Episode 3: The Benefits of Book Coaching
IN THIS EPISODE
In this episode, Jennie makes reference to Atul Gawande. Atul Gawande is a world-renowned brain surgeon, and yet he still invites his colleagues into the operating room to critique him. He talks about this experience in a piece in the New Yorker called “The Coach in the Operating Room" and how important it is to being open to getting better at what you do.
Everyone who wants to write a book needs to get over the idea that if you don’t do it alone, it’s not yours. Improving your story with help doesn’t mean that the story isn’t yours - it means you’re improving your craft, and you’re making your story the best it can be.
Click to tweet: Working w a book coach improves your craft and makes your story the best it can be
“People often come to me and they’re holding on to their ideas SO tightly...your idea is worth nothing. It’s ALL in the execution.”
Learning how to execute your idea is key. Wit the emergence of self-publishing there are fewer barriers to entry, and lots of things are sold to writers under the guise of “Write a bestselling novel in 90 days!” or “Watch this bestselling author talk about their process!” or even NaNoWriMo - as inspiring as these things can be, and although there’s value in these things and they can be a good place to start- that is not how you write (and finish!) a good book.
“The concept of a coach is slippery. Coaches are not teachers, but they teach. They’re not your boss—in professional tennis, golf, and skating, the athlete hires and fires the coach—but they can be bossy. They don’t even have to be good at the sport. The famous Olympic gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi couldn’t do a split if his life depended on it. Mainly, they observe, they judge, and they guide.
Coaches are like editors, another slippery invention. Consider Maxwell Perkins, the great Scribner’s editor, who found, nurtured, and published such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. “Perkins has the intangible faculty of giving you confidence in yourself and the book you are writing,” one of his writers said in a New Yorker Profile from 1944. “He never tells you what to do,” another writer said. “Instead, he suggests to you, in an extraordinarily inarticulate fashion, what you want to do yourself.””
