Lauren: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper. This one is episode 74. And it's exciting because I have a guest in the studio with me. 

Paul: Hello. 

Lauren: This is Paul Hobday. Paul, what's your title these days? 

Paul: I think currently it is Senior Marketing Manager. 

Lauren: Okay, so Paul is the Senior Marketing Manager here at Lulu and also kind of single-handedly responsible for keeping all of us functional. 

Paul: It's like herding cats. 

Lauren: Yeah, pretty much. What's that like?

Paul: It's exhausting. 

Lauren: I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. Paul's name is one that you've heard many times on this podcast before. We reference his content as our blog writer and master of all copy. 

Paul: Ooh. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: I'm gonna put that on my title. 

Lauren: Please do 

Paul: Master of all copy. 

Lauren: You’re welcome. I thought it might be fun to get pod–get pod–to get Paul on the podcast. Instead of us just referencing his content and his knowledge and experience and words of wisdom. Maybe he will share them with us directly. 

Paul: Can you call this episode Paul's pod? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Paul: Thank you. 

Lauren: Yes, I can. 

Paul: That's all I want. 

Lauren: Although four different people DMed me after the Chelsea episode to ask me if I made a typo when I called it the pod pod in the show. 

Paul: I was one of those people, but.

Lauren: Yes, you are. You were the first. 

Well, it wasn't that I doubted that you were making a joke. I just wanted to double check. 

I – no that's, I mean, that's important. That is an important part of copywriting and copyediting, which may or may not be relevant, depending on where this episode goes. 

Paul: Yeah I mean, it might be. 

Lauren: Yeah. Who knows? 

Paul: Who knows? 

Lauren: Who knows where we're going. 

Paul: I have absolutely no idea. I'm not even really sure how I got in here. 

Lauren: I bullied you into it. 

Paul: Oh yeah. 

Lauren: I didn't give you much choice. 

Paul: Nope. 

Lauren: Actually. 

Paul: Put in this room and shut the door. 

Lauren: Yeah, pretty much. 

Paul: Said sit down and talk. 

Lauren: I have the key too.

Paul: Oh jeez. That's not terrifying. Cool. 

Lauren: This is kind of fun. Usually Matt’s the one in power in this room. So, it's great. Anyway. 

Paul: Matt, please help. 

Lauren: There is–there's no escaping this. We have Paul here for a while, so I thought it might be fun to talk about some Paul related things and some publishing related things. 

Paul: Cool. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: Do want to hear about my pen collection?

Lauren: Absolutely. Absolutely I do. 

Paul: You said Paul related things. 

Lauren: Yeah. And? I'm sure the pens are very relevant. 

Paul: I use them to write sometimes. 

Lauren: Yeah, there you go. Your toolkit’s important. 

Paul: It is. See how we segue that so well? 

Lauren: It was beautiful. But now I'm actually going to steer it in a complete opposite direction.

Paul: Go for it.

Lauren: Thank you. So I did actually want to just really quickly shout out an update from last episode. 

Paul: Oh, yeah, I segued too soon. I’m sorry. 

Lauren: It's okay. It was it such a smooth segue that I'm sorry that I have to –

Paul: It’s all good. 

Lauren: – bring it back around here. We record these episodes like a week or two in advance depending on what everyone's work schedules and stuff are like. So we actually…the episode that came out last Wednesday was recorded on May 12th. That was the one on audiobooks and audiobook narration. And in that episode, we talked about how Audible does not accept audiobooks that are produced with AI narration. And Matt and I speculated a little bit on why that is and how that was going to change, when that was going to change. And sure enough, on May 13th, they announced that they are launching a new program for cover-to-cover AI narration tools.

Paul: Does it feel good being right about that? 

Lauren: It does feel good being right about that, even if I wish I wasn't. So I will link that article in the show notes of that episode. So if you are somebody who's paying attention to these, chances are you've already seen the article itself. But I did just want to shout that out because, of course, the time that we're getting ahead of ourselves and recording content a little bit in the future, literally less than 24 hours after we say something on an episode, it gets negated. 

Paul: Y'all are just–you're right at the peak of everything that's happening. Your fingers are on the pulse. 

Lauren: Wow, that's so true. 

Paul: Yeah. It's not that they like one up to you or something. You just knew it was coming. You were ahead of the game. 

Lauren: You know what? You're right. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: Let's put it that way. I'm that tapped in. 

Paul: And this, folks, is what I do around here is put a positive spin on all of the stuff that we say. 

Lauren: I actually do have framed on my desk a signed handwritten note from Paul that says it will be fine or everything will be fine. 

Paul: Yeah. This’ll be fine. 

Lauren: Because I didn't believe him so I needed it in writing. 

Paul: There you go. 

Lauren: And it is framed on my desk. 

Paul: Yeah, it's gonna be worth something someday. 

Yeah it will. 

Paul: Eh.

Lauren: Yeah. Whatever. 

[4:29]

Lauren: Now that we've gotten that out of the way and I never have to think about Audible ever again. What are we actually talking about today? What did you want to bring to the table today?

Paul: Oh, well, so a lot of things, but the one that got approved to bring to the table. 

Lauren: True. 

Paul: Back in, I think, January, you and Matt did an episode about writing habits. And it's something that's kind of very near and dear to my heart, because both for work and for fun, I write a lot. So I was hoping to talk a little bit more about writing habits and maybe expand on what you all talked about previously and thinking about, you know, how we write for ourselves versus how we write for work, whether our work is something we do for ourselves or if it's working for someone. And then to link at some of the tools of writing, which is why I made the joke about my pen collection. I really do have a pen collection, but that was my attempt at a segue. 

Lauren: It was genuinely a very good segue. 

Paul: Thank you. 

Lauren: I'm honestly disappointed that I had to… 

Paul: Edit it? Indeed.

Lauren: So, I am actually really curious to hear your thoughts on the original episode that we did on writing habits, which I did listen to in preparation for this episode. And personally, thought we gave some creative advice in there. 

Paul: Oh yeah. So I don't want to like, say you gave bad advice. I just think I have different opinions about how to create good writing habits.

Lauren: Which is, I think, really important. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: Because also one of the things that I think, after listening back to that episode, is that it's how to build a writing habit if you have undiagnosed ADHD. 

Paul: It is and I didn't want to call either of you out, but it definitely is.

Lauren: It’s okay I've had it diagnosed now. So it's…

Paul: Because the amount of like, butterflies that flitted by during that conversation and you just were like, ooh. 

Lauren: True. 

Paul: There was a couple. There was a couple. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: But also, yes, very much the way you structured the conversation that you had about habits was around planning, goal setting, timing, repetition. And while those are all things that you should be thinking about, the actual writing habit should start becoming thoughtless. And it just becomes a thing you do so that you can then have a bigger goal. Have a goal of writing every day. But that should become routine rather than a goal. And the goal should be to do something with whatever you're writing, whether it's…writing a book or building a pod-uh, a blog network. We're on a podcast now, but I blog. There's different things. Talking with your fingers versus talking with your mouth. Very different things. Slightly different things? 

Lauren: Well…

Paul: I've read transcripts of stuff and they're very different. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: Yeah. So again, I don't want it to come off as I'm saying you were all wrong because I mean, I do like proving Matt wrong when I can.

Lauren: So do I. 

Paul: Doesn’t happen often. But I – you gotta savor those moments. So much as just expand on it with the idea that for me, a writing habit is more about that second goal, because the writing part of it has become so routine and so built into my day to day, that I don't even really need to set a goal to write 1000 words a day, or I'm not even thinking about it in those terms anymore. Because I don't have to write 1000 words a day to hit my goal if my goal is to finish this book this year. 

Lauren: Okay, so maybe that episode was like a beginner's guide to building a writing habit. This is maybe the… 

Paul: the tools to take your writing habit to the next level. 

Lauren: And there's where Paul comes in as our blog copywriter because he's got a list of titles in his back pocket. 

