some sort of a town below. The key about this is it is the start of a journey. And this is a character who is considered the quote unquote fool to whatever the journey is that is ahead of him. So he is, or she, or they, are these individuals who are at the precipice of something new.
So upright, that means it’s a new beginning. They show representations of innocence and spontaneity because they’re just about ready to take that free first step. And they’re also this free spirit.
In reverse, it would be the opposite of that. So you have holding back, recklessness, and risk-taking. I really liked this card because it shows all of the opportunities and potentials that are just before you begin that first step that you take in a journey.
Crys: So now that we have that description, our question is: how do you come into new projects and set yourself up for success?
How do you do that, JP?
JP: Terribly. Which is probably why I asked the question.
Crys: In our notes, the first thing I put is, not knowing how to start is a natural part of the process. And for me, every project starts differently. There will always be, of course, some kind of things that I carry with me to each new project, but part of the fun for me is doing things differently. And different stories need to be told different ways. And so I will always come with that, I don’t necessarily know how to start this project, because I do change it up fairly regularly.
JP: Yeah. We’re going to be honest here. Right? So, my dealio here is, you know, I see here, step one, simply write your book.
That’s not how I started things. I joined two podcasts. I am co-writing like a hundred projects because I just clearly cannot do one thing at a time, which is great. I love it so much. Would I recommend it for other people? No. I would not.
Crys: Step one for 99% of people is to simply write your book, is what I wrote down.
And then JP doesn’t even fit into the 1% that I described in my notes. Like I said, the other 1% didn’t start with the intention of writing a book but created a platform of people who are interested in buying a book, and that’s what sparked the idea for the book in the first place. And then there’s JP, who’s the 0.01%.
JP: Yeah. I just basically surrounded myself with wonderful authors that I could collaborate with, that I could co-host with, and that I could write with. I don’t know if I did this right. But I know that I am enjoying it and enjoying the process.
Crys: That’s the great thing about being The Fool, is you don’t know what’s the right way. And I think that’s actually a way better place of being than knowing there’s a quote unquote right way, that’s actually other people’s way that you try and force yourself into.
JP: Yeah. Which like, I don’t think I would have wanted to do this any other way, because I’ve always been a proponent of community and I like collaborating with people. And so I know that this is a like: how do you come into new projects? But really this was like, how do you come into your business and set yourself up for success? And I think that I came into it with the aspect of community so that I would be able to be, not only someone that ideally other people would promote, but that I would be able to be built up enough that I could promote and present other people.
Like we’ve had people come on here, Dana Kaye, to talk, and on the Serial Fiction Show we’re bringing in other authors to spread their voice around. So that was my goal this whole time, was to just build a really strong author community so that we could have a stronger outreach.
And I would say it’s been fairly successful. At least in what goal I had, which was to have an author community.
Crys: Yeah, I think that one of the things that most people fail to do is define what success looks like for them. And that’s really hard because most people don’t know what success looks like for them.
I think all of us have an intuitive understanding that we have to confront at some point of what success really looks like for us. But most of us will have at the front of our head, what success looks like to other people. And that’s what we start chasing versus what’s actually going to look like success for us.
So for you, it was to have a community of people that are all excited about doing the same thing that you’re excited about doing, and supporting each other, and like going on this journey as you know, the fellowship of the book. For some reason, Lord of the Rings has come up so much today and I love it.
JP: It’s wonderful.
Crys: Hobbit feet feat vs elf feet happened at some point off recording.
But when you first start, you often don’t know what your version of success is. I think it’s still useful to try and define it for yourself, but it’s a constant exercise. It’s something I come back to regularly saying, okay, what is my definition of success right now? And how was it different from before? Because when I started publishing, my definition was to like be able to pay my minimum way in life. And then it was to like, make as much money as I could to get us out of debt. And then make as much money as I could so that we could do really fun things.
And then it got back to like, okay, now I just want as much passive income, not like churning the wheel income, to just have that so I can focus on the projects that I really enjoy. And it’s just been a constant change.
JP: And I think that we started this from two different angles, and yours was you had a pain point where you needed money. That was, at least when we discussed, that was one of the pain points for you. Whereas for me, like that was always something that I wanted this to turn into, but I haven’t had that pain point where I hate the day jobs so much that I need to leave.
I may not like it sometimes just because I’m complaining and I want to be a full-time author someday, but at the same point, like I don’t hate what I do in the day jobs. So I was able to not have that need be so pressing, and instead be able to focus on that community building, which became very overwhelming very quickly, but I still love it.
Crys: Yeah, it does. It does. And one of the aspects of The Fool is like engaging in that risk. Like it can be a negative thing, risk taking, but risk taking can also be a really positive thing. And for me, like I didn’t have a job, and I was applying to go back into tech work, which I just did not want to do. I love programming and I loved the work I was doing, but I really hate the environments that that work tends to happen in. I really didn’t want to go back to the office. I just had a kid, like he was under a year old. Like I didn’t want to do that.
