Cynthia Morris

When asked what I do, I reply, “ I help people write books.” I’ve learned to super-simplify it, because I can’t go around firehosing people with “I’m an author, artist and coach who teaches people how to know, love and trust their process. I also lead creativity retreats in Paris and teach workshops online.” I’m exhausted trying to list all the things I do! 

But ‘help people write books’ doesn’t tell the full story of how I help my clients bring their ideas into form and into the world. In this article, I’ll open the kimono to show what, specifically, my book coaching can look like. We’ll walk through some of the ways I coached Paula Preschelack to write, publish, and promote her book. 

I love coaching Paula Preschlack. She’s a skilled, seasoned writer who wrangled her professional ideas and insights into a book that will reach millions. This year was ready to find a publisher. This is not an easy feat.

But Paula achieved what I consider the equivalent of getting an Olympic Gold Medal: she landed a book deal with an independent press. Chicago Review Press signed on to publish Paula’s non-fiction book, The Montessori Potential: How to Foster Indepence, Respect, and Joy and in Every Child. And, Paula signed an audiobook deal, too! Paula’s book comes out in February, 2023. 

I couldn’t be happier for her. I’m doing a victory lap for all her success; I know how hard she’s worked on this project. Here’s what brought us to this place. 

We’ve been working on her book for several years. I coached Paula through many drafts and life changes. We celebrated her new author life when she transitioned out of her career as head of school at a Montessori school into full-time writing and speaking. A coaching relationship with me is not just about getting things done. It’s much more than having someone you’re accountable to. 

Together we’ve worked through the following: 

How to write organize the material in her book This takes a lot of time and thought. Knowing what belongs in the book is one thing. Structuring the writing in a way that honors the material and the author’s style and voice is another piece. 

How to manage a busy life and stay focused on her book  This is a perennial subject that needs regular focus. There is no ‘normal’ week. Life is dynamic, throwing random things into the mix regularly. Often, we think we’ll have the same writing routine every week. But Paula learned she needed to be flexible and an ardent opportunist if she didn’t want life to overtake her writing goals. Every author will have to renew their commitment again and again. 

Transitioning out of her former career and into her writing career  This was a big life change. While she was ready for it, the change called for a lot of support. The emotional labor involved in a career shift is significant. I helped Paula process the feelings around all she was leaving and all she was moving toward. 

How to structure her time and energy as a writer and speaker I helped Paula think about the bigger picture of her career as an author. Once we identified what she wanted that to look like, we focused on both practical matters and mindset shifts required to go from employee to self-employed. 

Developing systems for her new work life  It was fun to help Paula design her work systems according to her specific writing goals. Taking time to set things up in a way that would work for her, rather than just adopting processes willy nilly, set Paula up for years to come. 

Writing pitch materials to get a publisher  This is a tough part of the author process. A writer has to shift from the person producing the writing to the person promoting the writing. Sales writing is a different animal. We spent a lot of time specifying the language she used that would convey the message of her book. 

Developing talking points around her book Paula is a seasoned speaker but needed help narrowing down a few topics she could discuss with the media. My feedback on her ideas helped to crystallize the most compelling points. 

Navigating the ups and downs of pitching a book  After the proposal and query letter are written, there’s the roller coaster ride of seeking the right agent and publisher. Then there’s the sending and waiting…and waiting. It’s emotionally challenging, and it helped Paula to have someone who understood the process. 

Celebrating a book deal with an independent publisher This is the moment she’d been working toward for years. Of course her family and friends acknowledged this big moment. I helped Paula to really appreciate her efforts and everything she had done to bring her to this point. 

Strategizing her book launch  Paula already has great contacts in the Montessori world. She’s a sought-after speaker and had several keynote speeches booked. I helped her strategize the pre-and post-launch tasks that would help her get the word out about her book. 

Helping Paula lean into her skills and gifts  Paula is a natural connector. While any publishing pro will tell an author they need to have a platform or public presence, I invited Paula to focus elsewhere first. I believed her vast network could be engaged to help her promote the book. She’s using her natural gifts to reach out, stay connected, and meet new people who will be interested in her book. We worked on setting up systems to make staying in touch easier. 