Paul: Paul's pod, colon, your guide to taking your writing habit to the next level.

Lauren: I think we're done here. 

Paul: Yeah, let's go. Wrap it up. 

Lauren: Great. 

Paul: That didn’t even take like ten minutes. I'm so good at this. 

Lauren: See. 

Paul: So efficient. 

Lauren: Easy.

[7:34]

Lauren: So am I getting ahead of myself if I ask you what your daily writing habit looks like? 

Paul: I don’t know, there's no rhyme or reason to this, so we should just kind of bounce around, so. 

Lauren: Nor is there ever. 

Paul: Yeah, right. I don't want to go off on a tangent of the whole show by doing things in a different way than you all normally do it. This is still your show. 

Lauren: That’s true. 

Paul: For now. Paul's Pod, here it comes. 

Lauren: You can take it over whenever you want. 

Paul: Nope, hard pass. 

Lauren: That's what I thought. 

Paul: Matt, this is not me showing interest in that. So one of the things I do almost every morning, I've got kind of a general routine for getting ready for the day, I generally sit down to work between 7:00 and 7:30. And the first thing I do is open up my personal digital notebook. And I write a daily note. And that's usually a reflection on the previous day. It can be ten words or a thousand words. And then I go through and take all of my handwritten notes from work, because I have a physical notebook, for work and for personal things and a digital notebook for both as well. I take all of my handwritten notes from my workday before and transcribe them into a Google Doc that is kind of my work journal.

Lauren: I think that is actually one thing that you, me, and Matt all overlap on. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: Despite the other distinctions – 

Paul: Just a ton of – 

Lauren: – in habit is – 

Paul: – different things we write on? 

Lauren: All three of us are analog note takers. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, I –

Paul: Yeah. I won't do it sometimes, if I'm in a meeting, and I'm trying to take notes quickly, I write slower, but I actually find that I am more thoughtful when I write by hand. So I like doing that. So that's my kind of morning habit. And then I will be into my workday. So writing for work is very deadline driven, purpose driven. It's…we need to send an email about something that's happening. We need to have the copy by Thursday and it's Monday, and so now it's, I have to figure out who I'm writing for, what the message is, verify what we're doing about whatever it is we're talking about, and then write the thing. Which is probably a hundred words or less, it's not a lot of actual writing. It's more of the context around the writing that you spend a lot of time thinking about and word choice and things like that. 

Once I'm done for the day in terms of work, my at-home writing is almost always in the evening after dinner and everything's done and I sit in front of the TV. And that's always, I pick a project for the day. So I don't like setting word count goals, but I've got four or five different things that I'm writing at any time. I've written dozens of essays that could be blog posts that if I ever wanted to publish, could go throw up on a blog somewhere. I just do those for fun. I at any one time have two or three different novels that I'm poking away at because I'm not actually ambitious in terms of like, getting published with any of this. I'm just doing it for fun. Sometimes I'll write myself little planning docs of like, you're going to do this thing and here's how you're going to do it. Like, you know, we're planning a trip and I want to go see a specific thing. I'll kind of basically write a guide to myself, but more long form, not a bullet list type of thing. 

So it's really just about sitting in front of the keyboard and getting some thoughts onto the digital page that are not work related and don't have that kind of pressure deadline. So it's not that I sit down at 8 p.m. every night and write for forty five minutes and when it gets to 8:45, I slam that laptop shut. It's more of when I'm done for the day, my routine is to sit down with my tablet, usually, with a keyboard attachment and just write as it kind of comes to me. Or don't. If I'm like, you know, I'm gonna go play some video games tonight, or my wife and I are gonna watch a movie, or I just am beat. I'll maybe read my book. So it's not like a strict sort of thing. Whereas the daily work writing is very strict. 

Lauren: That was something that Matt and I kind of debated almost throughout that episode when we –

Paul: Yeah, you did. 

Lauren: Yeah, like kind of went back and forth on the idea of goal setting as a part of habit building and talking about word count goals versus time set goals versus writing every single day, you know, setting kind of whatever. So you're saying basically, like, when you've done the work to build this habit up enough, none of that is really necessary – 

Paul: For me. 

Lauren: – or it kind of falls to the wayside. 

Paul: It's not necessary for me, it definitely falls to the wayside. I think about it a lot less. I also want to clarify that if you are a person who is writing a book that you want to publish and sell, I think you should set some goals. You should say, I wanna – this book should be on sale by date…here, so you can work back to make that happen. But at that point, that's work. That's not writing for pleasure. That's not journaling for your mental health. That's not just getting ideas and stories out because you don't want to stew on them yourself, or it's a way for you to process something. That's a different thing. And I think a lot of what you do right in that mindset can eventually become something you publish. But when you're not thinking about it in those terms, I think it's important to not hinder yourself with goals. Because if I know that I need to write 800 to 1,000 words for a blog post that's going to publish in two weeks for Lulu, and it's on the topic of whether or not ebooks are good for the environment – which I don't know anything about, I just made that up. I've got that cursor blinking is telling me 800 words, 800 words, 800 words. Where if I'm just like, you know what? I'm intrigued about whether or not ereaders are environmentally friendly, and I do a little research, and start writing an essay on it for funsies, I don't feel that pressure. So it's a different mindset more than anything. 

Lauren: That’s actually a really good point. Because I feel like I – 

Paul: Thank you. 

Lauren: You're welcome. I feel like I don't often count the amount of writing that I do on a daily basis because I don't, because it's not fictional writing towards a project goal. So I don't consider it – 

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: But it is definitely, I'm writing thousands of words a day. There just maybe not towards my book. 

Paul: Right. I mean, I get text messages from you sometimes. You're wordy. But no, but – 

Lauren: True. 

Paul: – that's exactly what I'm getting at. We all write a lot. Naturally we kind of have to in the world that we live in because there's so many things that require…emails and using a messenger on a retail site because they screwed up your order or just so many places where we have to use our words to communicate. And that's still writing. And I think, you know, untethering yourself from deadlines and goals can sometimes be freeing. 

Lauren: I love when somebody gives me a sound bite.

Paul: A sound bite.

[12:37] 

Lauren: We were talking about the difference between habit building and actual writing for purpose, which is where you were going with this.

Paul: Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Lauren: So like, do you want to elaborate on the distinction between those as far as you see them?

Paul: Yes? And I feel like this is kind of a lazy metaphor, analogy. I'm terrible with words. 

Lauren: Sure. 

Paul: Why do I have this job? 

Lauren: That's definitely true. 

Paul: So I go out and walk after work because walking is good for you. And my calves are flabby and I want them to not be and you know, whatever. Reasons. Whereas the guy who lives next door to me goes out and jogs because he wants to run a marathon. I'm not good at walking, because I don't do it as much as I should. And I'm trying to reestablish the habit. And you know, maybe one day I'll build that up to jogging. But I am really tuned into getting a very baseline habit figured out. This guy's passed all of that. It's routine. What he is working towards a much bigger goal, which is to take that habit and turn it into something that's, you know, noteworthy. Does that work? Does that make sense? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: Perfect. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Paul: Because I was trying to think of a different one earlier and I felt like that was the only one that kind of like, I don't know, didn't seem silly. 

Well, that's also one of the differences between how did you put it? Talking with your fingers versus talking with your mouth? 

Paul: Thank you for bringing that one back. 

Lauren: You’re so welcome. Unfortunately, it's going to live rent free in my head for the entire time that I'm editing this episode. 

You're welcome. 

Thanks. That is actually one of the things that was a big adjustment for me when I was shifting from mostly written content. I write, you know, usually on average one blog post a month for the Lulu blog. And I write plenty outside of that, too. Audio and video was a new medium for me. And that was a really big adjustment for me, was that realization of like, when I'm writing content, I have the time to workshop a metaphor. Like, oh, you know, that doesn't actually like, you know. I started saying that by the end, it kind of got lost. So let me go back and edit it and rewrite it until it makes sense. 

