Scrappy Rough Drafts in Writing and Life w/ Donna Barker -18

[Shawna]

What do you think of when I say Scrappy First Draft? You probably think of a paper you had to write in high school or perhaps the book you started. Today, I can speak with a USA Today bestselling author who published her first book on the eve of 2050. She has a book for authors, a mindset with a title Scrappy First Draft. In today's conversation, though, we managed to apply this way of thinking to even more things. Welcome to the Grit Show, Growth on Purpose. We're glad you found us. I'm Shawna Rodriguez, and I'm honored to be joining you on today's journey as part of this community, growing together as speakers and drivers.

[Shawna]

Donna Barker has spent the majority of her 30-year career as a self-employed communications expert supporting progressive not for profit organizations in Canada. She's also worked as a small business mentor on contract with Canada's largest Credit Union, coaching dozens of aspiring entrepreneurs, helping them make business plans and cash flow projections to obtain small business loans. She also has an alter ego, Danika Bloom. That's where the USA Today bestselling romance author comes in. Today, she blends her communications and business backgrounds with her passion for working with romance authors. And that is what we talk about more today.

[Shawna]

Author Ever After is Danika’s online community that helps other romance authors turn their writing hobby into an income generating business, creating happily ever afters. We love to call our dawn in safe conversation, but sometimes, just for fun we'll add in that Danika Bloom. Welcome to the show, Donna. Thank you for being here.

[Donna]

Thank you so much, Shawna. It's funny, one of the very first emails that I sent to readers who signed up for my author list has got the subject line. I use their first name, and it says, "If that's really your name?" And I explain how I use a pen name as a romance author and why I use a pen name as a romance author. And I cannot tell you how many people write back and say, "Actually, it's not my real name." And then they'll tell me their stories about why they use fake names. It's fun. It's so fun.

[Shawna]

That is really fun. I think that's great. I think that sometimes, I think that people are confused about why writers use pen names. Do you want to help people understand why do writers use pen names? 

[Donna]

There are lots of reasons. Some do it because, for instance, I work with one romance author who works in advertising, and she has clients, and she doesn't want her clients to know who she is because it's not a good fit for the type of work that she does in her career so nobody knows. We, as romance authors, don't know what her real name is, and her clients don't know what her romance name is. So she's really, really careful about keeping the people. Yeah. Myself. I'm Donna, I'm Danika. I have books published under both and that is a really good reason why authors have more than one name, more than one pen name and or their real name and a pen name. Because when you're marketing books, so if I have a nonfiction book as Donna called Scrappy Rough Draft. And if people are looking at that and then seeing a bunch of steamy romance, it's going to mess up the algorithms. It's a marketing thing, right? So as Donna, I write nonfiction, and that is the world that I worked in as a consultant to nonprofit organizations. But as a steamy romance author, I am Danika. And it's a strategy that just helps keep the two businesses clean. But when I'm talking to people, they know that I'm both, but machines can't know that I'm both. Yeah, the machines have to be kept in the dark.

[Shawna]

Machines get easily confused. And that's something so I don't think I've ever talked about this on my podcast, but, so I do have a book Beyond the Pear Blossoms of which is written as women's fiction, and that is written with my name, Shawna Rodrigues. And then I do have a series that is written with my pen name and my pen name is Avery Lawrence, and the Lawrence is my fiance's last name is Lawrence, and when we get married, I'm going to keep my name because I've worked darn hard for it and have a lot under it. But my pen name is his last name. So, it's so cute because he's taken the book to work and talks at work all the time about my pen name and myself, a small town, sweet romance, very sweet stuff with a cute dog that he loves named Boots. So he'll talk about that, and it's so cute that he talks about it so much at work. And again, it's very much like you said, like the brand difference because women's fiction does not have the sweet, happy endings that small town romance does. And so, again, we don't want people getting confused when they're looking for one or the other and the computers and the algorithms. And so, that's the reason why there's two different names on it. But it's so cute how much he got his last name.

[Donna]

I love that. My husband has not read anything that I've written.

[Shawna]

Really?

[Donna]

Not a word. No. He has no interest in reading my books. 

