How to Write a Book (and Actually Finish It) with Linda Sivertsen

Marie Forleo:

In this episode of MarieTV we do have some adult language, so if you have little ones around grab your headphones now. 

I bet it's no surprise to you that over 80% of the population wants to write a book, but did you know that 97% of people who start writing their books never finish them? And what's more, 95% of people who pitch books to agents and editors get turned down? My guest today is going to help all of us beat those odds.

Linda Sivertsen is an award-winning author, a New York Times bestselling co-author, former ghost writer, and a magazine editor who midwives books. She's been featured on forbes.com, Teen Vogue, CNN, Glamour, and much more. Linda is the host of the Beautiful Writers Podcast and her latest book with the same name, A Journey of Big Dreams and Messy Manuscripts with Tricks of the Trade from Bestselling Authors.

Linda, oh my goodness, you are the woman that we need to hear from. And I am so excited for this conversation. I mean, first of all, I am obsessed with books. It's the thing that I own the most of in my life. And books have just changed my life on so many levels and continue to. I was opening up with these incredible stats that for many people can feel quite depressing. And you are the human that can help us start to kind of demystify and also give us some tactics.

So I want to start with something that I've heard a ton in my own career when people show up on my doorstep, and I would assume it's the same thing for books. This idea that it's all already been done before. Oh my gosh, I have an idea for a book about divorce, or food, or business, or spirituality, whatever the topic might be. Yet people have this voice saying like, "Oh my God, it's all been done before." What would you say to that person?

Linda Sivertsen:

Yeah. That one makes me crazy because think about it. Say you're a relationship coach and you want to write a relationship book. Well, every year there's a new crop of about a million divorces in America. That was pre-COVID. Who knows what it is now. But those people, they're weeping and exhausted and they stumble into the bookstore, or they're 2:00 AM on amazon.com, and they're looking for help, and they want the latest greatest.

They're seeing the latest books on the shelf. So every year, there's this new available market for relationship books. And it's like that across the board. I mean, we always have the staples, but there's always room for new.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. I love that. I don't think I thought about it from that perspective too. I mean, looking for the latest, right? What is the newest release in any category that people would actually look for that and it's a really great point.

Linda Sivertsen:

Well, consciousness is always expanding as is information, right? So all you have to do is talk to a 25-year-old and you go, "Whoa, kids are smarter than we were." At least the kids I'm talking to. Especially in consciousness, in vibration, in expansion. So books are the same. They're written by people. So as we evolve and grow, books do too.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. So you've interviewed close to 200 writers and you've helped thousands of people just complete and finish and actually publish their book. I'm curious if you can speak into the qualities that set people apart from the folks who finish... Or excuse me, that start and don't finish, to the folks who actually follow through and get their work out into the world.

Linda Sivertsen:

Oh, wow. A lot of people start, they get super excited. It's so much fun to be taken over by an idea. It's like having an affair, and you can't wait to get back to the page. And then life hits. I mean, there is something to be said for momentum. So I always tell people, go where the juice is. Start with the good stuff. Don't force yourself to do the hard parts because at first, until you have some momentum, no wonder you're running from your desk. Go where the juice is, give yourself a break, take your time.

But most people, I would say, they start hitting that resistance both internal and external and they get dejected and they stop at some point. Oftentimes that Steven, our friend Steven Pressfield talks about, they'll stop right at the end. I mean, Steven said on my podcast, and then in the book, he blew up his life when he was 99% done with a book. And that happens a lot. I have to fight it all the time too.

Marie Forleo:

It's like that last 10%. And do you experience it yourself, or have you seen it and on other people you’ve worked with?

Linda Sivertsen:

Oh, hell yes.

Marie Forleo:

I've looked at it. It feels like getting over that last hump to finish. Almost any project, of course, books. But I've seen this in our own business, whether it's courses or whether it's a development project that has to do with coding and all kinds of technical stuff. Getting over that last bit, it's like, "Oh, it's big."

Linda Sivertsen:

So hard. It feels like you're dying sometimes. I love that story that you tell in the book about your proposal hackathon. And proposals are a good way to get yourself to the finish line, because once you've shopped your proposal and you actually have a book deadline, heaven help you if you don't make it, right? So there's something about that pressure that I think makes all of us smarter really quickly.