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: And you really can't do that on a podcast. Not unless you're going to get to the level of editing that we don't tend to do. 

Paul: Right. 

Lauren: On here.

Paul: Well, and I think that you lose something when you get to that level of editing, it's too processed. Like the idea is for us to just be here talking. 

Lauren: That's true.

Paul: To a degree. 

Lauren: That’s true. 

Paul: I mean, sometimes we say really silly things and they should get clipped out. 

Lauren: But sometimes it's fun to go through the process of how did I get here? Where was that sentence supposed to start and end? Where does it actually start and end?

Paul: What were we trying to say? 

Lauren: Whoever knows. 

Paul: Indeed.

Lauren: Honestly, if anyone listening to this podcast can make sense of where it starts and where it goes. 

Paul: Yeah.

Lauren: Email us, podcast@lulu.com, we got a job for you. But I do, think that did actually make sense. That – 

Paul: Oh god. 

Lauren: Absolutely, for sure. 

So what is that, how do you approach that then, I guess? Like how do you see that… 

Paul: Oh. 

Lauren: …evolution of that habit building? 

Paul: It's defining success. So if the goal is to build a habit, you should track it in the way that you and Matt discussed or whatever method works for you. However you wanna do that, time spent, words written, whatever. Once you've developed the habit, what does success look like? Is it maintaining the habit? Is it just staying at that level where you're journaling, you're working? Because if the goal of the purpose of building the habit is to do something more, like write a book, then you have to have that second goal. You have that next thing, that goes after the habit is built. And that's defining success. What is your success metric for the thing that you're trying to do? If it's to build the habit and you've done it, success. Set a new goal. 

And I think that's kind of what I was alluding to earlier with like, I try to be very rigid in the way I approach writing for Lulu because I know there's this whole process that goes into it that takes time, and we want to get things done in a timely fashion. So that rigidity is the goal in the writing habit I developed for work. Whereas my personal writing habit, the goal is kind of just happiness, being happy that I've put these thoughts out there. And so you just get two very different approaches to how you go to writing that kind of content.

Lauren: No notes. 

Paul: All right. 

Lauren: Can’t argue with that. 

[15:54]

Lauren: How does it look…And again, if I'm getting ahead of myself, rein me in at any point. 

Paul: That’s the last thing I'm going to do. 

Lauren: Fair. Outlines are… 

Paul: Outlines. 

Lauren:Outlines are suggestions…

Paul: Very much so.

Lauren: In this studio. Very. 

Paul: I've noticed. 

Lauren: Yeah. Well. It’s fine. Which I guess even that is something that I don't really think about all the time as writing. I write like five page outlines for these podcast episodes and we use a fraction of the content within those outlines. And I somehow don't consider that writing. 

Paul: And you should. And I think it's a huge, like – I wrote this outline for this episode. And when we had the idea of talk about how your writing habit is different from you and Matt's. I was like, I could talk about that, no problem, for an hour, sit me down, let's go right now. And then I started writing the outline out and I realized all of these other kind of secondary and tertiary points that could be made, bits we could touch on if we wanted to, tangents we could take that are only slightly tangential instead of fun tangential, that I hadn't thought about. So the process of writing this outline that you're gonna use a very little bit of is actually you getting those ideas turning in your head.

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah, it is, which maybe actually sidebar if anyone is interested in any of the things that we've talked about when it comes to like building a writing habit or… Writing in public is something that we've talked about a lot on this podcast. Maybe start it as a podcast. 

Paul: Oh yeah. I don’t think it's a bad idea. 

Lauren: You know, use a podcast to kind of feel through your process of writing and to talk through the process of what the book is going to look like and the content that you want to include in the book and then take those transcripts and edit them into their final form. 

Paul: Yeah, it's taking – again, it's, I mean, goals. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: If your goal is to have a book and a thing that you're good at doing, if you're comfortable talking, if you're comfortable with the logistics of podcasting. Yeah, then that's a very very good way to take some content that you can create in a form that you're more comfortable or adept at and then build a habit from that. I mean, you might teach yourself how to write blog posts from your podcast transcripts, and then that develops your writing habit. 

Lauren: Or vice versa. 

Paul: Or vice versa, absolutely. 

Lauren: Or I've talked many times on air and in blog content and social media content and whatever else about how my number one favorite editing tip of all time is to read your writing out loud.

Paul: I hate doing it. But it is right. 

Lauren: It works. 

Paul: Yep.

Lauren: It works. So if you're trying to workshop some older blog content that you've written and you want to turn it into a book –

Paul: Yup.

Lauren: – and you're looking for the best way to workshop it, make long form video content out of it, make a podcast episode out of it. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: Even if you scrap half of your content… But that is unrelated to building a writing habit. 

Paul: So. 

Lauren: That is just…

[18:10] 

Paul: While we're on that slight tangent, though, you mentioned the bit where, you know, you could take a podcast transcript and edit it into something. And I'm to go read this quote that you had from the last podcast episode about writing habits as well. 

Lauren: Love this. 

Paul:”I like editing more than I like writing. That's one of the things I've learned about myself. That's one of the things that slows me down a lot.” And so you were talking about this in terms of like, trying to hit a word count goal. And you have this kind of, you stop and self-edit as you're writing, which is something I'm sure lots of people have a problem with. But my point with that is: editing is writing. And I think that's something people forget. We'll say it's part of the writing – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: – process, or whatever kind of terminology you want. But like. Taking the words that you've already written and making them words that you actually want someone to read is still writing. And I think there's a lot of important value in that. So I think it's not the worst thing. And it's one of the reasons I don't like strict word count or time stamped goals for writing. I get the value in building a habit. But once you're comfortable writing, I don't like doing that. Because I could write 1500 words of trash. That's fine. Set it aside, I'll come back to it later. Or I could write 500 words that I scrutinized heavily and I'm much happier with. Both are good. They're both good things to me. 

Lauren: That's a really fair point, honestly. Also, as testimonial to Paul's advice. Paul has made me a better writer in so many ways.

Paul: Ooh, alright.

Lauren: Because of him editing my writing.

Paul: Yes, well. 

Lauren: And because of me paying attention to how he's edited my writing, and realizing that he's correct about the things that he's editing. 

Paul: There's so many little bits in there. want you to clip out as sound bites for me to just take home.

Lauren: I will give you as much content as you want from this. 

Paul: Paul has made me a better writer is going to be my ringtone.

Lauren: Okay. 

Paul: Do people still do ringtones? I haven't had my phone make sounds for me in like eight years, so. 

Lauren: No, but I do think that – 

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: – you should make it your personal text alert – 

Paul: There you go. 

Lauren: – for when I text you, you know, once a month –

Paul: I can do that?

Lauren: – that I text you. 

Paul: Can I do that?

Lauren: Yeah, I think so. 

Paul: Is that a real thing? 

Lauren: I mean –

Paul: Nice.

Lauren: – you used to be able to do that. I don't know if you still can. 

Paul: Cool. Okay. Yeah, let's do that. 

Lauren: But. I'll figure out how to do it and I'll get you that content. 

Paul: But no, that's a really good point to about, you know, I think everyone becomes better writers when they work with other people who are writing – 

Lauren: Yes. 

Paul: – and edit each other. It's one of the reasons I think the team here at Lulu puts out such good content is everyone is pretty critical, thoughtful, capable. And so you can ask almost anyone on the team to pick up and review something that you've written and you're going to get thoughtful, useful feedback. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: And then ideally not make the same mistakes again. 

Lauren: And that is the important part too. 

Paul: Yeah, I mean, and that's an important part of that professional writing side of it, of having good habits around professional writing. Not just thinking in terms of deadlines, but also thinking in terms of minimizing the editing side of it. 

Lauren: Right. 

Paul: So you want to get something as close to what the ask is initially so that there's less review time. 

