Story Magic

107 - Book coaching behind the scenes with Sam Cameron

Share episode

Today, Emily & Rachel talk about book coaching behind the scenes with Sam Cameron!

This is a special edition episode originally recorded for Sam Cameron's substack, Truant Pen. Check out Truant Pen here: https://truantpen.substack.com/

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • what 1:1 book coaching is really like
  • lessons learned from writing, revising, querying, and getting an agent
  • what coaching feels like to a coach
  • how rest is so important to the writing process


Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic

Join Tenacious Writing! With the perfect combo of craft, mindset, and community resources, you will build a writing life that feels sustainable, fulfilling, and fun—without any prescriptions or rules. Learn more: https://www.tenaciouswriting.com/

If you enjoyed Story Magic, please rate, review and follow on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast!

Follow us on social media!

Rachel: https://www.instagram.com/bookcoachrachel/

Emily: https://www.instagram.com/ebgoldenbooks/

Sam Cameron:

Foreign.

Rachel:

Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of. I'm Rachel, and today we're including a special edition podcast episode originally recorded with Sam Cameron for the Truant Penn substack. Sam is a book coach, an author, and one of my one on one coaching clients. And in this episode, we discuss what it's like to go through one on one book coaching. Sam's process, writing, revising, querying, and getting an agent, plus what she's learned as both a coach and a client over the last year and a half. I had so much fun chatting about all the work that we did together. Sam has been an incredible client and become a really close friend of mine. So after you're done listening, make sure to go check out her incredible substack, Truant Penn, where she gives actionable advice for stock writers. I'll put the link in the show notes. Enjoy.

Sam Cameron:

Welcome to Truant Penn. This is a substack for stuck writers giving you actionable advice. I am Sam Cameron, an author, developmental editor, and book coach. And recently I was at a writing conference where I was talking to writers about the fact that I was a book coach. And I encounter a lot of writers who didn't really know what that was. And I understand that cause I didn't know what that was before I started doing it. So I invited my book coach, the wonderful Rachel May, to come to hear to talk about what book coaches do and specifically how Rachel and I have worked together. So welcome, Rachel. Yay.

Rachel:

Thank you, Sam. I'm really excited. This is.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I'm really excited to have you here and to talk about what book coaches do and how book coaches are really, really helpful for writers. So to start out with, why don't you talk a little bit about what you specifically do as a book coach and how you got into coaching.

Rachel:

Yeah, let me start with how I got into coaching. So I own Golden May, which is our coaching business, and my name's Rachel May. I have a business partner named Emily golden, and that's how you get Golden May. But we met on Twitter in like 2018 and became critique partners. We were both searching for feedback. So we met up, we became really good friends, we became really great critique partners. And through that process, we dove into learning, like, as much craft as we possibly could. And I have an English literature degree and knew, like, nothing about writing, writing books. So that was really the first time that I had been like, let me study how to write a book. Because it's, it's different. It's not the same as, like, how to write a paper on, you know, the themes of Cinderella, which is like what I wrote about in college. So we studied a lot about craft, and through that process, we both really loved learning and really loved learning together. And we were like, why don't we start a business? What. What if we did this? You know, that was kind of the question. Like, what if we actually made this real? What if we taught other people the way that we've just been learning? So we did. We kind of like dared each other into it and then went through a whole bunch of learning about, like, do we want to be an editor? Do we want to be a book coach? Do we want to do both? And, and we did settle on book coaching because it felt so personable and it felt so, so much more aligned to like actually teaching someone how to write a better book versus giving them like a list of things to change about their book, which has its uses. I mean, there's, there's. We still do editing. There's nothing wrong with editing, but like, being a book coach just is a really special relationship. And it really stood out to us for the way that we wanted to build relationships and teach people and like, go on journeys together. So we learned how to be book coaches, we took trainings, we started a business. And as far as how we do it, so we've been book coach. I was in 2019, that we actually created the business. So it's been like almost six years now. And we meet with writers one on one. Emily has one on one clients and I have one on one clients. And we meet once a week. We have an hour long phone call, video call, and we're discussing our books, we're discussing our clients books, their, their assignments. And I say that with like air quotes, so I'm sure we'll talk about. But like the assignments that we've been working on, we've given feedback, so we're discussing that feedback. And our, our programs last about six months. That's our. After doing it for a couple years, we decided to really accomplish what we wanted to accomplish within a program. Six months was a good, a good range to start, and then our clients can renew for longer than that to kind of go however they want. But within that six month program, we're working on story fundamentals, character development, high level plotting, and then getting into like, writing techniques. And it's a lot to accomplish in six months, but by the end, you know so much more about craft and Process and mindset, and hopefully feeling a lot more steady and firm on your feet by the time you're done. Because that's really the goal of book coaching is. Is being able to. I like to think of it as holding hands, but not in, like a. In like, a derogatory way where I'm, like, holding your hand through this, but more like, hey, we're besties. Let's hold hands. You know, like that.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. So I actually. I have something on my website where I'm explain book coaching as being a little bit like teaching you to fish as opposed to giving you fish.

Rachel:

Yeah, for sure.

Sam Cameron:

You know, the idea is about teaching the process and the mindset tools so that when I'm not working with a writer anymore, that they can still, like, go forth. The other way I describe it to people is I actually think book coaching is much more like what people want the relationship with their editor to be.

Rachel:

Yes.

Sam Cameron:

When they have, you know. Cause that's the movie version of an editor. Like, that's the relationship between Max Perkins and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like, that's the Hollywood version of what editors do is there's someone who guides you and helps you develop and stuff like that. And mostly, lots of writers have great relationships with their traditional editors at a publishing house, but they're very busy. They don't have the time to do that level of development, for the most part. And so I feel like that's honestly where coaches step in, is that a lot of writers need that level of support and development as part of how. How you grow. Not just writers, like, any, you know, anyone. If you're a singer, you have a vocal coach. If you're an actor, you have an acting coach. And so it's the. It's the same thing for. For writers.

Rachel:

Yeah. I mean, it's just. It's just like, if you're gonna go work out at a gym, you have a personal trainer. You know, it is. I think. I think people look at books and they're. And, like, the creative world being like, well, you don't need a coach to do that. You can just, like, muddy through it.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And I guess you.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, you totally could. But I will say it is. Like Rachel said, book coaching is a very special relationship. And it absolutely is. And I say this both as a book coach who works with writers and also as a writer who has been coached. So I'll talk a little bit about why I decided to seek out a book coach for myself and why specifically I ended up working with Rachel and wanted to work with Rachel, and then we can talk a little bit about what she and I have done together and what I've gotten out of that process. So I actually found Rachel and Emily because I became a book coach and I have a teaching background. So I was looking as a writer for something I could do to make more stable money than writing, especially while I was still finishing books. And so I started looking at editing because I had realized from working with my critique partners that I was really good at developmental editing and that I liked it. And then I came across book coaching, and I was like, as a teacher, I'd be really good at this. And so when I started my own coaching business, I was looking around at what other coaches were doing to sort of see, you know, what types of packages do people offer, what are they putting in their newsletters, like, looking for ideas for how to build my business. And someone I was following was like, in a grab bag email list giveaway with something that you and Emily were also in. And I signed up for your magic of character arcs.