[Shawna]

That's so cute. So my fiance, he read Beyond the Pear Blossoms, which is women's fiction. So it's very much about the emotional journey. It's very a little heavier, a little emotional, whatever else. And that's not his thing. He loves to read, but that's not his thing. But he read it because he loves me, and he did that for me. But the other one I didn't expect him to like at all and he actually loves it. He's like, "Well, it's kind of like romantic comedy. It's very sweet, it's very cute." And so he actually likes that one, which surprised me. I didn't expect that at all.

[Donna]

You know what? I'm not surprised only because I have had this experience in my real life, in my Donna community, like literally a small town in British Columbia, a little village of like 200 people. I know almost everybody, and they're really supportive and friendly people. And a number of them have bought and read at least my first romance because it takes place in a town that is very much like my village. And the number of times they've said, "I don't read romance," and then they get to the end and they'll say, "Wow, I'm really surprised. That was just a really good story." And it happened to have this romance in it,  right? Romance is just a good story that has love as kind of the core driver, and isn't that what life is, too? So when people say, you know, "I don't read romance." I think, well, because you haven't read romance yet. If you gave it a chance, you'd probably find that it's not just dissimilar to other stories that you read.

[Shawna]

Yes, well, my story opens like with a fire happening and action and all that stuff too. So, you know what I mean? So it's got a little action in there, too. And there's like a little town event, a little town fair and stuff. So who knows? Maybe that's part of it. But it has a little bit of those things.

[Donna]

I love that.

[Shawna]

Yes, but that's the reason why I tell people that it's kind of like there's Anne Taylor and there's Loft, and they're both the same, they just have a different name so you can tell the difference when you go shopping, what they're looking for.

[Donna]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Shawna]

So yes. That's not where I expected them to go but that's like an important little tidbit, pressing it on the side. So, a large part of our conversation today, I hope just to kind of touch on. You've had some exciting transitions through your life at different ages and stages. And I would love to kind of start with like your original transition of your first novel.

[Donna]

My first novel.

[Shawna]

You publishing it on the eve of turning 50 and kind of where you were at that stage in life.

[Donna]

Oh, yeah. It almost literally was the eve. It was two weeks before I turned 50. I published my first, which I had started writing the year I turned 40, so it took ten years. And the story behind that was my dad. So, I wrote this novel and it ultimately never became a novel because it was my first book. And first books are often, they're learning, right? We don't need to share those in the world. But over the course of the decade, I took that story and I massaged it and I worked it and I came up with another story. There's an expression called writing from the scar, not the wound. And that first draft was written right after my husband of 15 years decided that he was in love with a different woman. So I wrote this like it was called Drinking Scotch with Strangers, and it was very much writing from the bloody wound of having been left in. So over time in my healing, I was able to take that experience and rewrite it as a humorous book, women's fiction, paranormal, called Mother Teresa's Advice for Jilted Lovers in which every Man Dies. But it's funny because I'm writing from the scar instead of the oozy, gooey wound.

[Shawna]

You could find the humor in it.

[Donna]

Exactly, I could find the humor in it. But I started working on that one because my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he had had this desire to write a book that he had never fulfilled. And since I had written one and I was a writer, like a technical writer for my whole career, I said, "Alright, why don't we write our books together?" So he and I became accountability buddies. And every week we would share chapters, we would send them back and forth. He was reading my paranormal women's fiction and just like questioning how he could have had a child who had such murderous intent towards men, right? And then I was reading this story that he wrote, which was kind of a Clive Cutler, James Patterson like thriller. And I'm like, "Okay, Prime Minister of Canada, you better be careful because I think my dad's coming for you." Right? It was so much, so much fun. And we finished our drafts almost at the same time. I had written about 60,000 words. He had written almost 100,000 words. And then he got too sick to carry on writing and we both put our books aside and time passed, and I stopped. I had had this goal of being a published author and I realized I wanted to be a published author by the time I was 50. And I picked it up again, and thought, "You know, like, dad would not be impressed that I just let this sit here." And I'm almost 50 and for goodness sake, I've been doing this for like ten years. So I was afraid, I really was afraid that people would read the book. Not like the book and by extension, not like me, right? There was definitely that fear of being judged and so on. So anyway, ultimately, I just had to swallow it. And there's a freedom that comes, I have to say there's a freedom that for me has come with every ten year decade, right? Like turning 30, I've had my son, and suddenly I felt like an adult. At 30, in my twenties, I didn't feel like an adult. I was still a kid. I was a kid pretending, right? I was a married kid pretending. And then 40 was another transition where turning 40 and being a single mom all of a sudden as a turning point, it was another transition age where I grew into a new version of myself. And in terms of my career, I guess, I started to feel more confidence. And then 50 was kind of like, "Alright, who cares if people like me or not? I am who I am. I'm not changing at this point. I'm just gonna be me now." And it was hugely freeing. I don't know why people get afraid to turn 50, because for me, I experienced it was like it was the best decade change of my life so far. I'm not sure 60 is going to be so great because I'm looking at the wrinkles now and going up. [inaudible] up to 50, I was really liking that.