Lauren: That's true. Also for the record I've completely forgotten where my original question was going. 

Paul: Neat.

Lauren: Like, fifteen minutes ago. 

Paul: Me too.

Lauren: So, it's fine. I don't think you ever knew.

Paul: I didn't. 

Lauren: That's fine. 

Paul: Excellent. 

[20:44]

Lauren: Okay. I feel like I wanted to go back to something that was the distinction between personal writing and professional writing. And I've I have –

Paul: Okay.

Lauren: – no memory of what that was. 

Paul: So one thing I can say in that realm. 

Lauren: Go for it.

Paul: One of the things that I keep in my mind when I'm writing professionally is that there has to be a sense of urgency behind it. Because you can't just take your time with a blog post if you're publishing a blog every week. You need to have it done. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: But personal writing doesn't require that much of a strict timeline. And I get people will impose timelines for themselves because they have goals. But I think when you start doing that, you're kind of treating your personal writing as a more professional type of writing. 

Lauren: So let's say that is the case for… let's say we wanted to share some kind of actionable content in some way, shape or form for the people that are listening to this. If there is somebody listening to this that is like, okay, I have been working on writing habit building, habit building practice, and I've been doing a lot of personal writing as my way to just get in the habit of writing every day. And now I want to make that transition from…I feel like my writing habit is down. I'm walking three miles every day. And now I want to up that to running a 5k. 

Paul: Ooh, I like how you came back around to the…was that an analogy or a metaphor? 

Lauren: Oh, you're asking the wrong person. 

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: You're the person that I usually ask that kind of question. 

Paul: I just Google it. I feel like I always confuse those and I'm sure there are some professors back in our history that are rolling over and crying right now because we don't know the difference. 

Lauren: Yeah, for sure. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: They definitely are. 

Paul: Sorry. 

Lauren: I'm not. If they were better teachers, I would have known the difference.

Paul: But yes, so I do think the key thing there is to set very, very small, low goals at the beginning. Because you don't want to do something as you move from just writing for yourself and for the kind of benefits to yourself of exploring your ideas and talking with your fingers. You don't want to like, burn yourself out if you met make your goal too hard. I really like the idea of writing a daily note. It's a new file, it creates itself every day for me in the morning. And it's just there for me when I open up my notebook. And like I said, I don't put a lot of words into it every day, but it becomes this…it's fun. Whereas if I made a goal where I need to sit down and write 500 words every morning in this note about what I did the day before, it becomes tedious. So really think about one, what you want to do with what you're writing at the end of it. Is it writing a novel? Is it writing a memoir? Is it the copy for a website that's going to sell some other product that you've created? Whatever it is you're writing, think about where it's going long, long term, and then work back from that in very, very meager little chunks at the beginning. You don't want your habit to get broken by trying to take it to that next level. It's to go back to the running metaphor. Maybe you're not actually ready for that 5k and you…what's a running injury, pull a hammy or something? 

Lauren: Sure. I don't know. 

Paul: I don’t actually know. 

Lauren: I gave up on running. 

Paul: Me too. I got a bad knee. 

Lauren: I'm a serial walker. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: Oh it was my ankles, but sure. Yeah. 

Paul: You walk with cereal? 

Lauren: Do I look like somebody who can walk and eat at the same time? 

Paul: Fair enough. 

Lauren: You watched me spill a drink on myself when I was sitting at a table earlier. It's the couch to 5K method. 

Paul: Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. I like that actually. 

Lauren: Which, if you're ever interested in running…

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: That is actually…

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: The most efficient – 

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: – workout plan I've ever actually used. 

Paul: Yeah. No, it’s very good. 

Lauren: Works every time I've done it.

Paul: But it's, I don't know, I just, I really think it's important to keep a separation between the idea of just writing for yourself versus a goal-based writing. And if you're transitioning that from something you were just doing for yourself to something with a goal, you have to be really, really gentle or you're risking breaking all of the good habits you've built up. 

Lauren: It's kind of like when you're AB testing something and you're only supposed to make –

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: – one change at a time. 

Paul: Yeah. A hundred percent. 

Lauren: Because if you change five things, you're not going to know what was the one thing that made the difference.

Paul: Nothing upsets me more than that. 

Lauren: I understand. 

Paul: I shouldn't say nothing, but. In the workspace, that is one of the things that bothers me. 

Lauren: I totally understand. 

Paul: Yep. 

[24:10]

Lauren: Is there anything that you do? I know some of the writing advice that people love to give is like having a dedicated writing space. 

Paul: Oh yeah. 

Lauren: Is there something that you do specifically to kind of differentiate between personal writing and professional writing? Is there anything that you do to kind of shift your mindset one way or another on that?

Paul: How much time do we have left? 

Lauren: As much as you want. 

Paul: I am very tactile in my thinking. And so I like to spend a lot, probably too much time, thinking about the tools I use and refining those processes. It helps me. I know it's something that a lot of people on the web would tell you is a bad idea. Like, don't spend too much time thinking about how you color coded your spreadsheets or the fonts and spacing in your Google Docs and things like that. But yes, I actually think there is some value, especially in differentiating what you do professionally versus what you do personally. As I said, separate notebooks, physical notebooks, I have – they're two very different styles, so I know which one is which. When I'm writing in my personal notebook, I use one of my favorite pens. Because I think it's a really smooth, nice writing pen. I like the way it grips and it is kind of comforting almost to write with it. When I'm writing for work, I use a fairly specific kind of ballpoint that you have to grip and pinch and leaves my fingers hurting a little bit. But I also think there's some like, specificity to that and that I want to be more tight versus loose in my writing styles. We use Google workspace for work. So I keep everything in that workspace. So I just used Google Docs to write because that's what's available. But my personal writing, I use a tool called Obsidian, which is a local storage for markup files, so it's very simple text files, stored locally. And I keep those two things very separate because I want them to be very separate. 

Lauren: Do you use different fonts? 

Paul: Currently, no. I've actually been pretty big on the Trebuchet MS font for a while. 

Lauren: I know. 

Paul: For some reason. Yeah, I know, not everybody else likes it. 

Lauren: It's okay.

Paul: But for a long time, yes, I was. I would use two different fonts for my personal writing and my professional writing. 

Lauren: That's actually never occurred to me before you said that, or before you were saying the different pens – 

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: – and the different tools. Cause I also use the same font for all of my different writing, whether it's work or at home. So that's actually never – but we do all have…everybody on our team that writes copy has a different preferred font. 

Paul: A different font they use. Yeah.

Lauren: And you can always tell who started a document –

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: – based on which font it's written in. 

Paul: And I will change it so quickly. 

Lauren: I'll change it back. 

Paul: Yeah, I know you will. I also do my best, I try not to use my Lulu laptop for writing personal things. And you know, when I'm traveling and I don't want to bring multiple machines, I'll use it for that. But my goal is to physically use a different machine to write for myself. I have an iPad with a little carrying case thing that has a keyboard attached to it, or I'll just use like a Bluetooth keyboard or something.Or I'll sit at my personal computer at home and write some, but that's – that’s more of an entertainment machine. So I tend not to use that for writing as much as watching movies or gaming or something like that. So it's really important to me to separate the tools as well.

The one place that I differ in that opinion is that I will sit at the exact same desk when I'm working from home for both. I don't really know why, I do have a desk set up for work and for my personal stuff at home. But I'll drift back and forth. I'll go use my work desk for personal writing and vice versa. I don't actually ascribe to that whole you need a separate space. 

Lauren: Yeah, I – that's always been one that's made me crazy, honestly. Because that one in particular, I'm always like, you know, not everybody lives in a seven bedroom house, right? 

Paul: Yes, yeah. 

Lauren: I spent – I spent most of the pandemic in a one bedroom apartment, where I didn't even have a kitchen table. And I had to turn a folding table on the end of my kitchen island into my workspace where I was suddenly working from home. 

Paul: Those were wild times. 

