B is for Book Coach

Welcome back to a special edition of B is for Book Coach . In these episodes, I’m reading through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident —the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors. If you want to follow along or jump ahead, pocket-sized copies are available on Amazon, and every Substack subscriber gets a fillable PDF copy as well. Today, we’re reading from: Reima...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for a guided 5 Minute Outline. - Why I don't believe in writer's block - One kind of block many of us do face - 5 Minute Outline ( If you’re new to 5 Minute Outlines, you can click through to an introduction .) - What are you going to do with this book? - Why are you writing ? - What might feel unshareable? - What will it take for you...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for growth . One year and one month of posting on Substack has taught me that when you’re in the right place, you can create one year and one month of content. That’s it. And it’s everything. - What I've learned about growth in the content space - What I've learned about myself in the content space - What it takes to grow beyond the c...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for mobility . I have hyper mobile joints—or, as we might have called it in the ‘90s, “stupid human tricks.” Without any real awareness of this imbalance, I couldn’t put any intention toward rectifying it. So my body did what bodies do best: it contorted itself, according to its overriding command to survive at all costs. This came to...

Welcome back to a special edition of B is for Book Coach . In these episodes, I’m reading through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident —the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors. If you want to follow along or jump ahead, pocket-sized copies are available on Amazon, and every Substack subscriber gets a fillable PDF copy as well. Today, we’re reading from: Your...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for a guided 5 Minute Outline. When you are writing for something more than the transaction of it all, the bigness of the work is twofold. There’s the complexity of constructing a book, and then there’s the complexity of leading change in your corner of the world. So when I say “start with the small,” I don’t mean that we’re going to...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for momentum . From time to time, I have to pause to look up definitions of very basic words, because I’ve realized my neurodivergent self isn’t using them quite the same way dominant society does. - Checking our definitions around productivity - Checking our assumptions around our own productivity - Checking the societal expectations...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for weeds . Do you remember last spring, when I landed in the middle of a tangled mess of roots in my garden bed—one that I decided could serve as a metaphor for my life ? It started with an attempt to clear surface level weeds from a garden bed tucked alongside my house, journeyed through the pit of despair that was the realization t...

Welcome back to a special edition of B is for Book Coach . In these episodes, I’m reading through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident —the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors. If you want to follow along or jump ahead, pocket-sized copies are available on Amazon, and every Substack subscriber gets a fillable PDF copy as well. Today, we’re reading from: Your...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for a guided 5 Minute Outline. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been immersed in Anne Frank’s world. It started because Alice Hoffman, author of Practical Magic, is one of my favorite authors, and I needed a new audiobook to listen to at night. Her most recent, When We Flew Away , happened to be a fictionalized prequel to Anne Frank’s di...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for finishing…or not. A few years ago, a client came to me with a beautiful book idea and a not-so-pretty anxiety. Time was getting away from him. - The pain of an unfinished project. - The marketing bros who exploit that pain. - How to heal that pain even before the project is finished. The B is for Book Coach space is one way I crea...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space without obligation. “I guess everyone wants to write a book at some point, right?” I hear this so often it’s hard not to roll my eyes—not at you, the person I’ve probably only just met face to face and am so glad to hear from. But at the messaging that has so heavily influenced our world. - The overwhelming messaging that "you need a...

Welcome back to a special edition of B is for Book Coach . In these episodes, I’m reading through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident —the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors. If you want to follow along or jump ahead, pocket-sized copies are available on Amazon, and every Substack subscriber gets a fillable PDF copy as well. Today, we’re reading from: Your...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for a guided 5 Minute Outline. The most effective nonfiction masterclass I’ve ever experienced was not in a workshop or conference. It wasn’t paywalled behind a subscription fee, and it didn’t end in a sales pitch. It was—and is—the “red dress” scene from the movie The Matrix: https://youtu.be/IJrjcHx9nDA?si=Gp_DzUstvMBJLV0r The brill...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space without intruders. I manage a birthing room like I manage the writer’s room in your head. …maybe I should back up and explain a few things. - Birth as a parallel to writing - Writing rooms as internal spaces - Who gets to be in the space and how it's managed - Recovering your energy after an intrusion Hey, thanks for creating this spa...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for names. I have a unique name. My very first self-branded copy was this: Hey, there! I'm Brannan. You can call me B. You're also likely to call me Brannon, Branan, Brennan, Brandon, Brandy, Brenda, Britney, Brianna...​​ You can call me anything, as long as you call me when you're stuck. It’s true that I’ve been called all of those t...

Welcome to a special edition of B is for Book Coach . In these episodes, I’m going to read through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident —the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors. If you want to follow along or jump ahead, pocket-sized copies are available on Amazon, and every Substack subscriber gets a fillable PDF copy as well. Today, we’re reading from: The...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for a Guided 5 Minute Outline. I often hear that a 5 minute outline recording or episode helped someone, followed quickly by the acknowledgement that it took 15 minutes or more to get through. I think my record 5 minute outline was 45 minutes long. The thing is, the “5 minutes” part of the outline isn’t a gimmick that never comes thro...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for patterns. If you don’t have a teenager in your house, you might not have jumped onto the KPop Demon Hunters bandwagon yet. It’s an animated movie about (surprise!) a KPop girl group who hunts demons. Pretty straightforward setup, if you're open to a vital message delivered like a musical punch to the gut. - Patterns that we tend t...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for resistance. The other day, a colleague posted a thread on LinkedIn about certain things that aren’t as scary as we were led to believe they’d be when we were kids in the ‘90s. Quicksand. Razorblades in Halloween candy. Spontaneous combustion. I’d like to submit to the record: Resistance . - The fear of resistance - The reality of...

Welcome to a special edition of B is for Book Coach . In these episodes, I’m going to read through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident —the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors. Today, we’re reading from: Ethos and Process. To get the rest of the workbook right away, look for You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident on Amazon , or subscribe on Substack to get a...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . I’m B, midwife of big ideas and book development partner for writers and non-writers alike. And for the next few minutes, you are my author. Today, we’re making space for a magical Guided 5 Minute Outline. These exercises are usually pointed toward one specific kind of content, but this one is about remembering who you are. You can reach your people. It doesn’...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . I’m B, midwife of big ideas and book development partner for writers and non-writers alike. And for the next few minutes, you are my author. Today, we’re making space for balance. Can a multipassionate, purpose-first change-maker find a routine so balanced that they’re actually satisfied? - The myth and misunderstanding of balance - The vulnerability of being...

Welcome to a special edition of B is for Book Coach . In these episodes, I’m going to read through pieces of You Don’t Get to the Ocean by Accident —the workbook version of the early work I do with all of my authors. If you want to follow along or jump ahead, pocket-sized copies are available on Amazon, and every Substack subscribe r gets a fillable PDF copy as well. Today, we’re reading from: the...

Welcome back to B is for Book Coach . Today, we’re making space for perspective. A few weeks ago, one of my teenagers wanted to spend the day “body-doubling” at the library to make progress on the last of her eighth grade school work. I took the opportunity to get my own stack of tasks done, but not before I stepped inside to grab a book that one of my authors referenced as a complementary title....