[Shawna]

Now you're going to be throwing it too. She's just going to be like 50 before you get there, you're a little nervous. Once you hit it, you're going like, "Oh no. This is alright, we're going with that." 

[Donna]

Exactly. And I can't even imagine what it's going to be, but yeah, I think you're right. It's going to be awesome. I just don't know what it's going to be yet.

[Shawna]

Yes, but it's mindset, which you have a book about mindset.

[Donna]

I do.

[Shawna]

Tell us about your book about mindset, Donna..

[Donna]

So Scrappy Rough Draft, and I'm going to read you never remember the longest subtitle on it. It's science to strategically motivate yourself and finish writing your book. So, this was something when I was working on the book, Mother Teresa's Advice for Children Lovers. I joined a writers community at that, like, I don't know, probably four years before it actually published when I was in my mid forties. And it was a romance writers group. Even though this story wasn't romance, they were the only writing group in town. And so, they really supported me in having courage and also learning the craft. And one of the things that one of the books that everybody says you should read is a book by Anne Lamont. And in that book, she talks about I hope it does, it's okay to swear your shitty first draft. So that is an author talk about writing the shitty first draft. And I was like, I did a program, I did a course for aspiring writers back before I wrote this book, after I had published my book, and before writing this one. And in that course, I was referring to Anne Lamont and saying don't get stressed about your first draft. It's not meant to be good. And I called it a Shitty First Draft and I got taken, raked over the coals, as it were by an English second language writer who took it literally and she said she was going to quit the program. She was like so upset and it got me thinking. And we had conversations and I was like, "No, it's a metaphor. It's a saying that we use in English." She said, but it's terrible. It makes me feel like I should just flush this away. It makes me feel like I am a bad writer. And I started thinking about it. I thought, you know, it kind of like makes me feel like a bad writer too, to refer to my own writing that way. So, I started doing a lot of research because in another life, if I had had more money to go to school and do master's degrees, I would have done another degree in psychology. So I do that on my own, my own personal psychology degree. And I figured out all of the science, the neuroscience, the social science around mindset. And we're writers, words are so important to us, right? Like we take so much time to write the right word in our stories. Why were we using this language? Well, because Anne Lamont said it, but I think it was misguided my personal opinion, which you know.

[Shawna]

No, I completely agree with you. Scrappy First Draft is a much better way to say it. And I like it because scrappy is a term that it means you're trying, you've got the oomph behind it and you're going to get there.

[Donna]

Yeah, well, it's so funny. So, yes, for me, Scrappy is like and when I think of scrappy, Scrappy Rough Draft for me is like Scrappy Doo the little in Scooby Doo? The little tiny, the puppy who you back him into a corner and he comes out fighting like that's the image I see. And one of the exercises, the very first exercise in my book is find the right name for your book. Stop calling it a shitty first draft. Call it if you're writing a story about kids, like if it's kid’s book and it's about a witch, a child, witch or something, call it, you know, a magical first draft. Find the right name for it, so that when you're thinking of it, and when you're referring to it, like, "Oh, yeah, I'm working on my draft." When you're referring to it with other writers, you're using a word that actually brings you joy and makes you feel happy about it. 