Lauren: They were wild times, but like, where was I supposed to turn a separate workspace into a – I also, that was the only year of my life that I've ever started and finished a book in one year. 

Paul: Nice. 

Lauren: The only book I've ever finished. 

Paul: Well done. When do we get to read it? 

Lauren: Never. 

Paul: That's fair. That’s fair. 

Lauren: That's the one that I'm still working on.

Paul: Oh okay, okay. 

Lauren: Five years later.

Paul: I've got a few of those too. It's okay. 

Lauren: Yeah. We've all, we've all been there. It's on draft like seven now –

Paul: Yeah yeah.

Lauren: – at this point. 

Paul: But are you enjoying it? Or are you doing it because you feel like you need to finish a book that you need to sell or publish or do something with? 

Lauren: That's a great question. No one's asked me that in a long time. 

Paul: Think about it. 

Lauren: Wow. 

Paul: Because that should be what defines the effort you put into it and the thought you put behind it. If it's something you're trying to finish, set a deadline. If it's something you're doing for fun, then write as many drafts as you want. 

Lauren: Huh. 

Paul: And maybe one day you get to a draft and you're like, this could actually be published. And it changes. But. 

Lauren: Wow.

Paul: Just revelations upon revelations.

Lauren: I mean, this is something, you know, Matt and I have had this running thread through the last few episodes where I talked about how I was writing again, but it was fanfiction. So it didn't really count. And he was giving me a hard time about it. 

Paul: It does count. 

Lauren: It does count because that is actually genuinely just…I'm writing it for no purpose other than the funsies of it and like getting this idea out of my head and onto a page. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: And yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, Matt, it does count. 

Paul: Yeah. And I mean. My two cents on fanfiction. There is the direct fanfiction of I'm going to take these two characters from this story and give them a different adventure or something like that. And then there's the fact that everything you've ever read is going to inform what you're writing. You're always writing fanfiction. There is nothing new anymore. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: So you're always writing fanfiction of some sort at this point. 

Lauren: I wrote a blog post years ago for the Lulu blog on fanfiction and talked about how fanfiction has existed as long as storytelling has. 

Paul: Yeah, of course. 

Lauren: It just hasn't always looked like what it looks like now.

Paul: I don't like people painting fanfiction as this sort of like…lazy is not quite the right word, but it almost feels like that's the way people will paint it and I don't think that's fair. 

Lauren: That's fair. I did watch a TikTok the other day where somebody was looking up the word count on fics and like what a comparable book would be. The one that they were reading at that time, that they had just finished that day, was longer than It.

Paul: Yeah.

Lauren: And somebody wrote that and somebody wrote that, and is not getting paid a penny for it. Somebody wrote it just for the pleasure of writing it. 

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: And then a bunch of people read it just for the pleasure of reading it. 

Paul: And it's a bummer that that person can't see some better reward that would enrich their lives more than the joy of some people on the internet. But I still think that's kind of one of the main reasons to write something. You just want someone else to read it and enjoy it. 

Lauren: That's absolutely my number one goal in every piece of fanfiction I've ever written – 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: – is just to make somebody else have a good day –  

Paul: Right. 

Lauren: – after they read it. 

Paul: Perfect. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: I like that. 

Lauren: Fair enough.

[30:09]

Lauren: Let's see, how do we turn this back around into an actual educational podcast? You talked about having different tools for your writing. So you talked about having your different notebooks and pens and whatever. What other tools do you use for writing in terms of professional or personal writing, like software or…

Paul: Oh, sure.

Lauren: – anything like that? What else do you like to use? 

Paul: Well, so I'll mention one more piece of hardware. I think it's actually really nice to have a good keyboard. I think most laptops, MacBook keyboard is fine, but there is something more ergonomic and more enjoyable about a good keyboard and I don't – I'm not going to tell anybody what I think that necessarily means, but try some different things if you have the opportunity. Because that might influence your joy; if your hands cramp up or if you're uncomfortable with the typing flow of a keyboard that can slow you down. 

Lauren: The ASMR of the keys clicking. 

Paul: Yes, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lauren: Like, actually, for real, genuinely. 

Paul: Oh yeah. 

Lauren: I feel very satisfied with myself when I can hear myself typing at a consistent pace. 

Paul: I feel like I'm busy when I can hear you typing from the desk next to me.

Lauren: That's true. I am a very loud typer on my… 

Paul: That’s fine, I like it. 

Lauren: – clickity clackity keyboard. 

Paul: But whatever works best for you, figure that out and then lean into that. Hardware is one of the things we tend to overlook because we just have our laptop or we have our phone. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: We have our machine that we're using to do the thing. But like getting one that's actually comfortable and enjoyable for you to use, I think it's pretty important. Back around to software, I made a list in this outline and I don't want to read it verbatim necessarily. But like we use a lot of different tools that we use for writing at this company. And it's just kind of wild how many different places you put words.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: In terms of software. And one of the things that made me realize as I was thinking about that long list is, and we already touched on this, but like formatting fonts, texts, it looks different in every place. And so you have to kind of un-marry yourself from your content looking a certain way and let it just be words and trust that, you know, the creative team is going to turn this into a beautiful PDF or a webpage or whatever with whatever font they think is right. And so for professional writing, I think the best thing for me has been to find a consistent – I think I use 11 point Trebuchet with a little bit of space between the lines. And I just use that for everything, so that it's very consistent when I'm writing for work. I try to set my heading styles to the exact same. They're all that same font, just a couple sizes bigger. Really consistent and easy so that it's easier for me to detach myself from the physicality of the words I've written and they're just words. And I can give them out to whoever needs them next so that they can put them into whatever form they need to take for work. Personally, my favorite writing tool is Obsidian. I think I just mentioned that earlier, but it's a free software. I wrote a blog post about it a while 

Lauren: You did and I will link it in the show notes.

Paul: I've written a number of blog posts about note-taking tools that I've reviewed over time. This is the only one I still consistently use. Super duper simple. It's a local one so that you can use cloud storage if you use it on a variety of devices, but it allows you to save your stuff locally. So, you know, if you did all of your writing in Google Docs and tomorrow Google just didn't exist anymore…

Lauren: I don't know what I would do. 

Paul: All of your stuff could disappear. So I like having things locally. And then what I will do in there is…I think they call them vaults, is your kind of different top level file folders. I will have a vault for novel writing. I'll have a vault for travel planning, for essays and blogs, for my daily notes. And then those will have different layouts. The template for my daily note looks very different than the kind of blank page that I would use for writing a short story. It gives me the opportunity to kind of create that specificity, which I really do enjoy. The, like I said, the physicality of looking at what this is going to look like. And I can get lost in that. And I know that sometimes people will say that's a bad thing because you're playing with the thing rather than doing the thing. But I do think you're still working with your words as kind of a form of editing. And I think that still contributes. Whether it's getting you to a word count goal or not. I think that's still a contribution being made. 

Lauren: I very much agree with that. And I think that is something that… I do a lot of content creation where I have to keep my content very organized. Before I was doing the podcast, I was Social Media Manager here and there's a lot of short form copy –

Paul: Yep.

Lauren: – that was slightly different on different platforms and things like that. And I am very big on color coding, and very big on having everything be kind of laid out in a way that I can see it at a glance and get an idea in my head of like… Okay, I'm glancing at that calendar right now and I can tell that there's a variety of different content going on in that week without reading a single word on the screen because of the colors. And also, obviously, it has to be aesthetically pleasing because if it's an ugly combination of colors, then that's heinous. And I don't want to look at that. I do think that that is actually something that's really important in organizing your content and in creating this non-hostile creative environment for yourself.

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: Where you need to have that whatever is going to help you streamline your process and push away the distractions and go like, there's nothing to distract me from actually just writing this content and going forward like this. I totally agree. I think that's really important and I can't work in an environment where it's…I can't look at this doc because it's like six different fonts and the colors clash and it looks terrible, like I have to take the time –

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: – to organize it first. 

