Having a purpose is the key to success

know your why for being an author.

Do you know the real reason behind your desire to write a book?

In this podcast, we will explore the critical question every writer must ask themselves: what’s your why?

Having a strong and clear reason for writing is the key to overcoming writer’s block.

Three reasons for a strong why.

Dive into the importance of knowing your why and learn the three main reasons why it’s so crucial for every writer.

The why is important. It sets our intention and our purpose for writing and finishing our book.
The why can be attached to our goals and our commitment. When we have a strong why, we have a strong cause.
The why can carry us through difficult challenges.

Discover how to uncover your own unique way without judgment and use it as a source of strength when you need it most.

So grab your coffee and your cat (if you have one) and let’s get inspired to find our whys together.

Don’t forget to join our Facebook group to share your why and connect with other writers on the same journey!

It comes up again, as you wonder if you’re good enough to be a writer.

links mentioned

Work with Cheryl

Full Podcast Transcription of Episode 01

Welcome to the podcast.

So you decide you want to write a book.

Maybe you’ve written some short stories, or perhaps you’ve watched your favorite author release their book and it has sparked some nostalgia. Perhaps you just always wanted to be an author. Maybe you have never written a thing in your life, but your creative juices are flowing. Before you start to open that document and get started, i have one question for you. Let’s talk about this. Do you have writer’s block? Do you struggle with procrastination when it comes to your writing all the time? Do you often feel worried or doubtful about your writing with every click of the keyboard? If so, you are in the right place. My name is Cheryl Reynolds and I help fiction writers become authors. Here at Finish Your Fiction podcast. I will share easy ways for you to move beyond writer’s block, smash those self-sabotaging behaviors and finally stop procrastinating. It’s time for you to cultivate the right writer’s mindset and finish your fiction book now.

Let’s get started. Hey, my name is Cheryl and I’m sitting here with my cat in a box and my coffee. If you know me, you know that I love cats and coffee. I wrote a murder mystery about it. I digress. It is challenging to write the first episode. It is just as challenging to write the first sentence in a book. So when I put this podcast together, i actually want to come up with something that can maybe inspire you, can set the ground floor, so to speak, of what I want to talk about. Again, the first chapter is hard because we all need a starting point, and sometimes a starting point can be anything. It can be daunting, just like this podcast.

There could be millions of topics I could come up with and I need to decide on the first one that I feel would be the best for this podcast and, of course, for you.

So I believe that the first and most important question to ask yourself as a writer is what is your why for writing your book? What is your why for wanting to be an author? If I were to ask 13 authors why they want to write a book, i would get 13 different reasons because, see, our reasons are just as different as our genres and our just as different as our creativity. But there are reasons. You need to have a strong why, and we all have a why, either consciously or subconsciously. We have a reason, just like we have a reason for getting up in the morning If you walk into a room, you do so for a purpose. It’s even the reason we decide one morning that we wake up and we say let’s go for a country drive. No reason let’s go, but there’s always a reason. If you dig deep, there is always one. It could be because you’re bored and you have to get out of the house. Maybe perhaps it’s the fall and you love going for a country drive and looking at the leaves changing. Or perhaps you just need to get in the car and drive. You need to get away. See again, there is always a reason, just as there is a reason for having a why. There are reasons for you to decide to know your why.

And these are the three reasons. Why is the why important?

Number one it sets the intention for your writing. Our intention is the end point. It is the purpose of bringing the book to completion. Why Basically equals intent And if you know you why, you have a focal point to get to the end.

Two a why is attached to our goals. Of course, this goes along with intention. It helps us focus on the end result And it’s also about commitment, because when we have a strong why, we have a strong cause. Our why needs to get us through difficulties, and so our why needs to be something that is powerful, that brings us to number three

Can our why carry us through the difficulties and challenges? This is the moment when you’re having a hard time and you want to give up and you need to just reset yourself. You can go back and look at your why and it will give you some purpose, some focus and even some strength. I like to say that our why needs to be stronger than our excuses and our discomfort.

So how do you find your why?

This is not about judging yourself, because often, when we hear the word why, it’s accusatory, it’s a judgment base. Well, why? And that’s not what I’m trying to do here. This is more about asking from a space and a place of wonder, of curiosity. And if you don’t want to use the word why, then ask yourself instead of saying, why do I want to write my book, You could always say how come I want to write my book, and I would also suggest you take some time to write this down, to put it with whatever you have for your paperwork that is important to you, for your author business And, yes, if you’re going to be writing books, you need to have a business. Put it with your value statement, put it with whatever you would value as being important, because this should be something that you can get too easy and you can look at, even if you go ahead and plop on Canva not too long, because Canva is a time suck. But you can even make yourself a card or a statement your why statement, your how come statement. You can find yourself a nice quote.

You can use your creativity to do this, but you should definitely make sure that you find your why. I’m going to leave you with this very simple quote. I don’t know who wrote it, so it’s anonymous, and if you have to know where it came from, let me know. But the quote goes like this when the why is clear, the how is easy.

So please share your why with me. Head on over to the Facebook group. You can become a community member there. It is free. Join in the conversation with other writers who are also on the same journey that you are on, and not only that. It can also help you to see the reasons behind what other authors have for their why. I hope you join us.

Thank you for listening all the way to the end of this podcast, head on over to the web page to read the show notes at finishyourfictionnow.com. Be sure to grab the valuable resources and never miss an episode by joining my newsletter. Remember you have the power to go from overwhelmed to overjoyed as you become a published author.

Go finish your fiction now. See you next week.