WANT TO BUST PATRIARCHY’S BALLS AS A WOMAN WRITER? DO THIS.

You probably know by know that I’m here to create a movement to get more women’s books written, published and out there changing the world.

But there’s one thing I see over and over which is stopping this happening.

I’ve already talked about women author’s often shaky confidence and the way struggling to write due to these emotional blocks or a lack of time and energy can prevent fabulous work from reaching its audience.

But there’s something else which I feel effs up a lot of projects and is a key reason why 97% of books are never finished (shivers).

NOT PLANNING.

I know it’s not sexy.

It’s positively dull, in fact, seemingly being something more for office workers than creatives.

But I beg to differ.

Yes, many novelists just start writing and make stuff up as they go.

They often have a great deal of experience though so they already know more about plotting and structuring a book that most newbies or, like Siri Hustvedt, author of What I Loved, who I was lucky enough to meet, they are prepared to rewrite the novel start to finish multiple times over the course of six years (‘I didn’t say it was fun, Sharon’ was Siri’s last word on this!).

But, unless you’ve already written and published novels and certainly if you’re working on non-fiction, like a business, coaching and healing book or even a memoir, you’re going to need to learn how to organise your material, and preferably in advance of writing, in order to create a killer book or book proposal an agent and publisher believes in.

For me, it helps to have even a rough plan to work from as then if I wobble, I know where I’m going next.

When the patriarchy gets in my head and tells me I cannot do it, I just look what I need to do that day in terms of my characters and get on with it.

The truth is, writing involves a lot more logic than many creatives realise in order to hold a whole narrative together over the course of a book.

Sometimes you can add that logic in after, but it saves a lot of time and energy if you know where you’re going from the start.

Before working with Sharon, I could easily see how “writing a book” could just stay on someone’s to-do list for years and years. I now have a writing practice that is tailored to me and that I am excited about. Sharon’s writing prompt ideas and help with the structure of my book were brilliant (THANK YOU!!). I had no idea how to even go about organizing it, but she was able to swoop in and give me direction on how to get started right away. KIMBERLEY WEISS, BODY POSITIVE COACH

One thing I pride myself on is being able to brainstorm books with my author peeps so they can see where the project needs to go.

My academic brain loves putting stuff in boxes and it’s wonderful to suddenly see my women writers’ glorious ideas come together in a way that totally rocks! I’ve created the Funky Book Planning for Feministas two hour session to allow us to riff on your book idea and you can find out more about it here.

So please plan, my feminist writers – it’ll help the writing process become easier and it’ll make your incredible stories and insights reach the reader more powerfully.

And that’s how we push patriarchy from the page.