Paul: I have had that happen, I'm sure you have too, where you've been handed something to review and you had to first reformat it. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Paul: So that you could handle it. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Paul: Yeah. And that's important to know about yourself and to understand so that you're not getting lost in that sauce. Because as I said earlier, you don't want to spend too much time formatting and figuring out and tinkering with the logistics of how you're writing. You want to actually be doing some writing. And if you can just really define for yourself, this is where I sit. I need things to look a certain way, I need the colors to not clash, whatever. Be realistic about that so that you can lean into it and move past it as quickly as you can. I think you made a reference in the other episode about if you give yourself an hour to write, you'll spend the first forty minutes making a playlist that has just the right vibes and then spend the last twenty minutes vomiting words on the page, which is not ideal, right? 

Lauren: Right. 

Paul: But it is. I mean, if what you need…if the difference between zero words and those 500 words is forty minutes of making a playlist –

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: Know that's what you need to do and just do it. 

[35:57]

Lauren: Do you listen to music when you write? 

Paul: Yes. Sometimes I do a lot of instrumental. For personal anyway, because I tend to be more kind of in my own head with what I'm writing and I don't want those voices. If I'm writing for work, I just put something on. Usually a podcast like you and Matt talk in my ear a fair amount when I'm working, or –

Lauren: Love that. 

Paul: – some music, but I don't need it. And I actually am one of those people that will go like an hour into doing anything and realize it's completely silent. Right. Yeah. 

Lauren: No shade, but. 

Paul: Yeah, sure. 

Lauren: Woof. 

Paul: Well, that’s fair. And I won't even realize it's happened sometimes I'll just like, be like wow, it's really quiet in here. It's like oh it's because you're the only one in the room and you are the one who has control over whether or not there is noise. 

Lauren: Fair enough. 

Paul: Yup. What's your go-to vibes when you're trying to listen to…

Lauren: It actually also very much depends on what I'm writing. 

Paul: Yeah? 

Lauren: If it's something that is new and I haven't had the time to curate a specific playlist for it. I will usually go either with like a ambience video on YouTube. Like, I love those just like eight-hour like lo-fi loops or – 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: Something like that. The Odesza loop of the Severance score –

Paul: Oh yeah yeah yeah, that was fun.

Lauren – that they did is incredible because it's just high tension enough that it keeps me on my toes while I'm writing. I actually listen to that a lot. And if I need something that is a little more high-energy I actually will put on Taylor Swift because I know the music well enough that – 

Paul: I knew you were gonna get her in here. 

Lauren: It genuinely like – because it is actually just like background noise to me at this point. 

Paul: Sure, yeah yeah. 

Lauren: Like, it's not distracting – 

Paul: That’s fair. 

Lauren: Because I know the music so well that it's not going to pull me out of my vibe. 

Paul: Yep. That's actually one of, as I said, I tend to listen to instrumental because when there's lyrics – 

Lauren: Yeah.

Paul: I kind of start tuning in and be like, what are they saying? 

Lauren: Right. 

Paul: Oh that’s interesting. And then I'm like, writing down the lyrics I'm hearing – 

Lauren: Right. 

Paul: – rather than the words that I'm trying to think. 

Lauren: Yeah. I can't be like, oh, let me listen to this new album while I'm also working on writing this week's blog post. Can't do that. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: For sure. But I do actually tend to curate playlists for – 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: – personal writing if I'm doing… Like, if I'm committing to a new book or a new story or something like that, I will actually curate a playlist for it. 

Paul: One of the other things that I really find important, it's hard to control at work, but the lighting. So when I'm at home, I really like to have natural light, but I will diffuse it through those kind of shades that block some of it. Or if I'm writing in the evening, I don't want a harsh light cause, you know, the backlight on the screen is going to be enough.

Lauren: Right. 

Paul: So like when I'm doing writing that's just for me, I like to have a lot of control over that ambiance. Whereas, you know, the lights in this office are miserable and they're blinding and there's nothing you can do about it. You have to kind of adapt and separate those things. So it's helpful for me to control the lighting when I'm doing my own writing versus the uncontrollable lighting. 

[39:29]

Lauren: Not to contradict your original thesis in –

Paul: Ooh no, do it. 

Lauren: I – I mean I always live to contradict you. 

Paul: Sure. 

Lauren: But. But I do actually think that you have more in common with the habit building that Matt and I talked about in that original episode than you like to admit. The difference is what details you need to focus on in order to build the habit. Or not build the habit because you've already clearly established that habit. But like we were talking about the fundamentals of just getting in the habit of writing on a daily basis. What to do if you're hitting writer's block and you're unable to get started on that. And your focus is more on like, okay, we've got the daily habit down. It's all about control. Really.

Paul: Sure, it is.

Lauren: It's all about like knowing yourself well enough to know what you need to control in order to create the environment that you need to get your writing done. 

Paul: Yeah, I actually think that's a really good way of framing it. I was probably being more spicy than I needed to be when I said I wanted to come in and contradict one of your previous episodes, but. 

Lauren: I think you could have been a lot spicier. 

Paul: No, I – well.

Lauren: We could have gone full, no, you're wrong. So.

Paul: So, right, I could argue against that. But I do think you're right. I think it is and most of what I was getting at was that developing that writing habit and turning it into a routine that isn't something you have to think about so much as kind of only the first step. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: The next step is then deciding what am I doing with this writing that I'm creating habitually? And what do I have to do to achieve that? I hope what we're circling around here today and spinning towards is this idea of like; writing habit: important, lots of different ways you can do that. You and I and Matt could sit around arguing for weeks about the ins and outs and the details of how we achieve that. But once you get to that point where you've created a bit of a habit behind it, you have to then start thinking about what I'm going to do with it. Even if what you're doing with it is file it away for funsies and never read it again or read it in a couple of years or whatever. Name that, call that out so that you know what you're doing. And that's going to be part of what sustains the habit. 

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, that's with any habit. 

Paul: Yeah, of course. 

Lauren: Really. Are you going for a walk every day because you want to start running because you want to run a marathon in a year?

Paul: Yep.

Lauren: Are you going for a walk every day because you want to breathe fresh air? 

Paul: Right. 

Lauren: Spoiler alert, you're not going to go for a walk every day after like a week because you can just sit outside in your backyard and drink a beer instead. 

Paul: Right. 

Lauren: But yeah, I do think that is kind of the point that we're circling towards or circling around.

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: For sure. 

Paul: If you've got something you want to do with it, you've got to figure out how to take that habit and mold it to fit that without breaking it or, without making it mundane or boring or unfun anymore. One of the reasons that I felt like this was worth talking about again is that – and I'll go back to that runner reference – is people who are interested in writing and who want to create a book, in whatever form that might be, put a lot of pressure on themselves. And I think just the concept of being a writer is its own form of pressure. Whereas it's like going out and saying, for me, I want to ride a 5k or my marathon or whatever. I'm putting all that pressure on myself. Like if I say, oh, yeah, I'm working on running on a thing, someone's either going to be like, that's really cool, or they're not going be interested at all. And they're gonna move on. But like, if you say you're writing a book to someone, you're putting a ton of pressure on yourself. And I think then you have to, for me, especially I've said this before, someone's like, what are you working on? What are you trying to do this year? What are your goals for this year? And I'm gonna finish a book. And then I'll be chatting with them in October and be like, how's that book going? And I'll be like, I cannot believe how angry I am that you remembered that. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Paul: You know what I mean?

Lauren: I got mad at myself this morning when I was listening to this episode from January and Matt and I talked about writing a book this year and I was listening to it and I was like…

Paul: How's it going? That – I'm joking, but like, that’s – 

Lauren: No yeah, yeah. 