Rachel:

Like the email course.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, yeah, the email course. And the first email I was in, I was hooked on Emily and Rachel's content. They are excellent teachers. Even just the teaching that you get from them, like what they're writing in their newsletter is really good. And you hadn't even started your podcast yet at that point, which is like, I think Spotify was my most listened to podcast.

Rachel:

Oh, my God.

Sam Cameron:

With story magic.

Rachel:

Awesome.

Sam Cameron:

So. So anyway, I knew basically right away after seeing their content that if. If I ever was at a place where I wanted to work with a book coach, I was like, these are the people. Like, this is. This is it. So it took a couple of years, actually, I think between when I first had that idea and when I was actually ready to work with a coach. And another I think, common misconception is that once people learn about book coaching, they're like, oh, it's for newbies, it's for beginners. And that is absolutely not true. You can benefit from book coaching at any stage in your career. So when I. So I signed up to join Emily and Rachel's writing community, Tenacious Writing, in November of 2024. Is that right?

Rachel:

That 2023? Because we started.

Sam Cameron:

We started February 2024. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you want to tell everyone what tenacious writing is all about before I continue the story?

Rachel:

Yeah. So thank you. Tenacious Writing is our, like, one stop shop writing program. And in it, we have tons and tons of craft resources, like 40 plus, 50 plus hours worth of like, let's learn craft. But it's not just craft, because craft is just a sliver of the writing process and journey. So we also focus really heavily on, like, writing process. How do you write? When do you write? What feels good for you? How do you be consistent? And also writing mindset? And that, that was probably the most near and dear to my heart because I, I don't think you can do anything or like, I don't think you can feel good about doing anything if your mindset is your biggest roadblock. So we spend a lot of time working through perfectionism and imposter syndrome and comparison and procrastination. So, like, those pieces of the writing process that really interrupt us, even though, like, you could put all your effort into studying craft, but it doesn't mean anything if every time you sit down at your computer, you're, like, terrified of writing.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And honestly, like, that was so true for me. And I think that was a big part of why I found, like, I mean, there was, there were craft stuff that I learned from, from you and Emily, like, scene structure was totally mind blowing for me.

Rachel:

Love that. Me too.

Sam Cameron:

And, you know, so there, there's craft stuff that I definitely learned from you all. But I think the mindset piece for me was what was really revolutionary because, you know, I did know a lot of craft. And by the time I decided to start working with you, I was working on my fifth book. Like, the fifth book I had written.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

So this goes back to what I was saying before about how it's, you know, you can benefit from this at any stage of your writing career. So it's not just like, oh, I've, you know, I'm starting and I've never done it before. I better hire a coach. I mean, that's great, but it's also like, really, really valuable even if you have a lot of experience and know a lot, because basically it's a recognition that you're at a place in your process or in your career where you could just keep spinning your wheels by yourself, but actually you'd benefit a lot from some outside help. So when I joined Tenacious Writing, I had by that point realized that I had had a lot of creative burnout and had spent several months kind of finding my way out of it with the help of many of the podcast story magic podcast episodes and then also joining the community. And after I'd been in the community for a couple months, I think it was Emily actually put out that she had an opening for one on one Coaching. And I was like, is this my sign from the universe? Because, like, I have the money. I want to do it. Like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna sign up. And I. It was interesting because I'm. I'm more of a pantser and Rachel's a pantser and Emily is not.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And I was. So I kind of went into this meeting being like, well, maybe it would be good to work with Emily because she's a very different process than I do. And, like, maybe I could learn a lot from her. And then Emily and Rachel are both in this meeting, you know. Hey, like, what. What is it you wanted to talk about? I was like, well, I wanted to see if Emily's, you know, spot was still open. Because I'm thinking about one on one coaching. And Emily's like, well, the spot is closed. And Rachel jumped in and was like, but I want to work with you, because you knew what I was working on, which was this queer Twelfth night retelling with F1. And so we kind of went from there. And, um, I'm curious from your end as a book coach how, like, what. What is the process, like, of deciding when someone says they want to work with you whether or not you want to work with them?

Rachel:

Yeah. Um, okay, well, I. This is such a great question, and you're a great example, because I was thinking about this this morning, um, when you came to an open coaching call in Tenacious Writing. And you. I think you wanted to talk about Viola's goals, because you were like, I don't know what? Do you remember this? You like?

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel:

You came to talk about Viola's goals and you, like, told me a little bit about the story, and I just like, felt it like, I like, love at first sight. It felt like a lightning bolt of, like, that's a story that, that I want to read. And I also could tell from you that, like, you were. What, you wanted to puzzle it out, you know, like, you had the knowledge and you were just trying to get things in the right space. And all you really needed was like a sounding board, because it wasn't. This is how I feel. Like, this is how I feel like a hundred percent of the time on our phone calls is like, you just need a sounding board and I just can provide that call and response, you know? But you came just needing to talk about it, and we didn't have enough time. Like, I remember I could have talked to you for like an hour or two hours about those goals, and I wanted to, but we were with other writers. And so I think I. Either we like, stopped talking or it was the end of the call or whatever, but I got off that call being like, I want to work on that story. Meanwhile, Emily was on maternity leave, and so she had come back, like, wanting to take on more clients or trying to figure out, like, how many clients did you want? And we got your request. And I think I, like, instantly texted her and was like, I will open up a spot to take Sam. Like, I want that. Give it to me. And she was like, okay, that's good, because my spot's build. So then when we spoke, it felt like a fit because some of it's energy wise, which is a little willy nilly, but I mean, like, I felt like we. We had a lot. We had already spoken, we had already aligned the. Your idea in and of itself. I just was like, yes, 10 out of 10, no questions, no notes. Give it to me. I want to work on it. So I think, like, having a resonance with. With the idea is really important because you need. You need to be able to believe in your client's ideas. You need to be able to, like, see the vision and, like, understand this is where it's headed. And we learned a lot together. But I do feel like from the first time that we spoke, like, I could get a sense of your vision, and it really resonated with me and I care a lot about it. So I was like, that's. That's for me. Give me that one. Um, so when. When her and I are working together, I know this isn't exactly what you asked, but we're trying to find that because since there are two of us, we really do have to decide, like, who's gonna be a better working relationship or who's gonna be a better fit between the two of us. And her spot, like, not even if her spot was open, I think I still would've fought to work with you because I just felt like we had a connection and we knew and it didn't take long to feel that way. And I was over the moon that you had even reached out for coaching. I was like, yes. I can't believe it. I knew I really wanted her to do coaching, and so that was really exciting.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And that open coaching call was also, for me, like, a really good moment of seeing what the value of working with a coach could be like, because you hit on a couple of things that are what part of what makes it so special and so helpful to work with a coach. So one Is it is super clear that you believe in my vision and understand my vision of the book. Yeah. Because anytime we're working together, like, there's never. It never feels like I'm having to explain to you what I want to do. Like, I explain to you in the sense of, like, that's how I. How we figure out what I'm doing is I have to talk about it, but it's never like, I have to convince you to get there with me. It's like, yep, I'm there, I'm vibing with it, I understand it. Um, and it is. It makes such a huge difference when you're getting feedback from somebody to know that they understand what you're trying to do. And that all of the questions that Rachel asks me, all of the just everything is in align with making the book into this. This thing that I imagined it would be. Um, and then also just the sounding board thing. Right. Which was not even something that I realized how much I needed that until I started working with you. That it is true. Like, a lot of our call are I've got a plot problem or a character problem that I don't really know how to solve and, you know, or something doesn't feel right. And so you just ask me a bunch of questions and then I just like, talk and we, you know, you ask some more questions and then we eventually get there and it's like it almost all comes out of my brain.