{Shawna]

I love that. 

[Donna]

That was that. And yeah, it's been translated to Korean. I cannot tell you how exciting that is, that there might K-drama written that my book is look like. So, yeah, really exciting to have that.

[Shawna]

That is so exciting. And you kind of found a niche with mindset and writers because that is an area where writers need a lot of support. So tell me you have this new great project around this. Tell me about your new project around mindset and supporting writers.

[Donna]

Thank you. So it's called Author Ever After, and it's a community that's specifically for romance authors. For five years now, I've been running Masterminds for Authors. Every week we meet, and it's all around accountability and motivation, and setting goals that bring you joy and celebrating all of the small wins because writing a book takes so much time. And statistically speaking, people's first books take typically between five and ten years from the time they start writing. And if you're sitting on your own, you don't realize that, I cannot tell you how many writers will say, "Oh, I've been working on this so long." And they lose confidence, and they lose momentum, and they think that it's taking too long but that is just the reality of those first books often. But romance authors, so I've been doing this with genre authors, and memoir writers, and hundreds of authors who have gone from draft to many of them are now published which is really exciting. But it's the romance authors who bring me the most joy. So I don't know, I just love working. I don't know what it is. There's nothing earnest, I guess, at least the community that I attract. There's this playfulness with romance authors and this desire to experiment that just brings me a whole lot of pleasure. So I have decided after working with all the different authors, that where I really, really want to niche down and focus, is supporting specifically romance authors and getting their first books out and turning those books into money because almost every romance author I know is like, "I want to make money doing this." It's a sad thing. "I want to quit my job because I love doing this so much, but I need to make money at it." So it's finding that those people that I can truly support because I can't support a memoir writer. I'm not the person to support a memoir writer to become an income earning memoir writer. There are lots of people but I can support a romance author to become an income earning romance author because I understand how the romance industry works.

[Shawna]

Yeah, no, that's the important thing of knowing what your place is and what you've learned and sharing that knowledge. You found a definite path for that.

[Donna]

And it's tiny. I mean, it's tiny niche, right? It's a very specific niche, but  yeah, anyway, yes, it is. I can stop talking now.

[Shawna]

You're supposed to be talking, that's why you're here. And you also have this exciting new thing with like text messages and voice messages you can send to your community. Tell us about that.

[Donna]

It's called Spark Your Romance and it's this coolest new technology where you sign up for this program. It's a challenge, a 21-day challenge, and every day I will, with my dulcet tones, give you a challenge to address your mindset and give you confidence and courage and cheer you on. So you fall in love with the story that you're working on, and follow it up with a text message, say, "Hey, did you do the homework?" And then you'll text me back and say the special word, and I'll say, "Yay, good for you and you got this." And maybe give you another little piece of homework. So every day for 21 days. And then at the end of it, the intention is that you've reconnected with your story and you love it, and you get your momentum and want to stick with writing those characters that have been speaking to you or stop talking to you.

[Shawna]

That is so wonderful. That accountability and just having not feeling alone in that journey, I think it's really valuable.

[Donna]

It really is. Yeah.

[Shawna]

That's wonderful. And you and I got to chat a little bit about this concept of Scrappy First Draft and how it kind of applies to our own lives and figuring out like where our purposes and how purpose can evolve and like finding, like growing into where you want to be. Can you talk a little bit about your iterations of, I mean, you've been a USA Today bestselling romance author of spicy, romantic comedies under Danika Bloom, and then you're finding your way into doing this amazing work with other authors. Can you talk a little bit about your path of how you kind of change different iterations and use all your skills from all your different work to come together?