Paul: That’s that pressure. And so I think it's really important to not think about it in those terms  and think about it in terms of one, develop a habit. Figure out what the right way to develop that is for you. Is it spending time every day? Is it having a strict writing word count? Is it having a very loose one? Is it just having a box to check in your habit tracker that says, have written words today, and if they're just those words, that's it and good enough, whatever. But then you transition it into something where you want to have a bigger goal and you don't want to have that pressure that lands on you when you get there. And I think that's tough. That's really hard to do. We can sit here and say, hey, just don't do that. Don't do that. It doesn't just make it easy. 

Lauren: Sure. Absolutely. And I do think that that's – because I have been kind of thinking about this as we've been talking through it and trying to figure out, like, okay, how do we…how do we narrow in on the point that we've been circling around this whole time? And like, how do we turn this into? Okay, you've done the work of building up your habit. Now it's time to take on the next steps. But I think kind of the point that I'm reaching and the point that we've talked through is that because it's so dependent on what your goals are for your content. There is really no clear cut way for us to say, here are your next steps now that you've built that habit up. 

Paul: Right.

Lauren: Because it's so dependent on what you're planning on doing. 

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: With that habit. 

Paul: Yep. And how you've built the habit can impact it too 

Lauren: Right. 

Paul: Because you need to use whatever tools you've developed by building that habit, whether it's X number of words a day or sitting in front of the computer writing for a certain amount of time or whatever. And transition that into a way that will actually work for achieving whatever your goal is. And then there's also that we touched on editing, but that's another kind of mindset shift you have to have once you get past that habit of do you need to develop an editing habit? Should that be part of your writing habit? Does it tie into the bigger goal? Or is it something you're going to totally hand off and you're not going to edit anything and you're going to pay or get the assistance of peers and – your eyes get real big. You can edit your own things. I'm – the royal you. 

Lauren: I know, but actually that's – I think that's so intrinsically a part of writing. I can't imagine having no touch at all on my own writing, like just handing it off to somebody immediately and…

Paul: Yeah.

Lauren: Running away from it? 

Paul: Yeah. So it's figuring out how the editing side of it fits in your process and making that part of writing. Because like we were saying earlier, it really is. It's an important part of writing, however much or little of it you do. 

Lauren: Yeah. That also kind of goes hand in hand with some of the environment building stuff that we talked about too. As I am color coding and color organizing my spreadsheets, that's one of the things that I'm thinking about as I'm doing it is, okay, I'm color coding it based on what type of content bucket each of these different types of content goes into. And as I'm doing this, I'm realizing that I need to better define what these different buckets are, or I need to, like, I'm realizing that I'm kind of missing this type of content, or I'm realizing it kind of goes hand in hand with the editing process – 

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: Because it makes me think conscientiously about the content that I'm creating, whether that's short form social media content, long form blog and podcast episodes, whatever that might be. So I think that is kind of all inherently…

Paul: Yeah.  

[44:44]

Paul: So I'm going to throw in one real quick pitch for AI. 

Lauren: Go ahead. 

Paul: In that there's lots of hurdles and roadblocks and things that can get in the way of what we were just talking about. And we're not making it sound easy, but it does kind of, when two people just step back and are like, oh, just do it this way. It can sound easy. If you're working on building up a habit and you're feeling stumped or you're feeling writer's block, just go to an AI and say, give me a writing prompt. Go to ChatGPT – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: – and be like, create a writing prompt for me and create a little challenge for yourself or something like that. Or feed it what you've written so far and say, what would you write next? Give me two more lines and then build off of those. Or just one of those ways that we haven't had access to for so long. And now that we do, I think it's a really good way to not build the habit, but like help keep you in that habit space sometimes.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: And I know AI can be kind of controversial. And so I don't want to give the impression that I'm saying you should just use it to write stuff for you. But it is there and it can help you keep moving forward when you feel kind of held up. 

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, that is the case to use it. 

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: Absolutely. We were talking about this yesterday. We were talking about actually for podcast episodes, Paul is my review person on all that. And I usually come up with about five titles for every episode and Paul made a joke that I never choose the one that he says he likes this one, which whether or not that's true, probably is true. That is to me a really valuable thing to have because Paul telling me which one he likes kind of emphasizes for me which one I like when I'm feeling indecisive. 

Paul: Whatever I didn't like. 

Lauren: Sometimes. 

Paul: But yeah, no, you're right.

Lauren: It forces me to make the argument in my head of like, if you choose a title that I'm like, eh. And I thought I was indifferent on the titles and then you chose that one, then I am forced to reckon with the why am I feeling this way and which one do I like better? And that is invaluable. But not everybody has a Paul. So if you don't have somebody to – 

Paul: Count yourself lucky. 

Lauren: Absolutely not. 

Paul: No, you. 

Lauren: Oh, count me? 

Paul: Yes. 

Lauren: Yes, obviously. Sorry, do I have to go back to the Paul made me a better writer sound bite?

Paul: No no. 

Lauren: Okay.

Paul: Oh, but you just did it again. It's great. 

Lauren: You're welcome. 

Paul: Two versions. 

Lauren: I thought you were saying if you don't have a Paul count yourself lucky and I was going to fight you. 

Paul: I mean also yes, but for different reasons. 

Lauren: No, absolutely not. If you are unlucky enough to not have a Paul or somebody that you can bounce your ideas off of or…

Paul: Yes.

Lauren: Somebody that you can use as a gut check thing. 

Paul: Yup.

Lauren: That's what generative AI Is super useful for. 

Paul: Yes.

Lauren: Because even if I disagree with everything that it tells me in its output at least now I have an opinion on something. 

Paul: Yep. Wheels are still turning. You’re – 

Lauren: Yep. 

Paul: Yup. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: Absolutely.

[47:20]

Lauren: I feel like that was kind of our landing place. 

Paul: Yeah? Alright.

Lauren: Maybe. Although…no, actually I do want to – I don't think we have time to talk through more tools. 

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: But on the heels of the AI reference and I were definitely gonna link to the Obsidian blog post that you wrote in the show notes. Anytime that I have ever linked any kind of product or software review in the show notes for this podcast, it was something that Paul wrote and –

Paul: I do like to play with new software.

Lauren: You do. And I have referenced before that we don't do sponsored content. We don't do sponsored reviews. These are all things that Paul has reviewed because he's a nerd and likes this kind of stuff. 

Paul: Yes.

Lauren: And wants to actually like, test it out for himself. So I'm going to ask you to pick–off-air–your top two other than Obsidian. 

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: That you've written up reviews for on the blog and we'll include those in the show notes as recommendations whether they're personal professional – 

Paul: Yeah I mean –

Lauren: – mix of both whatever 

Paul: I’ll do one of each or something. Yeah, for sure. 

Lauren: Yeah I think that would be really fun so definitely check the show notes for that. 

Paul: Okay.

Lauren: I don't know, anything that we didn't talk about that you want to? Any like, last little advice or anything?

Paul: I know it's a you and Matt thing but you're gonna tell me what your bracelets say so you can kind of like, maintain your streak of getting them in every podcast episode?

Lauren: Well, not only is it gonna maintain the streak, but you are also the only other person in my life that ever asked me what they say. 

Paul: Yeah, right? 

Lauren: And it is authentic and I will say –

Paul: Do you have some good ones today? 

Lauren: I do actually. One of them says All This and Heaven.

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: One of them says For the Plot.

Paul: For the plot. 

Lauren: And the last one says Me and My Ghosts. 

Paul: Okay, I don't know what those reference. Any of them, so. 

Lauren: Yes you do. 

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: All This and Heaven is a Florence song. 

Paul: Oh. It is, I knew it sounded familiar. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: I don't know her discography as well as I should. I’m so sorry.

Lauren: I hope Susie doesn't listen to this podcast. 

Paul: That’s why I just apologized. She doesn’t, but. 

Lauren: Okay, that's fair. And actually, Me and My Ghosts is from the song that Taylor and Florence did together. 

Paul: Oh, fun. 

Lauren: Although that was not an intentional choice. 

Paul: Gotcha. Oh, it wasn't? 