Rachel:

All of it does. Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

But it's like, I wouldn't have gotten there without you asking the questions and, like, making me say the stuff out loud. And like, I know that I could have written this book without the assistance of a coach, but it would have been way less fun and it would have taken me a lot longer.

Rachel:

A lot longer.

Sam Cameron:

You know, it would have been a lot harder. And as Rachel said, she, you know, her sort of minimum term of her program is six months. Um, and people can renew. So I've actually renewed twice to. To get through the process of this book. And the first time I was thinking about renewing, I was talking to my wife about, like, okay, I think I want to do this. And like, I didn't really need to have this conversation with her because the money's entirely coming out of my business. Like, I'm paying for it. It has no effect on our. Our home finances at all. Um, so I was like, gearing up to pitch to her, even though I really didn't need to, that I wanted to continue coaching. And before I even got the words Out. She was like, yes.

Rachel:

Say it.

Sam Cameron:

I've never seen you so happy to work on a book. Like, you are having a great time. Um, so it's. It's been, like, incredibly supportive. Um, so I was thinking we could get into a little more specifics, like, without giving away your whole program of what process looks like.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And so I came to Rachel with. When we started In February of 2024, I had the idea, which was Queer F1, Twelfth Night. And I'd written about a hundred pages of just sort of random scenes, because that's the first part of my process, is to just do that. And like Rachel said, I had gotten to a point where I realized I needed more structure, which is why I was going into that open coaching call to talk about character goals. And as of now, a year and change later, I have a literary agent, a complete draft. We're working on revisions.

Rachel:

It gives me a lot.

Sam Cameron:

So that was, like, really big. Like, that's a really big thing that we did. So why don't we talk about how we got there and, like, what. What we did for the past year and a half.

Rachel:

I know, right? A lot. We did a lot. But I. That's, like, in the grand scheme of things, such a short time frame, like you said, you do it a lot faster, I think, with. With a coach. And I also think, like, you came into coaching with exactly the right attitude, level of commitment, what. Whatever that ends up meaning to somebody. But, like, you were ready to do it. And you were also ready to, like, work hard to figure it out. And you'd think most people would be. I think most people are. But with you, you just had such a persistence and a tenacity of, like, every single week you showed up, every single week, you had stuff for us to talk about and work through. And just, like, you did it, you know? Like, I. I have some other clients who are a little bit slower, and there's. There's nothing wrong. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I think this kind of relationship, it worked so well to have us because, like, you put in so much effort. And that makes my job, like, 10 times easier. Right. Like, to. To know that, oh, Sam's got pages. Yes. Let's get into them. I can't wait. Yeah. So back to your original question. We started with, like, all right, what. What's the message? You know, the first little chunk of our program is just all about, like, what's this book about? What's the vision? Who's your ideal reader? You know, who are we talking to why do we care? And I think that's helpful for you as a. As the author. Like, incredibly helpful for you to know, like, what your vision is. But I also think that first month is so important for me as a coach to get to know you, to understand you, to, like, get a sense of the vision. The vision always changes or, like, the details always change. But knowing, like, what you care about and why you care about it, that's the stuff that, like, as a coach, helps me guide you or ask you those questions and helps me provide that. That sounding board. So we. We spend, you know, a little bit of time talking about the story point, talking about, you know, who. Who do you want to read this? What's it going to be like? Then we go into characters. So we started to talk about each of your four characters, your four point of view characters and what their goals were, what their flaws were, what was at stake if they didn't get them. Um, and then we talked a lot about backstory. So that. That takes a chunk of time, especially four.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, that did. That did take a lot of. A lot of time. So that was. If we started in February, and then I remember that I started the draft in, like, June of that time. So we spent basically between February and June, mostly talking about characters. And then eventually we got to plot, too. But that was. Some of you might be like, how did it take that long? Why would it take that long? And the reason is one. Rachel said I had four. Four characters, which is a lot. But it was so interesting because Rachel and Emily talk a lot about both internal and external. Right. And finding a way to kind of marry those two. And it was interesting because some of the characters were very, very clear, like, right away.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Like Duke, Orsino, Sebastian. The two of them were, like, pretty quick, you know? And I think with Orsino, like, his internal was really clear automatically. And, like, we had to think a little bit harder about his external Sebastian. The whole thing was there pretty quickly. And then this character, Liv, who is the lady Olivia from the play. Oh, we did so many rounds on Liv.

Rachel:

At least three or four.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. So it was a lot. And then she was also, like, the one who needed. She was the problem child. We love her, but she's the problem child. We did several rounds of revision on her. And then my agent, when she gave me feedback, agreed. She was like, they're all great, but this character needs a lot to work. So I'm not surprised when you told me that this was the character that you found the hardest. Yeah. So we did do a lot of development on the characters. And the other thing that I really enjoyed about this whole process that's gonna help me in future books is that I had been trying for a long time to figure out what my process was. Right. Like, what's the best process for me. And so I'd been borrowing lots of other people's tools and processes to figure it out, which is normal. I think that there's. That you do that. I think the problem that I was running into and that probably a lot of writers run into is I was trying to wholesale export other people's processes and basically say, my process needs to look like this. And if my process looks like this, writing will never suck. It'll be easy, it'll be straightforward. And of course, that's never going to happen because it's hard and complicated and messy and nonlinear. And so a big part of what I had to accept was that it is messy and nonlinear and embracing that for me, what the process. What I'm realizing my process is, because this is what has worked for every book that I've actually written all the way through, is I have to write, like, a hundred or so pages of just exploring. Then I can step back and do all the development work, and then I have the clarity I need to get all the way through. And there was a lot of times when we were doing that character work where we were looking at those hundred or so pages that I'd already written. And actually I was drafting some scenes as we learned the character work. Because doing the character work would give me ideas.

Rachel:

It would help your scenes explore.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And writing the scenes also helped me explore some of those ideas. And so there would be times when we would be going back and forth with this character stuff, and we'd be looking at a scene I'd written before I'd even started doing any of this character work. It's like, wow, past Sam was a genius. Like, look at this nice thing that I planted for myself that now I can highlight in the pages. So that was really useful for me as a writer to one get that sort of, like, pump up for myself of, oh, I do know what I'm doing. I have a lot of instincts that I can rely on.

Rachel:

Yes.

Sam Cameron:

And to also have this sense of, like, this was a process that felt comfortable and that I can, you know, repeat. It's not gonna feel the same way next time. But, like, I. I have steps, you know, like, that I feel like I can take.