[Donna]

Yeah, it's funny, and now it is finally coming together. So, I started off doing a degree in communications thinking I was going to be a documentary filmmaker because social justice is kind of my thing and it's where my heart is. But I could never find the... and I've made documentary films and they've been in festivals. And as a career, it was a tough career to do as a mum and hard to make money. But the social justice piece was there kind of holding that up. So I worked in progressive nonprofits doing communications and community building, and I did that for over 20 years. And in the last, well, actually, over 30 years now, in the last 15 years or so, I started working with a Credit Union and the Credit Union, I don't know if it's the same down in the States, but up here in Canada, Canada's largest Credit Union is huge in social justice movements. And so, I was working with taking my skills and working with entrepreneurs with disabilities to help them launch businesses and writing their business plans and doing their cash flow. So the Credit Union would say this person has a really great idea, but it's not, we can't give them a loan because their business plan and their cash flow aren't adequate. So can you work with them for ten to 15 hours and help them get that figured out. So, I did that for a number of years, and I love it. I love all the work, all the clients that I've worked with, but none of them were my thing, right? Like it's one thing to support those people and those causes, but they weren't the ones that made me wake up in the morning and go, "This is my cause. This is the thing I want to see succeed."

[Shawna]

That use resonates.

[Donna]

Exactly. Yeah. So my purpose is to be certainly absolutely to be helpful and to community build but with whom? And it wasn't until I fell into the crowd of a romance office that I realized, 'Oh, my gosh, I finally found my people." So in terms of that growth, it was perhaps circuitous, but it definitely brought me to the place where I am now with the confidence in myself, and the skills and the experience to be as helpful as I can to authors who want to be earning income. Because I've got the business background. I've been self-employed for over 20 years. I have got a career as a romance author. So it all came together. Looking at it on paper, you'd think, how do those things work together? Helping entrepreneurs with disabilities and then writing steamy romance? They do. They just do. That's all I could say. My life has a scrappy rough draft. Now, you've put this bug in my ear. That what 60 could it bring up? Thinking, I wonder what 60? So maybe I'm still scrappy rough draft. Maybe we always are scrappy rough until, you know, there we are now.

[Shawna]

Constantly adding different layers. Well, I think that's an important piece that as people are in stages of their life, and I'm like, "This isn't quite where I want to be. This isn't the future isn't where I want to be. As I look out ten years, this isn't where I want to be.That you don't have to trash everything you already have.” It's the first draft. You can build on this. You can take what's best from this. Take what you love from this and keep going.

[Donna]

Growth on purpose, and I take what's best.

[Shawna]

Yes. It all comes together. It all comes together. And I think that that's an important piece we all have from this that you can take. Like if you're a stay at home mom and it's coming to a point where your kids are flying the nest, what did you love about being a stay at home mom? Did you love running around to all of the different events? Is that something you love because some moms don't like that at all. Some love it. Did you love throwing the parties? Did you love getting to have quality time with your kids and these deep conversations about what they needed to do and wanted to do? Did you help teaching and guide them? What did you love about it? So, it's not that you lost your purpose because your purpose is being a mom. No, your purpose is and it's different things you loved about being a mom full time and how can you take those? How can you take working with business plans for folks that had disabilities and how can you take that and then skill stack it on something else you love, which is writing steamy comedic romances, and build that together to find your next iteration and get you closer to that? So I think that there's beautiful things to be taken from this and that everyone can kind of learn and look at their life and as they're looking at transitions about how they can take the best, take what was in that last draft and take it with them to even prove it even more.

[Donna]

I love this concept of stacking. I've not heard that before. I love it. Yeah.

[Shawna]

Another guest we had, he was talking about how he different things. I'm like that's exactly what this is, taking all these skills. and just like and magically, we can find a way to bring it together. So I think that's going to be part of our takeaway for our audience today is like how can we stack all of our skills, pay attention to all our strengths, because we got some in there. That's wonderful. That's so exciting. Well, good. I'm glad you're here today.

[Donna]

I'm delighted.

[Shawna]

It's a very exciting conversation. I know it's good stuff. 

[Donna]

Thank you. I've been listening to your podcast since it launched, and it's one of those, I don't know, I can't say a dream, but when I approached you and thought, "Hey, can I maybe talk to you about some stuff?" And you said yes, it was like this is next level. I'm kind of losing my words right now. I'm sorry. But it's like this is purpose with a purpose, I guess. I don't know if that makes any sense, right? Everybody needs some sort of validation, I guess. That's what it is. It's validation that I'm not crazy.

[Shawna]

No, you're not crazy. You're not crazy. You may have like a dual identity thing going on. You're not crazy.