Developing a social media strategy Paula hadn’t spent much time on social media and didn’t know where to start. I encouraged her to sign up for a class that had helped me a lot. Now, she is active on several platforms and is doing a great job of bringing her message and personality into her posts. It turns out she’s a natural and her dog Louis makes regular appearances to help people get a feel for Paula’s sense of humor and style. 

There’s much more, but that’s the bulk of how Paula and I worked together. On a recent coaching session, Paula acknowledged my coaching skills. She said, “You really have a unique combination of gifts. You understand the needs of the creative person and your thinking is very organized. You manage to help me put order to all of my ideas. Most people have one skillset or the other. You’re both – creative and organized. I couldn’t have done all this without you.”

I love hearing that my work makes all the difference for a smart, experienced person like Paula. My 1:1 coaching has a much larger impact when a book like Paula’s makes its way into the world. 

The Montessori Potential gives Paula a chance to expand her passion beyond the school she helped to lead and develop. This book seeks to help demystify what Montessori education is and why it’s so effective. Find out more about Paula’s work and order a copy of her book here. 

Learn about how you can get on my coaching roster and bring your great ideas into the world here. 

Treat your writer self – and a friend – to these gifts for writers. These treats make it easy to gift your writer what they need to be happily productive next year and beyond.

The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book is the complete step-by-step approach to getting your book out of your head and onto the page. It’s not just for women!

Chasing Sylvia Beach will take you straight to Paris. Perfect for lovers of historical fiction and bibliophiles, this novel is great holiday escape reading. And, book groups love it; invite me to join your discussion virtually.

Perhaps you’d like my art on objects to inspire your home and studio. My notebooks make a great gift.

The Writer’s Manifesto gives ready inspiration when you don’t feel up to writing. It’s available as prints and on select objects.

I’ve just topped 40,000 words on the novel I’m writing. My goal is 50,000. I’d hoped to reach that deadline before I leave for London tomorrow. Alas, it was too ambitious of a goal* for me. 

I realized I wouldn’t achieve the goal about a week ago. It would be easy to go limp and give up entirely. Like if you miss a day, your focus goes ‘poof,’ and you abandon the goal entirely. 

But I don’t operate that way. Deadlines give me incredible focus and commitment. They help me prioritize the project, no matter what is happening in my life. I share this approach with my clients to great effect. Don’t get me wrong – there have been times when I have had to abandon a project due to life’s other plans.

I am confident I will meet my bigger goal of 50,000 words by December 1st. I have five more days after I get home. With only 10,000 words to write, that is completely doable, even with jet lag. I had the image of celebrating a complete draft in London. But no sweat. I will still celebrate those 40,000 words. 

Here’s the approach that works for my clients and me. 

Use upcoming trips, holidays, guests or other ‘disruptions’ to your routine to accelerate your focus. The question I ask my clients is this: “Where do you want to be with your project when you head out of the office/receive guests/start a new job?” This galvanizes their imagination and commitment. The disruption becomes less a reason to bail and more an ally to help them focus. 

By keeping my word to myself to write daily since October 20, I’ve gained an enormous amount of self-trust and confidence. Every day I write, I signal to myself that despite all my doubts and insecurities, this project matters. 

I leave the project with a clear sense of where I will pick it up upon return. 

I trust the break will give me the perfect amount of distance and perspective. This will enhance the writing and improve the quality of the novel. 

I don’t expect to write on the trip. While it would be nice to write on the airplane – nine uninterrupted hours – I know myself. I love to leave it all behind. I love the space and freedom I feel on a long-distance flight. I may read Story Genius by Lisa Cron. I may read an novel. This is ‘off’ time and I have the freedom to enjoy the vacation.

What I want most to convey to you is this sense of how I hold a deadline. I take it seriously, and it galvanizes my focus. But when/if I don’t achieve that goal, it’s not a problem. I know I have done everything I can to get there. I simply set a new deadline and reset the focus. 

*I don’t typically go for ‘write your book in an unreasonably short period of time’. Getting a book from idea to print takes time. Writing and revising is not a speedy medium. But to accelerate focus and get a shaggy draft out quickly, NaNoWriMo is handy. 

Do you use trips or other ‘disruptions’ to work in your favor? Share your experience below. 