Rachel:

And I think, like, a really Successful book coaching relationship allows you to lean into those things because it is so much based on instinct. It is so much based on, like, what are you, like, compelled to do? Like, you've. I. I really feel like, to me, I. I'm. This is a podcast, but I'm using my hands, so I'm going to describe it to you. To me, I feel, like, this pull in my collarbones when I'm having, like, a gut instinct of, like, I don't want to do this, I want to do this. And it, like, pulls me in a specific direction. And I think, like, a successful book coaching relationship empowers you to follow that pole, because I know we're just trying to explore characters and, like, if you have a poll to write a scene, write the scene, because you're going to learn a lot from that, and it's really powerful. And you writing those hundred pages before you even came to work with me, it was also really helpful because I got to read them and be like, this is your writing style. This is. This is the, you know, the bones we're working with for these characters. And I think it informed a ton of our conversations. And there's not, like, there's a structure to book coaching, and there's, like, a process to writing a book, but it doesn't matter. Like, it means nothing if a writer themselves doesn't align with those instincts, you know, like, if it doesn't align with that writer's process. So part of coaching, part of what makes coaching so special to me is that ability to discover that process as you're working with a writer and to meet them as they encounter those mindset hurdles, like, perfectionism, critiques, you know, like, it never stops. You're getting all these different things, and, like, having someone to talk about it with or just, like, vent about it, too, is really helpful.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah. So I think, like, you doing that to discover your process and to lean into it, I would rather you do that than, like, try to sit down and force yourself to write backstory scenes. Because I asked you to do it just because of that. Like, I'd rather have you do what you feel led to do, thinking that, like, your gut's telling you something important that you can explore, and we're gonna probably learn something from it. So let's take a week to do that and then come back and be like, oh, my gosh, here's this nugget of brilliance that I wrote this week. This is what matters. Sebastian's afraid of losing control.

Sam Cameron:

He needs to feel safe.

Rachel:

You Know.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and it was also just like, I'm, you know, now kind of getting into a place where I'm ready to write future books and, you know, kind of looking into that future of writing books without having weekly sessions with Rachel anymore, which I'm very sad about. But I think time, and that's basically what I'm doing, is I'm like, well, I know what works for me. And what I like is I start by just writing these scenes. And so instead of being frustrated of, like, why can't I just write an outline? Or why can't I just write sequential scenes that, like, one leads to another? And, like, then I have, like, a complete manuscript at the end? Neither of those works for me. Like, I'm. It's. It's not exactly what you'd envision as a panther. It's not exactly what you'd envision as a plotter. It's like a back and forth. And I think, honestly, like, a lot of people probably do that.

Rachel:

Yes. Yeah. And, like, that figuring that out doesn't mean that it takes you more time. I think that's another really big myth that, like, well, plotters save all this time because they've got it all laid out and they don't have to make a lot of changes. Wrong. That's not true. Or like, oh, just, you know, going with the flow. You move a lot faster, so it save you. No, I mean, time is arbitrary in this process. But I think your coaching journey, specifically. Specifically, like we said, you did so much in so little time, and that's. And you. You, like, explored your process, and you figured. I mean, you wrote hundreds of thousands of words.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I did.

Rachel:

I did.

Sam Cameron:

So for those of you who didn't know this, the book. When we finished. When I finished the first draft of the book, it was 163,000 words. And then when I submitted it to my agent, it was 109,000 words, which is incredible. Yeah. We're trying to get it down to 105,000 words and that. And that 163,000 words. I had already dropped some parts.

Rachel:

Yes.

Sam Cameron:

Like, by the time, like, I'd already cut some stuff that didn't fit. And I think, honestly, you know, that letting myself have my process, like, if you're talking about how, like, I know I thought it as a writer, and I think probably a lot of folks have of, like, how do I make this more efficient for myself? The thing that made it both the most fun and the most efficient was just doing it the way that felt natural for me.

Rachel:

Yeah, I believe that a hundred percent. And I see that in my clients. I see that in TW and myself, when I tried to force myself to do it a specific way, that was when I did the least amount of work. Why. Why am I gonna do something that's not fun?

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this was. This was so much fun. And anyway, so we. We started with getting to know me in the book, which was informative for both of us. Then we spent a lot of time, like a. Several good. Several months on character. And then what. What did we do after that?

Rachel:

And then we went into like a plotting phase. Ish. Because we. We did a spreadsheet, but I don't. I don't think we did a full one or I. I don't know that we went as. I have a tool where we plot, but, like, how much we do is our. I don't care. It just is kind of like what's going to be best for a client. So then we spent time, like, I think, building out the structure of the story, planning things in advance. I think you had a couple documents where you would, like, summarize, you know, what. What we're working towards. And then we. We came back because process is different in revisions. So when we got to revisions, we came back to a spreadsheet, but we spent time plotting and like, building out, you know, what does the story look like from beginning to end and how in depth you get. Doesn't matter. I think, like, what you needed at the time was to understand where we were headed, to also have the freedom to write whatever you wanted. So we did have a lot of words, we did have a lot of different plot points. You had a lot of ideas that we needed to explore, and that was incredible. So we did that, but definitely did not take as much time. And then we started drafting. Then we were like, why don't we just write?

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And that plotting part, what was interesting about that for me. And again, this is another place where I think I learned a lot about writing craft and what helped me. So I don't think I had ever before that point written an outline that had basically every plan seen of the book in it. Yeah, I had written outlines that like, summarized all the save the cat points or like, what, you know, any of the other outlining methods I tried, but I'd never actually found a version of writing every single scene in the outline. And the spreadsheet that you had me do that I actually really liked. And we'll probably do something like that again.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Was actually just having me fill out the parts of the plot structure which you and Emily have a great blog about the parts of a plot structure that I've actually printed out and given to students in a creative writing class that I taught. And I'll link to it on my substack. But what was really cool about that is that in this spreadsheet, I was filling out both scenes I had written and also scenes that I hadn't written yet. And the point was to be able to have something I decided I wanted basically every scene so that when I sat down to write, I would know exactly what needed to happen. But what was really interesting about that is I had all these scenes that I had written, and some of them were, like, fully complete scenes. And some of them, it was like, I wrote the scene, but it's not quite done, and I don't know what's missing, and I don't know how to exit the scene and, like, move on to the next. Like, I can't. Like, I had pretty good instincts for scene writing, but I had trouble, like, stringing scenes together. And so what I realized from filling out this spreadsheet was that I was really good at putting characters in a. Having characters kind of come in to a scene, experience a conflict, escalate the conflict. But what I was missing was that often they weren't coming into the scene with a goal. Yeah, sometimes they were, but sometimes they weren't. And then the other thing that was really missing was that I wasn't giving my characters a choice moment, like a decision moment, where they had to confront that conflict and make a decision that then had consequences that moved the story forward. And so actually having to plot out my story in that spreadsheet taught me this is what I was forgetting to do.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And so what it meant was that then my future scenes that I hadn't written yet had that planned out. And there were a couple of times where we did actually go off script. Like, we would get to a point in this drafting. It's like, okay, what I thought was gonna happen doesn't quite make sense. Or there's something is missing. We need to add a scene. And I didn't actually necessarily have to go in and do that whole planning process again in order to write that, because I knew what all the parts were. And so I've noticed that my scene writing, even if I don't sit down and plan out a scene first, my scenes are more complete now when I just improvise a scene.