[Donna]

You may have a dual identity thing going on. Yes.

[Shawna]

Yes, exactly. But you're not diagnosable with that. It's intentional. We want you to have the dual identity. They're both very positive parts of you. We love it. We love it. That's wonderful. Well, let's talk about self care because we love talking about self care here. What do you do to take care of yourself, Donna?

[Donna]

I have to say, so I'm at that lovely stage of life where my hormones are deciding that they're going to try new tricks, and it's really great, which means I don't sleep really well anymore. I fall asleep without any problem. So, in terms of selfcare, I think for me, the most important thing that I have started doing in the last three years is there's no clock in our bedroom anymore. Because I wake up in the middle of the night, and my self care is to use that time without judgment, and without stress and to be my creative. Not like, you know, when you just wake up, you don't have that voice that tells you all your shoulds and the voice that tries to shut down common, like the common sense voice, right? So my selfcare really is taking that time in the middle of the night that I will inevitably wake up and spend whatever it is, an hour, sometimes more, and play the wettest game with my creativity. Two, three in the morning is I don't turn on the light. I can't stand the light in the middle of the dark. I keep my eyes closed. But last night I had a conversation with you, Shawna. It was better than this one. I was so clever. I was amusing. You laughed so hard.

[Shawna]

I am laughing hard. That part was true.

[Donna]

That is myself here. It's not judging what my body is just naturally doing, and it's accepting it, and allowing it to do its thing through this next stage. And hopefully, hopefully by the time I'm 60, I'll have learned how to sleep again properly through the night. But until then, yeah, it's using those hours that other people are sleeping and being creative in my mind, and it bubbles up the next day, right?

[Shawna]

Yes. No, that's wonderful. I love that lack of judgment and just knowing this is going to happen and I'm going to make use of it the best way that I know how. And I love that you don't try to light it up.

[Donna]

Horrible. And my husband, he's got the same thing going on with insomnia, but he gets up and he watches movies. I'm like, "I don't even know how you can do that." Anyway, we're very different that way.

[Shawna]

We're very different that way. Well, good. Well, we have Dr. Robin. Dr. Robin Miller is one of our episodes, and I'm thinking she's coming out sometime in mid-October, so I'm not sure where timing will be with your episode, but you should listen to her episode, because we actually talk about hormones. There's things we talk about on the episode. 

[Donna]

Fantastic.

[Shawna]

You should, definitely. Yes, she has a book that's coming out that I think you'll enjoy, so you should definitely check out that episode because we might give you some more tips. Yes. She's great. That's wonderful. So great. I like your selfcare. I think part of it is just being gentle with yourself and knowing where you're at and working--

[Donna]

And accepting, that's right. Accepting that that is where I am now in this stage. In this season, as it were, Shawna. In this season.

[Shawna]

Yes. Because we have so many seasons. Yes, we do. Wonderful. And you might be aware of this. But I give all my guests a book and so you get to choose---

[Donna]

I want mermaids.

[Shawna]

She wants the mermaid, she gets the mermaid. She gets the Vintage Mermaid and Magnificent Ocean. So, you will get the color grit, the Vintage Mermaid and Magnificent Ocean. And for my Canadian friends, I have a couple of Canadian friends on the show. It's kind of fun.

[Donna]

We are fun.

[Shawna]

Yeah. I think you might be most represented outside of the States, because I've only had, like one from Australia and one from the UK so far so I think that you guys are representing Canada. Every time I come on, I hear something about a social program with Credit Unions or the fact there's no interest on student loans, and I'm just like, "You guys, I might have to move. The weather was a little less cold." You got some cool stuff going on for Canada.

[Donna]

Cool stuff going on. Yeah.

[Shawna]

Yeah, you do. I like it. I like it. Well, good. We'll definitely get that to you. But what I do, they send you a downloadable version of it.

[Donna]

That means I can make mistakes, I can color outside of the lines, and I can do it again.

