Why Author Yogi Is Different. It's About YOU.
I'm not your usual author coach. My focus isn't on helping you make more sales, marketing your books more effective, or treating you, or your books, like a box of cereal you'd buy at the store. And I admit that may seem a little harsh. I get it. But I've been doing two things this year. First, I've been reading a lot of newsletters from a lot of people who seem to have a lot of the answers to avoiding burnout and I've been doing a lot of thinking about my approach to writing and how a lot of that advice just feels...flat...to me. If you're here, something tells me that I'm not alone in this. My identity intersects with a few different communities that are under pressure, and dare I say attack, these days by certain regimes and forces, and that is going to have an impact on my writing. It just is. Like staying up late and only getting a couple of hours of sleep is going to impact the next day whether you're sitting at your desk working or trying to have a vacation with the family, the constant strain and pressure of trying to share some joy and creativity with the world while wondering what in the nine hells is going to happen next, well that's a lot. And yes, I can take a moment to acknowledge that if you're not queer, neurodivergent, or disabled/chronically ill that you're probably feeling the upheaval too. I get it, and I have no desire to negate anyone's lived experiences. My work with the creative nervous system is designed to be a holistic approach to living as an author today. And let me be clear, just because "yogi" is in the name, this isn't a "do yoga and you'll be just fine" type of approach, either. I hate that when someone says to me "have you tried yoga?" so you can bet I sure as heck won't say it to you. What I am all about is calming and soothing a nervous system that's rattled by day-to-day living and allowing it to feel safe so that my creativity, my writing, and yes, my stories, can come through, which in turn helps me, and thus, it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't know about you, but I write the genres I write and tell the stories I do because I want to get away from the real world, and something tells me that you're the same. And if you write something that examines the real world, then you're doing so because it brings a sense of justice and control. The bad guys get caught. The murder gets solved. The main characters live to fight another day. Whatever your writing feeds in you, that's what your creative nervous system needs. What our creative nervous system doesn't need right now is someone offering another system, one that's guaranteed results if only you buy into a program. It needs individualized approaches, attention that comes from someone who sees you for you, as a whole, complete embodied author, not just someone to sell to. Someone who understands the struggles of the community of which you're a part. Someone who gets it, what it's like living in your skin, with your identity, with your body. And if I don't have that lived experience, someone who is willing to learn what it means to be you. That's why Author Yogi is different. Because Author Yogi isn't about me. It's about you. Read the full article