Lauren: No. 

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: That I didn't – I didn't think about that one, I just. 

Paul: Happy accident. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: Cool. 

Lauren: So thanks for asking

Paul: Of course. 

Lauren: Any last minute, anything we didn't say do you want to scroll through the outline and see if there's anything in here that you were like? Man, I did, I did mean to say this. I keep getting stuck on the one bullet point that just says disagree, but I think we did actually I think we did actually talk about that –

Paul: We did, we did.

Lauren: – so I don't think we have to through it.

Paul: I mostly wrote that one in there to get you thinking. 

Lauren: One of my favorite quotes from my favorite podcast is one of the hosts, they were like getting heated about something and he just goes counterpoint. You are wrong.

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: And that was it. was like just the whole like…and they actually like they kind of gave him a hard time for that after the fact. And I was like, that was the most succinct and efficient way that anyone has ever shut down an argument that I've ever heard. 

Paul: That guy's had arguments on Reddit before. I guarantee it.

Lauren: Oh, 100 percent for sure. 

Paul: I feel like that's how most of them end. 

Lauren: Maybe they should. 

Paul: Probably. 

Lauren: I don't think either one of us is wrong, though, I think – 

Paul: No, no, I don't think it's – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: I don't think anybody's wrong. I think there is just so much challenging about writing. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: And about taking something that can be sort of personal and making it professional.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: And especially for anyone that has a busy life but wants to create content and write and then eventually do something with it, sell it, share it, whatever form that might take. It can be really daunting. And so I just thought it was kind of worth getting into that in a little bit more depth and taking it kind of the next step beyond just habit building because there's just, it's not a lot more, the habit building is the biggest part of it, but that next little bit is important too.

Lauren: I mean. Not only do I agree with that, but between the three of us, you are the one with the best and most established regular writing routine. So I think we should all take your advice. 

Paul: Can I have that sound bite too? 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe. 

Paul: Yeah. But I mean, thank you. And I don't want to say that my method works for anybody but myself. But I think there's value in considering things in kind of two phases when you're building a writing habit – 

Lauren: yeah. 

Paul: – and building towards writing a thing.

Lauren: Yeah, I think that's really important. And I do think even if it – even if this episode, you know, we could have gotten in here and literally just verbatim regurgitated the last episode, but with your version instead of Matt's version. I think kind of the TLDR of both of these episodes combined is that it's a very different process for everybody. And I don't – I think I said this in that last episode, too. I don't trust rigid online writing advice that is like this is the eight step surefire way to build a daily writing habit because it's just, it's way too personal. 

Paul: Yep. 

Lauren: For anybody's like one size fits all habit building. And so I think the best way to actually authentically teach people how to do this and how to get good at this is to give multiple different viewpoints of it and say this is what works for me. Well, this is what works for me. This is the overlap between us. This is where neither one of us touched this, but Matt touched on this.

Paul: Right. 

Lauren: And, whatever. I think that's cool to have. 

Paul: One of the quotes that I wrote down from the last episode from you is consistency does not have to mean rigidity. 

Lauren: Wow. 

Paul: It's exactly what you just said there. But I think that sums it up really nicely. 

Lauren: Every now and then I do have a good one liner. 

Paul: More often than you think. 

Lauren: That's so true. Most of our text message history is me and Paul quoting each other back and forth at each other. 

Paul: It really is. 

Lauren: And it's actually jokes aside, it's actually really like it's a good reminder of like, oh. Either we're funny or we're dumb or like – 

Paul: Why not both? 

Lauren: – even I mean, why not both? But also it is like, sometimes, sometimes that is helpful to have. Sometimes genuinely like, it is cool to be able to look back on something and be like, oh, actually, I did have a good one liner there.  

Paul: Yeah, absolutely. 

Lauren: Or I did say something smart there. I do know what I'm talking about there. 

Paul: I mean, it's one of the reasons I'm in the habit of writing down funny things people say is, I just think it's – we say some things in their throwaways sometimes. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: But when we write it down it’s like. Not a throwaway anymore.

Lauren: That’s deep.

Paul: Too deep?

Lauren: Wow

Paul: Do on that deep note?

Lauren: I think so too, but thank you for joining me today. 

Paul: Yeah.

Lauren: Thank you for sharing. 

Paul: Thank you for having us absolutely. 

Lauren: Us? Yeah? 

Paul: Thank you for having us? Is that what I just said? 

Lauren: Yup. 

Paul: I was doing so well. 

Lauren: You were doing well. 

Paul: Anyway. 

Lauren: You’re doing great. 

Paul: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed this. 

Lauren: Hopefully there is some kind of valuable insight in there. 

Paul: Yeah.

Lauren: I think there is. I think that when we cut this all down and put it all together – 

Paul: We’ll find out. 

Lauren: There's going to be some good stuff in there. If you were listening to this and you thought this was an enormous waste of your time, I'm so sorry. But also you would not be this far in the episode if you did. So good riddance. 

Paul: Indeed. Suckers. 

Lauren: It's fine. But if you were listening to this and you want to dive deeper – 

Paul: You have an email address for this podcast, right? 

Lauren: Yeah, it's P Hobday… It's podcast@lulu.com. 

Paul: Yeah, there you go. I thought that was what it was, but I don't want to be wrong. But like, send Lauren an email and tell her you want to hear more in depth conversations about the nuances of the philosophy of writing and what goes into it. 

Lauren: Yeah, do it. 

Paul: And I'll come back and wax intellectual about writing some more. 

Lauren: And tell us about your pen collection. Could you bring your pen collection in for the video next time? 

Paul: Sure. 

Lauren: Kay. 

Paul: Yeah. You're going to send me out on a shopping spree now because I'm going to need some sort of nice container to put it in. It's not like, well, visualized containers sort of thing, but – 

Lauren: That's Okay 

Paul: I can figure that out. 

Lauren: I think that's worth it. 

Paul: You want to just sit here and I can go over all of my favorite pens? 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. Sounds –

Paul: Okay.

Lauren: It sounds great. 

Paul: Okay. 

Lauren: But if you have any questions, if you have any interest in deeper dives into writing or other things that go along with writing, habit building, anything like that. How to turn your personal content into professional content. Whatever anything we've talked about in here email us podcast@lulu.com Matt will see it then too. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Lauren: So you can let him know how great this episode was, if you have any questions for me, or Paul, or Matt, reach out. Leave us a comment on social media, leave us a review, like and subscribe. I feel like everything is blurring together. I no longer remember what I’ve plugged in what I haven't. 

Paul: Go read my blog

Lauren: Yeah. 

Paul: We definitely talked about that some. 

Lauren: Yeah, but.

Paul: Our blog.

Lauren: blog.lulu.com. 

Paul: Yeah. Well, there you go. That's the website. That's it. 

Lauren: It's definitely linked in the show notes in at least four places. But go check it out anyway, for sure. Can you subscribe to the blog? 

Paul: You can subscribe to our email list in every blog post and then you'll get an email on Fridays, which either includes the newest blog post or is on a theme for something we think is going to be interesting for you. And you might get a slightly older blog post, but. 

Lauren: And a podcast episode. 

Paul: And a podcast episode. And if you're lucky, a video. You know, I feel like when Chelsea did one of these, she was plugging her YouTube channel like every five minutes and I missed the mark on that one real hard. 

Lauren: Oh, it's okay. You get more show notes content that Chelsea does. 

Paul: I get them words. 

Lauren: You sure do. 

Paul: Talk with my fingers. Okay, I'm gonna stop saying that. 

Lauren: And that's the note to end on. Thank you so much for listening with your ears and not talking with your fingers or your mouth. But if you would like to talk to us with your fingers, please do. I can’t. 

Paul: That outro was amazing. You should record it and use it for every episode.

Lauren: I have to go. Thanks for listening, everyone. 

Paul: Thanks. 

Lauren: We'll see you next week.