[Shawna]

Exactly. Bonus. It's nice. Bonus. I like that. Wonderful. And so, for all of our friends who are listening, what do you think that our takeaway should be for all of them? What should be the thing that they walk away and add to their life tomorrow? Should we have them work on your selfcare technique of looking at their life and not judging whatever they're doing with it? Or should we give them something around possibly the skills that they have and looking at the skills and how they can add it to their next draft. What do you think?

[Donna]

Because I'm married to a man who spent an entire career doing a job he did not love, and now, after retirement has taken on, he did six months with no work, and then he got a job working part time, doing the thing that he always wished he was doing, which is woodworking. He went from a government bureaucrat working in litigation to being a woodworker. And so, I think the takeaway should be look at the things you love and at the next opportunity in your life when you can do a transition, be ready to transition into that thing that you love. Because it's true that my husband is 60. It's not too late to become a construction worker, apparently, because there he is. I tell you the guy at four when he gets home from work, but he loves it. He loves it. So, thinking of these milestones again, mine happened to be on the decade. Many people do have their decade crises. I prefer to think of those decades not as a crisis moment, but as an opportunity to make a conscious change to something that is what, you know, we're now ready to take on. So that would be where I would focus.

[Shawna]

I love it. I love it. So start really thinking about those things that your skills and your wants and the things that you want to do that late. You have your passion, your purpose, all these things together. You can find that. And to start looking around for those clues, those little tidbits of what you love about the things. Because there's lots of things we don't love about our lives, but there's lots of things we do love. And so to find those things that you do love and try to think of those when you wake up in the middle of the night, you can start percolating about the different ways together.

[Donna]

How can I bring those in?

[Shawna]

Yes. Find that way. I love it. Okay, everyone, that's your plan from today's to go. Start thinking about those things and how you can integrate them into your next transition. Those transitions happen. They will never know when they're going to be and what they're going to be. But if you're looking for them.

[Donna]

But if you're ready for them, if you're ready for them.

[Shawna]

You're ready for them, you start opening those doors. I like it. I like it a lot. Well, good. But let's tell folks that wonderful text messaging program that you have that you mentioned. You even have a discount.

[Donna]

I do for you.

[Shawna]

Folks through for listening, because you're amazing. So tell us about how to get hooked up with that and then tell us how to find you in general.

[Donna]

Okay, I guess there'll be a link in the show notes for there will be so it'll be an Author Ever After. And then when you use the code grit, you will get 15% off and you get to have this conversation with me for 21 days.

[Shawna]

I love it.

[Donna]

And then the other places you can find me, you can find me on Amazon just as Danika Bloom. It got Danika with a K. And that's where if you're interested in reading spicy romance. Anyway, I was recently having to rewrite my bio, and what occurred to me was, see, I only have one child. I always wanted to be, you know, the mum in The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch and have all kinds of kids. That was always my dream when I was a teenager. But Bobby just said no, you're going to have one. So I rewrote my bio and just was like as a mom of one who always wanted to be not Jan Brady, but the mum Brady, I write steamy romance about Bands of Brothers. And then I was like, "Oh, that's kind of creepy, isn't it?" Like mum writing about all of her sexy sons. But I kept it because I thought that's kind of funny.

[Shawna]

Yes, very funny. It's amusing.

[Donna]

But it's also kind of creepy. But anyway, but that's romcom, it works. So Amazon.com is probably the best place to find and there is, of course, Danikabloom.com.

[Shawna]

That's nice and easy. Yes, yes. You like big families.

[Donna]

I love found family. That's what my one son did as he created his found family.

[Shawna]

That's wonderful. I love it. Well, good. Well, yes, that's how to find her. And if you do, I want to hear about your experience of this wonderful new technology of getting to get text messages and voice messages. Somebody check that out. Send me a DM too, because I want to hear about it, because that sounds like it's a lot. Yes.

[Donna]

Well, they do.

[Shawna]

Well, thank you so much for being here. 

[Donna]

[inaudible] fun. Thank you.

[Shawna]

Yes, you're delightful. This has been great. So for everyone out there, be sure to stop by @Gritshow.com. That's where you can get your copy of coloring pages. You can download so you can work on your selfcare, because we know that's important. And as you know, you are the only one of you that's out there, and that really does mean something. We'll talk to you again next week. Take care.