Rachel:

Yeah. Cause I think it becomes, like, muscle memory. But you have to have a really conscious awareness of. Of scene structure or, like, how they all work together at first. And that's challenging. And, like, we. We talk a lot about this in tenacious writing, but when you're working, when you're writing a book, and, like, specifically when you're working with a coach, like, with me or working with Sam, we're asking a writer to not only, like, learn something, but then to immediately, like, put it into practice. Because we're using your book, so we're learning scene structure, and then we're immediately doing it. And that's hard. Like, that's a really tough cognitive ask of, like, asking someone to understand a theory and then apply it. Those are two different steps in, like, the learning process. But, like, that takes time is what I'm. I'm trying to get out. It takes time to, like, understand a new skill and then get good at it. But in the writing process, we often, like, skip that. We're expecting ourselves to learn something and then immediately do it, like, really, really well. Cause we just learned it. Yeah, it doesn't work like that, but I do think with working with a coach, it's way faster to bridge that gap, to, like, move up in these levels of learning because you have someone immediately giving you feedback. And I felt that way with you, where I didn't have to tell you a lot of times, or I didn't have to, like, leave comments or feedback of, we need a goal here. Like, you could see it, and then once you saw it, you built it into how your brain looks at scenes and how. How you write structure. And it does become a lot more natural. I definitely saw that with you, and I. I think that's what happens with most of us. But we just get frustrated in that middle part of, like, you're not gonna be good at it. Sorry.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, well, and I think, you know, the other thing that you're so good at with feedback is so one. You give a ton of praise and, like, hype, which is amazing. So important and so important. And, you know, so, like, anytime I would get feedback from Rachel, it was like, I would get this, like, you know, nice little glow of, like, oh, someone is, like, enjoying my. Someone's laughing at my jokes. Someone loves my little sad boys as much as I do.

Rachel:

I love that.

Sam Cameron:

My little sad boys, my stupid jokes, all that stuff. So, like, that's really nice. But then on top of that, like, from a learning perspective, something I think you do really well is that you don't try to talk about everything all at once when you're doing feedback. It's like, okay, what are we working on right now? Or what's the most important issue for us to think about right now? So it's like, we spent some time really focusing on scene structure. Right. And so that meant that as I was writing in that phase, I was mainly, like, thinking about the scene structure, and I wasn't so much worried about anything else. And then, like, once it was like, okay, scene structure is. You know, we're getting that. Then it would be something like internal processing, which was something else that I needed a bit more of on the page to kind of bridge myself, but then also the reader to, like, how did we get here? Like, how does this makes sense for this character to do this? So, like, having, like, that's that focus. Because sometimes, you know, I think a lot of us get a lot of our feedback from critique partners. And critique partners are wonderful, but most of the time, critique partners are not trained coaches or editors. And so what I think can get some sort of frustrating for some writers is that you might get a lot of feedback from a critique partner where they're talking about a lot of different things and maybe aren't the most important thing for you to focus on right now? So, like, figuring out from that feedback, like, what do I do right now? And then the other thing is that I think really good coaches are also very good at identifying why something isn't working. Whereas I think that sometimes critique partners are good at identifying that something isn't working. Yes. And because they're not trained, may not know why something's not working, which is then how you end up with feedback that's like, well, I think it's all these things that I'm. And it may not actually be the root of the problem. Exactly. So I think that's another benefit of working with a coach as opposed to a critique partner is that, you know, coaches especially, who are experienced and have been trained, know how to focus on just, like, the most important thing at a time and, like, kind of building you. Helping you build, like, one skill at a time or a couple skills at a time, instead of trying to help you do everything all at once and then also tend to be really good at saying, oh, here's the problem, right. Instead of something's not right here. And I don't know what it is. Not that we don't sometimes have those conversations like we do.

Rachel:

Yeah, we do. Because, I mean, that's. That's also part of It. Because some of that too is. I can feel something's not right, but I don't know what you're looking for. So then we can talk about like, okay, what's our goal with this? Like, we just had this with that. With that chunk of internal processing from Viola.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, we had this chunk of internal processing for Viola where I was working on some edit notes from my agent of like adding in a particular sort of like internal thing for this character and just like having more of it like show up on the page at various points in the story. And I like written a version. Then I was like, I don't really know. And Rachel's like, yeah, I don't really know either. This seems not quite right. And so then we talked about it and I wrote a different version which worked so much better.

Rachel:

Yeah. And that. That happens a lot. Um, but like being able. You're so right that being able to identify why. Even if I can't say, here's what I would suggest to do, I still am going to try to verbalize like, this is why I was confused or I don't feel like this aligns or maybe we could be more clear with goals or, you know, what. What are we trying to say? Um, but yeah, I. It's very intentional. It. I. I want. Did it feel. I mean, you just said that it did. But at the time, like when we're working through those early, this is what we would call like the skill, like the on page skills development part of the, of the program that, that we work with. So this is like phase four, phase five, whatever. But I'm very like intentionally only doing one thing at a time because it is too much to do everything. And it also is like not going to be helpful in the long run if I highlight every single thing that could possibly be changed on a document that, as a. Getting that, like as an author getting that back, you would look at that and be like, holy crap, I'm. I'm terrible. Like this whole. I should throw it out. Like, that's. No, that's not effective. We're not reaching our learning goals. We're not learning anything. So I do normally follow exactly how you described. I always do scene structure first. A little bit of show, don't tell. So usually that's internal processing or, or like a reaction progressions, which is interesting because we worked on reaction progressions for you and I pointed them out for like maybe the first 25% of the book. And we reached a part where we were like, we know that putting physical Reactions on the page needs to happen, but that's not a line. That's not important, really. Right. So we also hit a point where we knew that a skill needed to come or not a skill. We knew that, like, a piece of the story needed to come. But, like, in the time that you were writing it, it was so unimportant. It doesn't matter that Sebastian's heart's racing versus, like, that's not on the page. Right. So we put a lot of placeholders to be like, okay, you're going to come back to that later, because you understand that it needs to be there. We need to feel it and see it. But right now, as we're writing it, it's. It's meaningless.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Those things are so easy to add in.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Later, like, once, you know, they belong there. And what I've noticed. What I noticed, and I think that was this was the point where we decided to just, you know, put all the TKs in there for physical reactions is that. That's just hard for me to, like, think about in the moment.

Rachel:

Me, too.

Sam Cameron:

Like, I especially. Because, like, it just ends up not being a lot of diversity in what I say, because I'm like, okay, a lot of times, if I'm actually, like, thinking about that when I'm writing, I'm sitting at my desk and I'm like, all right, I'm in this situation. I'm embodying the situation with my character. And that's assuming that I'm not, like, so in it. That I'm not. That I'm just, like, with the character, that I'm actually consciously still having Sam thoughts. And I'm like, okay, if I'm in this situation and imagining being in the situation, where in my body, do I feel that? Right. Well, everyone's bodies are different. So I feel everything in my stomach or my chest. So my early drafts, that's where my characters feel all their feelings, too. And I forget about things like sweating and, you know, whatever else it is that people do. So, like, body language is just not. Or, like, physical reactions. I just don't think about them that much.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

But whenever I could, like, give someone a prop.

Rachel:

Yes.

Sam Cameron:

Like, there was a scene that I wrote where, like, Liv had a jar of gummy worms on her desk. And, like, anytime I could give someone a prop, it was like, okay, great. Like, physicalization, they're doing something, and, you know, whatever their physical reaction is is related to this prop that they have, which I think why there's also, like, in all of my books, There's. The early drafts, have a lot of going to coffee shops or bars or eating, because, like, if people are eating and drinking, they have props that they.