Travel is one of those incredibly personal things. Many of my clients hope to get a lot of writing done while traveling. And some do. But if they don’t know how they write/travel, they can easily burden themselves with unrealistic expectations. It’s much better to plan according to your style of travel than to lug all your writing materials with you and never crack open your laptop. I coach my clients to know their way so they can set themselves up for success whether they bring their writing along or take a break.

Are you a traveling writer? Some people can write easily while on the road. Others can’t. Neither is better; it’s only important to know what works for you.

One client of mine loved his airplane time. It was the only place where he didn’t have to respond to work demands. Where he wasn’t responsible for his family’s needs. Where he had uninterrupted time to write. He got a lot done while away from his routine. Others find that work trips, family trips or vacations are too disruptive to focus.

Don’t judge whether you can or can’t write while away from home. What’s damaging to your confidence is having unreasonable expectations for yourself. Bringing a lot of stuff with you to work on and not getting to it can add unnecessary stress. Remember, the main thing we need to guard and access is focus. Some people can focus more easily when away from home. Others find that they can’t get much writing done while traveling.

Decide which you are—a traveling writer or a home writer. Set your expectations accordingly. 

Drop a note in the comments below to share your travel/writing mode. What works for you? 

The other day in the Impulse Writing Club, our Writual Blessing was Writing heals you. This Blessing seemed particularly apt for the week’s writing. 

I’m just over 20,000 words into my novel in progress. There’s a lot to write, and my deadline is November 17th. We leave for a vacation in London that day and I hope to have a shaggy draft done before I go. I need to channel Tori Amos and her energetic keyboard jam style to get this done! 

While bobbing around in water aerobics class the other day, I had wave after wave of insights about how writing this book is changing my life. I’ll share a few of my benefits of writing a novel here. 

1 I have ‘writer’s eyes’ on all the time. Out in the world, I automatically write in my head the things I see. I describe and put into words what I see. This feels good, and it somehow feels like I am learning to write better. I call this ‘hands-off keyboard’ writing. Even when we’re not inking things, writers are always playing with language.

 2 I have a clear creative edge. My current creative edge is description. I struggle to find interesting ways to describe external things like the landscape or the setting. It’s a fine line between straightforward writing and overwrought prose. In this novel, I get to apply myself at my creative edge and see growth.

3 I see situations in the book – and in life – more objectively. I always tend toward seeing multiple perspectives on life. In this autofiction, I can get out of my point of view and see myself and my actions objectively. This is the kind of thing we seek in therapy. This is a big bonus I didn’t expect. 

4 The hard stuff I am writing about yields benefits I have always sought in therapy. This is where writing feels healing. 

5 I feel happier. Having a creative writing project gives me a sense of satisfaction that I don’t get from other work projects. Engaging in a project that’s initially just for me seems to give me confidence and self-respect. This is one of the big challenges of writing a long project – while doing it, we are the only ones benefiting from it. But I assert it’s worth it, even if it’s just for us. 

I appreciate all these insights. I just dove into this idea. NaNoWriMo – the invitation to draft 50,000 words in a month – drove me past overthinking the idea. My published novel took 12 years to write. I’ve avoided other long works of fiction because I don’t want to take that long. Now I feel motivated to take up projects for their own sake. Not worrying about how long it will take. Setting aside concern about where it will go and what it will do for me. 

Soaking up the feelings and insights I get while writing gives me plenty. Right now, I’m going to savor that. 

And now, I’m off to ink my 2500 words for the day because that deadline is moving toward me. And I am moving toward it, with my heart open and fingers dancing. 

What benefits are you gleaning from your current project? Share in a comment below.

Knowing this will save you a lot of angst.

You will be caught off-guard when you discover this:

Writing a book is different than writing anything else.

Whaaaat? Here’s the problem.

We were taught how to write in school. Everyone writes! Should be easy, right?

We think because we’ve written blogs or articles that we switch to book mode easily.

But writing a compelling story for a book or article is a craft. A book is a body of work that calls for more depth. Doing it well takes time. Humility and patience.

If you are struggling with writing a book, it’s not your fault. The job itself is challenging.

How have you adapted to the work of writing long-form? Share your thoughts in the comments below.