And so in a lot of ways, I was very reckless in throwing all of my energy into pursuing the writing when it showed any signs of success, but it paid off. And if I’d known all of the difficulties that would follow from that, I might not have chased it as hard as I did, but I’m really glad I did cause I’m at a place that I really love.
JP: Definitely. With setting yourself up for a successful business and a new project, money always has to come up. And I’m very middle league conservative about my money, I would say.
Crys: You are not a high-risk human.
JP: And I think that the thing for me is, there are wonderful, shiny objects that we can all chase, and very expensive things that we can all get, but that’s not responsible. And there’s someone out there that needs to hear that.
Crys: Yeah, I think the two things I would recommend anybody beginning a business, particularly in the writing business, need to be aware of is, one, what is your evolving definition of success and why? Like, why is that your definition of success? What does it mean to you? But also be aware of your relationship with failure. If you take a big risk and are expecting a big return and it doesn’t pay off, how will you handle that? If you can prepare for your failure ahead of time and expect the failure rather than the success so that it doesn’t kill your joy or stop you in your tracks, that can be really helpful.
I did not expect success with the first book that I put out. And so it was just astounding when that did take off and it did have success. But if I had high expectations, and I’ve had a lot of people in my life who are high inspectors, and then they crash really badly when things don’t work out. Depths of despair. So you need to know that about yourself and engage your risk appropriately.
And I would say for anyone, don’t be reckless with resources you can’t recover. And that’s gonna be different for everyone. Like it might be money, it might be family time, it might be your health. Lean more into the joy of writing or doing the business, if you love the business part, I do, more than the desire to be financially successful will often lead to a better balance in your resources because you’re not going to spend more than you have in any of your resources out of fear.
JP: Yeah, I would say don’t gamble on any resources that you’re not willing to lose more than you gambled, unless you have no choice. And even then, that’s not for me, but I know that there are some people that they do this and that’s their choice. But I think that’s really important for me, is to not gamble on something that you could lose. Because especially when you’re talking about like, what is it you want out of this? If you want like fame and riches, this isn’t the conversation for you. But I think that if you have this base level of success of just meeting your needs, anything above that is positive. It’s good. It’s nice to have that. Instead of being like, I can live off of 40,000 a year, but you know, I didn’t get 60,000 this year.
Is that really the negativity that you want, or is it the fact that you’ve got your base level needs and anything above that as a positive. So I think that it’s also that mindset of making sure that you’re appropriately setting yourself up and that you’re not just preparing to judge and be nitpicky about every little aspect.
Crys: I think one of the things that we’ll talk about as we go through the next few cards is that from The Fool through the first few stages, you have this high youthful energy when you are starting something new for the first time, and you should absolutely take advantage of that, but recognize that does not last forever.
At some point, you burn out of that starting energy, that youthful energy, and then you have to move into sustainability.
JP: Yeah. I cannot think of anyone that I have talked to that has always had this wonderful, starving energy from the day they were born until the day they died. Everyone always has moments of chaos, darkness, moments of sadness. And you have to be aware that that that could come. You can’t control a lot of things outside of your life and it can impact you. And I think that having the mindset and the care to know that you may be overextending yourself is good to have and to think of even in this stage.
If you’re like me and you put all these expectations on, knock 20% of it off.
Crys: Yeah. I think my recommendation would be, be aware you’re probably going to need to slow down at some point. But don’t let that hold you back from working with joy fueled energy. It’s a balance. And like in this stage, you often don’t yet know what’s going to be too much. And I think it’s okay to overextend yourself in this phase a little bit. Just recognize, and this is like the understand your relationship with failure, that at some point you’re going to have to step back from some things that you really want to do because the energy will run out.
JP: Yeah. This was a conversation from Roland about health, and it’s really been making me think about like the health part and aspect about like new projects, because I am one to be like, I will sit here for five hours and work on this project. But even adding in, incorporating in moments of movement and taking those breaks within a day, it’s just so nice.
Like yesterday when I was at the day job, I was just like, I never take the 15-minute breaks we’re supposed to be taking, and I just went outside and walked and then I came back five minutes later, and I was like, ah, that was amazing. Why don’t I do this more? Because it breaks up the day, it allows you to get that moment of movement. And I think that if we incorporate that into our business and into our projects, the fact that we, because we’re starting this new project, doesn’t mean that we’re going to work on it every moment of our waking lives. And that if we actually take in moments of caring for ourselves we will be more set up for success in the future.
Crys: All right, friends. Thank you so much for joining us as we lean into more of our woowoo side in directing these questions. Hope to make them applicable to daily life as well as to the daily writing life.
Thank you so much for joining us and supporting us here on Patreon.
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