Episode 45: Parenting and Writing, Part 2
with Audrey Monke
IN THIS EPISODE
In the second part of our two-part interview with Audrey Monke, we discuss why she decided to write her book and the process she went through in deciding what to put in – and what to leave out.
Audrey said she always loved writing, and had a lot of practical practice via her job as camp director. Having a parenting blog gave her great feedback and gave her the confidence she needed to take on a book project. She says the combination of camp, parenting, and positive psychology was her "thing" that she had that no one else did, and the writing itself went great, but when she discovered Jennie Nash and Author Accelerator everything changed. "It was the single best thing decision that I made in this whole process!"
In revising her manuscript with Jennie, Audrey says that she threw a lot of words out, and she had to become ok with that. "It's part of the process," Audrey says. She was able to focus on a few things that are most important to her as a parent and camp director and discern what are the most important topics that parents want to hear about as well. She was able to take the research-based concepts like optimism, grit, resilience, and kindness, and narrow her topics down, write a summary, write concepts for each chapter before she tackled the actual writing.
On the topic of grit we talk about how growth can only happen outside of your comfort zone. To grow and improve (for example, using constructive criticism to improve our writing and taking that scary step of sharing your writing with others), you have to venture outside of your circle of comfort, but there's a sweet spot. Beyond your comfort zone there's the blackout zone--where no growth happens---so we need to be cognizant of that, especially when we're encouraging our kids to take risks. Goal setting can be a useful tool in both taking risks at camp and within your own writing, as well, and overcoming discomfort is an important part of the process. "Challenge by choice" is an important concept Audrey uses at camp to help kids reach their self-determined goals.
Thanks to Audrey Monke for coming on the MomWrites podcast! Audrey's blog is http://sunshine-parenting.com, and you can find her on twitter under the handle @GACSunshine.