Rachel:

Can use for doing that, writing like a family. Just in my books, there's always these family meetings, and they always happen over the dinner table. And that's fine for, like. Yeah, that. That actually often happens, but it's. It's the exact same reason it's only happening at the dinner table, because otherwise, they would all be sitting around a couch doing nothing. So they have to be doing.

Sam Cameron:

They have to be doing something. Yeah. And, like, I was. I thought so much. This. So this book, especially the early draft, there was a lot of, like, drinking alcohol and being in bars, and there's still kind of a lot. And I remember thinking to myself that in real life, most F1 drivers hardly ever drink because, like, they have to be in such good physical condition. And so I was just like, okay, we're just gonna pretend. Just gonna pretend that that doesn't matter for the purpose of this book, because it's convenient if someone has a pint of beer that they can be fiddling with while we're having this conversation.

Rachel:

Exactly. But when we were drafting it, like, it wasn't important to me that you had the right thing on the page. It was important to me that, like, you could understand why that would. Needed to be there, and then later, you can fill it in. I mean, like, my. I'm sure you feel the same way with your clients. Like, our goal as coaches is not to help our clients write a perfect book. Our goal is to teach our clients how to get the book where they want it to be, whether that is right now or, like, in a couple months from now. Because all you needed was. I. I don't even think I had to. I didn't have to teach you what reaction progressions were. I just was like, we need a physical reaction here because of these reasons. And you're like, yeah. And then we had this exact conversation. We were like, it's not important. We'll do it later. But then we just kept. We, like, kept an eye on it, and we. We started to do, like, TK Physical reaction or, like, yeah, TK Something else. And that's. That's fine, because to me, that demonstrates a knowledge where I know you're thinking about it. I don't care that you have the exact sweat on the brow that you want to have, because my. My characters. The only, like, reactions they ever have are heart racing.

Sam Cameron:

So, yeah, There's a lot of heart racing. Lots of heart racing in.

Rachel:

Lots of gasping. Yeah, I gotta go back and change that.

Sam Cameron:

But, yeah, there's lots of clenching. Fist clenching.

Rachel:

Lots of fist clenching. Lots of eyes narrowing. My characters narrow their eyes all the time.

Sam Cameron:

Mine. Mine do a lot of eyebrow work.

Rachel:

Yeah. But, like, the skills development is just about. The first draft is not the place to worry about it being everything lined up. The first draft is just the place to think about. I'm practicing new things. I'm trying to understand all these pieces and how they fit together. And at the same time, like, we've already talked about scene structure. We've already talked about internal processing. Now we're talking about this. And every single time that you approach a scene, you're trying to do all those things at once. It's much more effective if you layer them together.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And revisions happen in layers, too. So we're working on these revisions right now where we're skipping ahead a little bit. But spoiler alert, I got the draft. I wrote the book that was most of then the second set of art I drafted basically between June of 2024 and November of 2024. And then Rachel and I together did several revision passes between, Like, I took some time off away from the book. And then we did several revision passes between November, December of 2024, and April, late April of 2025. And then I pitched to my agent in not really expecting anything to come of it. Like, I still thought actually we were going to be doing more revisions before it got anywhere. But she made an offer pretty quickly, and so now we're working on. Conveniently, her feedback came at the same time that I was getting my first round of beta reader feedback, which normally doesn't happen because, again, it just all happened a lot faster than we thought. So I have all this feedback from my agent and then also from my beta readers, which also, very conveniently, the things that the agent said aligned with stuff that the beta readers had said. And that was a really useful litmus test for me about whether or not she was a good fit. Something else Rachel helped me to figure out. We had a conversation about, what are the red flags? What am I looking for?

Rachel:

Which was. I mean, I know. I know that we were surprised by the timeline, but, like, I wasn't really, though. I know you were. But, like, I wasn't really, like. And we spent. I also think it was really, really cool because we spent time together on your pitch and your query.

Sam Cameron:

Oh, that. Yeah, that too. I also worked on the Pitch.

Rachel:

Yeah. And that was. I think we spent, like, three weeks doing it. Yeah, a little bit each week. Yeah. Doing it together was a blast.

Sam Cameron:

Oh, it was so much better than, like, the time I've written pitches by myself.

Rachel:

Yes, it was so much more fun. I mean, there was one time where I was like, okay, get up and practice it, you know? Yeah, perform it to me, you know, and, like, I think.

Sam Cameron:

Which was very awkward for me, but.

Rachel:

It was really fun. We did that. And, like, I knew you going into that conference, you would get requests because of, again, going back to us aligning. Like, just from the moment I heard about the story, I was like, this is going to be sold so easy. Like, this is going to be picked up. Everyone's going to want it. Yes, I want it. So my belief was, like, 110% that that would happen. And it did happen really fast, which is incredible.

Sam Cameron:

Really fast. And this all just highlights, like, how much, how many parts of this process you and I have worked on together of, like, planning, drafting, revising, pitching, now revising some more, and also starting to work on pitches for future books to go in the series. But anyway, so what I was originally kind of getting at was that I have all this feedback from my agent, and I have this feedback from these beta readers. And what we did essentially, is we categorized the feedback into the types of things that I needed to work on. So one of the things I needed to work on was. So the central premise of Twelfth Night, for any of you who don't know, is that there's this pair of siblings who look very similar in the original play. One's a boy, one's a girl, and Viola, the sister, disguises as a man or a boy in order to sort of make it in the world, believing that her brother's dead and her brother's not dead. He shows up in the same place, and they get surprised and they get confused for each other and chaos ensues. So if that sounds familiar to you, that might be because you're like, oh, wait, this is. She's the man. Yes, yes, she's the man. That's what she's the man is a retelling of Twelfth Night. So the central premise of the play and of all of the retellings of it are this kind of confusion of these siblings and, like, getting them mixed up. And so one of the pieces of feedback was to add more of the chaos of the siblings switching places and being confused for each other. And then we talked about before that Liv is my problem child, and There was some stuff that we needed to work on for her. And then those were the two biggest. And everything else are things that I have to add a lot of little changes, like a sentence here and there in a lot of chapters, but not as much big restructuring. So what Rachel and I did was we kind of made these categories. We talked about how to go about making the changes. And it's been really effective to go through the draft, like, as much as it's weird to be reading these, like, working on it, like, in this disembodied kind of way of, like, it's not sequential anymore. It has been really effective that, like, anytime I'm reading through the draft to, like, look for these places to make these changes. It's so nice to not be trying to think about everything all at once.

Rachel:

Yes.

Sam Cameron:

So it's like, I might. If I see something that's like, oh, this is a change, I knew I have to. I have to make, I figured out one sentence I can put here to make it, or, like, this is something I can cut, then I just do it. But I'm not, like, constantly thinking about all the things I need to do. It's just like, okay, here's the one concern we have right now. I'm gonna just deal with that, and then we're gonna deal with the next one. And it's that same sort of layering of, like, when we were drafting. It's like, we're gonna worry about this part first. And now that we feel good about this part, as I draft forward, we're gonna worry about this other thing.

Rachel:

Yes. It's impossible. I won't say impossible. I think it's incredibly challenging to go, like, scene by scene and put in every single thing that you're gonna change all at once.

Sam Cameron:

It's.

Rachel:

I think it's unrealistic. I think it takes a lot of time. I think it, like, slows your role, I guess. Like, it's it. And I also think you don't. Because all the parts of a book inform one another. I do think that, like, that would have been really difficult to do specifically in your situation because of the way that, like, you know, the different parts of Sebastian and Viola's story impact the different parts of Liv's story. And, like, kind of doing one at a time helped us make decisions. If you're trying to do it all at once, it just would have felt incredibly overwhelming. It would have been. It's not even that you're making a lot of changes. I just feel like it's Too many parts to hold.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

At one time.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And also, I mean, the. So the other thing that I think sometimes writers can get really stuck on when they're drafting is wanting. Wanting to feel, like, very confident in what they have drafted before they move on. And one of the experiences that we had with this book that really helped me shift my mindset on this is there was this whole plot line that we started out in the draft where the characters are trying to convince another character who's retired to come out of retirement to join the team. And I was writing a bunch of the scenes that went with that, that sort of plot arc. And there were several scenes there that I was like, this just isn't really working. Like, I'm having a hard time embodying this scene. Like, I'm just not getting there. And what we ended up doing was just, like, leaving a bunch of bullet points and moving on. Like, I could visualize well enough what needed to happen in that scene that I didn't need to write it to move on. And it ended up being, like, a really good thing that I didn't spend a ton of time agonizing over making that scene, like, perfect on the page. But because we cut that whole arc, it's not in the book.

Rachel:

Exactly.

Sam Cameron:

Once again, it doesn't need to be in the book.

Rachel:

Yeah. And, like, once again, I think your gut tells you something. And, like, I. I think there is a really, like, a benefit to doing it, to see it done, to, like, feel. To, like, muddy through the discomfort. That's what I'm saying.

Sam Cameron:

Of.

Rachel:

Of. You know, we had to write the bullet points. We needed to see the ark through. Like, we had to get that down in whatever mess it looked like. But we weren't like, oh, if. If I just made it perfect, then, like, I would feel really, like, why don't I just struggle right here until it feels good? It was like, well, if it doesn't feel good, just do what makes sense and then move on.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Because we'll come back to it later and probably have more answers or more clarity.

Sam Cameron:

And there were actually several times where sometimes the answer was just cutting the scene entirely or the arc entirely. And then there were, I think, a few other times where I kind of remember deciding to move ahead with, like, this is a chapter I'm having a hard time with. I already write out of order, like, as part of a natural part of my process. So we're just gonna skip the scene, and we're gonna come back to it, and maybe there's Some answers that I got writing a later scene that helped me go back, you know, and fill in that other scene.

Rachel:

And I feel like every single time we found the answers.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

It's not like we. They didn't come, you know.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. So you don't have to worry if you are in that situation and you're like, but I will never be able. Because I have definitely seen some people are like, you can't possibly like move on if you don't know everything. It's okay.

Rachel:

It's okay.

Sam Cameron:

It's okay.

Rachel:

You can. I think people are. It's not that they don't know how to move on. It's that they're just very frightened of the unknown. And. And it takes a lot of self trust to move on. To be like, I'm going to come back to this later. I don't like it now.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. That was the other biggest thing that I got out of coaching was that self rebuilding my self trust. Like I think I. As an earlier in my writing career, I say career, I was probably a teenager. This part I'm talking about. Right. You know, like as a teenager you're kind of. So not all teenagers, but some teenagers are very fearless about things.

Rachel:

Right.

Sam Cameron:

You don't know what you don't know. So that's how I was about writing. I was, you know, like, I definitely wasn't doing like super risky teen stuff, but like I was pretty fearless about writing or acting. Like I could improvise a scene, I could like write and I wasn't doing a whole lot of like, I didn't have a whole lot of self doubt about what I was writing.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And then once I started to actually like move into this, this phase of wanting to do it professionally and like wanting to have an audience, that's when. And then taking in all the stuff that's supposed to help me learn and get better. Which did. But also like made me start to think like, oh, here's this thing that I'm not good at yet. Or like I don't know how to do yet. And getting in my head about that and also not trusting that I would actually do the work. Which I think is something you and Emily have talked about before. Right. And I see it with a lot of writers, right. You come up with all these structures of I have to make myself write or I'm never going to write. And it was so earth shattering when I was like, what if I just trusted that I'm going to do it because I want to do it.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And stopped Making myself. And that was huge because now I don't actually have a set writing schedule.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Like, I don't say, like, okay, this is my writing time, and I'm going to write during these times and only this time. And if I don't, then I have failed. I just, When I, like, actually look for the time in the day and then the week when I can do it because I want to.

Rachel:

Exactly. Because you want to. And you're gonna do what you wanna do. I, I, this is why I think mindset matters so much, is because I don't think people worry about wanting to be a writer and having enough time to write. And like, oh, I don't think people agonize over finding time to write unless they want to write.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And then when you have these other things that get in the way or like, I don't, I guess I should say I don't think people agonize over having a structure to their process unless they want to write.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

So the fear that, like, well, if I don't put rules about it, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, I don't know. Because I think you want to. Otherwise we wouldn't be, you wouldn't be listening to this if you didn't want to.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

So then it's about removing the barriers that block you from that. Some of that's practical. Right. Like, we have obligations throughout our day. Bummer. But the other part is, like, when you sit down, if there's anything that's telling you this isn't going to be good enough, or you don't know what you're doing, or you're never going to figure it out, or you're a piece of shit. You know, like all those things.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Those are the things where you're like, why don't we, let's get rid of those. If we can get rid of those, then it is fun. You do just show up whenever you want. And then you write books like, here you are.

Sam Cameron:

Not that it gets fun a hundred percent of the time. Like, there's gonna be days when it's not. But I've been having so much more fun writing since I started to trust myself to do the writing and not, like, bully myself into writing and getting better and stuff. That it's like, it's just so much a better experience. And because it's a better experience, I'm going to keep doing it. As opposed to, like, you kind of, you kind of can get into this cycle of. Because you make the, because the, the experience is so unpleasant because of all the pressure.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Then you don't want to do it. And then you're like, well, I need to make myself do it because I'm not doing it. So. Yeah, that self trust, you know, the self trust that I would write, the self trust that I have good instincts, the self trust that I can do the process the way that makes sense for me. That all like was. That's all what came with coaching and then having a sounding board, having accountability.

Rachel:

Oh, that's really important.

Sam Cameron:

You know, having someone to hype me up, like, that's all what came from it.

Rachel:

I also remember, like you did a lot of personal work on resting.

Sam Cameron:

Yes.

Rachel:

And like incorporating that into your life and your process. Like, no, I need, I do rest. I want to rest. And that. That paid off, right?

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, it did. Yeah. So actually that was the other thing is nuts about like this process. We were talking about how much we did and how little time. I was also still teaching as a not full time, but pretty close to full time high school teacher and running my coaching business and my substack and teaching a creative writing class at the community college and writing a book. Like I was doing a lot.

Rachel:

You're doing a lot.

Sam Cameron:

So much stuff. And I realized I was like, you know, if I take like a nap at 1 o' clock in the afternoon every single day, I'm actually going to be more effective than if I push through being sleepy in the afternoon.

Rachel:

Yeah, yeah. I. This is so like this, this is a case study in and of itself. But like there we did intent. Like we talked a lot about rest and we talked a lot about making sure that you were able to replenish your energy levels because you are doing so much. And now looking back at it, I'm like, dang. I don't feel like we hustled, you know, Like, I know you worked. I know you worked really hard. And that's why I think there's. Working hard does not have to equal, you know, killing yourself with.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. Or burning out.

Rachel:

Burning out, exactly. Like just burning out. Working hard does not have to equal burning out. Because I think what you chose to incorporate very intentional periods of rest and it allowed you to do more than if you had not rested.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, absolutely. Because again, like there was definitely there would occasionally be times where I was like, I'm actually not tired, I don't need to take a nap. But most of the time it's like I was getting home from school at like one o' clock in the afternoon. And I would go take a nap. And there were days when that nap was 30 minutes. There were days when that nap was two hours, just depending on my energy level. And then I would do my second half of my day, you know, after I got up from my nap. And I was intentionally not doing a lot of work on the weekends either. Like, I was. I would sometimes, if it felt fun, and I didn't have a lot of obligations. Like, I would just disappear into the book all day on a Saturday and get a lot done. And then sometimes that just wasn't gonna happen. Like. And that was fine.

Rachel:

Yeah. Cause you still wanna, like, spend time with your wife and do things and have a good. You know, like, it doesn't have to be. I don't. I'm gonna say this for you, and then you tell me if this is true. I don't think you filled every spare second of your life with writing.

Sam Cameron:

Oh, no, I did not. I absolutely did not. No, I. I totally did not. Like, there was still, like I said there was with the naps. There were plenty of times where, like, this time it didn't happen a ton, but there were definitely times where it was like, okay, I'm just done for the day. It's only three o' clock, but I'm out, like, tapped out. I have nothing I have to do. Like, that has to happen the rest of the day. I'm gonna go, like, listen to my audiobook or, like, watch TV or spend the whole weekend on the couch, you know, or, like, you know, actually, like, go hang out with my friends. So I. Yeah, I wasn't. I really wasn't sacrificing living my life to write this book.

Rachel:

Exactly. Which I think is really, like, that should. I want that to be everyone's experience? I want. Whether you're working with a coach or not, I. I firmly believe that you can accomplish everything that you want to accomplish within a reasonable time frame. If you're choosing to take care of yourself, if you're resting, if you're like. Like, the craft knowledge, as we've spoken about, is. Is really important. But if you're also diving into the. The fears, the inner critic, all of those things that, you know, seem like they're unimportant, but really are the biggest pieces of this puzzle. When you take care of all those things and. And you remove all the barriers, like, whoa. You can do so much in such a short period of time. And not even. And you're not even hustling. You're not even, like, you've Just found harmony.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah. I think you found that we. The word is also balance. But we ha. We did a podcast episode with Corey Leger, who is a. Is an acting coach, and she talked a lot about how, like, balance implies that everything's equal, and it's just not always equal. But if you have harmony, then, like, everything's working together as you want it to.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And I think that.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I like that. I. I think so, too. Like, I like that harmony idea because, like, again, I'm thinking about those weekends where sometimes it's like, okay, I'm just, like, really having a great time.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

You know, I check in with my wife, and she's like, yeah, you know, if you don't have anything we gotta do, I can go play my video games. You know, you go play, you know, in your book, and we would just do that.

Rachel:

Yeah. And there it is.

Sam Cameron:

And there it is.

Rachel:

And then some weekends. It's not. Some weekends, it's not do something together or do. Yeah. So it's, you know, the. The struggle for balance also won't happen.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel:

We just try to find, like, how things are going to work together. And I'm not. I'm not one for optimizing, because that word. I'm about to say how I like it, but the terminology of, like, optimizing your writing life, it feels so clinical and robotic and, like. And filling. All those spare moments to, like, get the most out of it. But, like, optimizing your writing life to accomplish your goals is. Is really about not optimizing anything.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And, like, checking in regularly and knowing. Also knowing it's not going to be consistent, that, you know, it's. There's going to be an ebb and a flow and that. That's okay. That it's going to be messy. And that's okay.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

As long as it does feel, like, harmonious and, you know, you're. You're not beating yourself up.

Rachel:

Exactly.

Sam Cameron:

So working with Rachel was probably the best decision that I've made in my writing career. Um, it was incredible. I learned so much, and it was just, like, such a highlight of my week every week to, like, talk to Rachel and turn in my pages. So we are gonna spend the rest of the summer working on revisions and doing some planning for what I hope will be books two and three of this series. And then I will be still a member of Tenacious Writing. So I will see Rachel, continue to see Rachel and hop into those group coaching sessions and continue to get support from the community. So if you're listening to all of this, and you're like, I want what Sam has. I want the support and the leveling up and to not feel like garbage when I'm writing. How, Rachel, can people find you and your writing community and your coaching services?

Rachel:

Thank you. Um, let me first say that working with you was a dream. Like, is. Is continues to be. Will be. I mean, ideal client if I've ever had one. I. This was so much fun and, like, such a pleasure. And, you know, I'm sad that. That you're moving on, but I also unders. Like, it's time, you know, Like, I'm going to be sad not to have our weekly meetings, but I also am like, oh, my God, you have an agent. You're going to sell this book. You're going to sell a series. Like, this is going to be so cool, you know? So I. I just am so proud of you and all the work that you've done, and I thank you.

Sam Cameron:

It's.

Rachel:

It's just incredible.

Sam Cameron:

So, yeah, it's. It's been amazing.

Rachel:

Thanks for it. You know, it's. It's taken a chance on me, too, so thanks for taking a chance on me.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel:

That was fun. Well, if you want to find us, my website is goldenmayediting.com and our program, Tenacious Writing can be found on that website, but it also is Tenacious Writing. You can check us out there. And we also have a podcast called Story Magic. It's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It's our little fun way of just showing up, I guess, talking about whatever things we want to talk about. So. Yeah. And then you can find us on Instagram. My Instagram is @butcoach, Rachel. And then we have a Tenacious Writing page. It's Tenacious Writing.

Sam Cameron:

Amazing. And anything else you want to share about coaching before I send us off?

Rachel:

I think it's just, like, my greatest pleasure. I don't know. Like, it's just so fun. It's wonderful. And I think you should do it. Anybody, if you're. If you're thinking this might be for me, not. Not even just with me. Like, Sam is a coach. Go work with Sam. There's so many incredible coaches in the world. And, you know, I. I hope we all provide this. This same type of service of, like, we care about our authors and we care about helping them and helping them tell the stories that they want to tell, and it really is life changing.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of us do all know each other, so.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Like, I don't know every single coach in the world, but I do know a lot. So if I've. There's been times when people have come to me and I've said, actually, you'd be a better fit for this person, let me introduce you. And vice versa.

Rachel:

Yeah, exactly.

Sam Cameron:

So if you have any inkling that working with a coach might be something you'd like, reach out to Rachel, reach out to me. And if we're not the right person for you, we probably know someone who is and can help make that match.

Rachel:

Exactly.

Sam Cameron:

So if you found this helpful and you like this conversation, you should definitely check out Story Magic, which is Rachel and Emily's podcast. And it's super helpful. It's fun to eavesdrop on their conversations and. And you can also subscribe to my substack Truant Pen, where I share weekly actionable advice for stuck writers delivered right to your inbox, including, increasingly often, some conversations like this one. So thank you, Rachel, so much for coming.

Rachel:

Thank you. This was so fun.

Sam Cameron:

All right, bye, everybody.

Rachel:

Bye. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list. Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night. Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.