Marie Forleo:

A hundred percent.

Linda Sivertsen:

Yeah, and I love that story that you said. You said, “Look, I wasn't getting the proposal done. My work was taking up all the hours, all the things.”

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Marie Forleo:

That’s the thing. I kept hearing myself talking about, "Oh, this idea for the book. The idea for the book." I had done the talk on Oprah. So it was like, okay, I knew the book was going to be Everything is Figureoutable.

Linda Sivertsen:

No pressure.

Marie Forleo:

And my agent, Bonnie was just like, "Okay, Marie, when do you think you can get a proposal in?" And of course, with all the other things I'm doing to run the business and just actually have a life, it just kept getting pushed off. I couldn't find or make enough of an open chunk to get deep enough in to get that momentum you were talking about. And then I finally got so fed up with myself. I was like, "Screw, this is not working." And I set up... I remember that tech companies... I don't know if they still do this, but I'd read about it somewhere. They have these hackathons where they're either going to build an entire product over 24 or 48 hours, or they're going to do something wild within a very short, tight amount of time.

I said, "Why can't I use the same mechanism to force myself to make major progress in my book proposal?" I told Josh, my partner, I was like, "Look, you're going to have to just bring me the food. I'm not doing anything for a few days-"

Linda Sivertsen:

Serious.

Marie Forleo:

"I'm probably going to cry."

Linda Sivertsen:

I say that too.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. And I'm just going to be a mess, but we're going to see if we can actually get this done. And as you noted, we got about 80% of the way there. Once I got there and I showed my agent, she was like, "Marie, this is really good. You just need to do X, Y, or Z." And I'm like, "Okay, I will do this." I turned into that bulldog mode. But I think…

Linda Sivertsen:

That's the fun part. When you have enough to show somebody that you respect, they give you feedback, then it's like, "Okay, you're not just wandering around blind. You have tools in front of you to finish it."

Marie Forleo:

Let me ask you this, because this has been true for me. I've written two books so far, and I definitely want to do more. It's always an interesting kind of balance for me with the other things that we do to run the business because I'm writing a lot. So it's like I'm writing, writing, writing, but not necessarily aiming it at a book.

So I found for me that I'm a very collaborative person. When I did my first book, I actually hired a book coach simply to have somebody to talk to.

Linda Sivertsen:

I know. So fun.

Marie Forleo:

Like to have somebody to show pages to because I realized the same thing. It was like, if I don't have any outside accountability. This is going to be way more difficult than it needs to be. Have you seen in your experience that having some form of outside accountability, obviously in addition to a deadline or a publisher, but another human being that you can show pages to helps people?

Linda Sivertsen:

Makes all the difference. I mean, I myself have my mentor, Betsy Rapoport, who I've worked with, maybe not on every book, but on most of my books, because otherwise you just go insane by yourself. I mean, it's just wall. And you get to the point where you can look at somebody else's proposal and know exactly what's missing or their storyline of the arc of their story. But with your own, it's like, I mean gibberish half the time. So I'll send stuff to Betsy and say, "What do you think?" She'll give me notes, I'll rework it. Sometimes we'll go back and forth a whole bunch.

And it's just heavenly. It makes me so excited. I can't wait to get her email. Same with my publisher at BenBella with my editor, Vi. She was so fantastic. Every time I got an email from her, it would just make my day, because I'm no longer in a vacuum doing this ship by myself.

I mean, it's just crazy making. And I would say that most of the people from the podcast and in the book are the same. There were a few holdouts, like Martha Beck for the longest time, never, ever showed her stuff to anyone. Ann Patchett. These people are so good at what they do that... But over the years, they've gotten way more collaborative as well. And Martha says it's way more fun now. I mean, she and Liz Gilbert read their chapters to each other over the phone, and she works with her daughter. So it's so much more fun. And it's faster. It gets you much faster.

Marie Forleo:

I find that true. Anytime I go down the route of any part of my business or any part of writing with like, "Oh, I got to get this done." It's like, "Nope. Who else can I call in?" I want to talk about self doubt. And when you're writing things and you're halfway down, you're starting to go like, "God, is this all just shit? This is just terrible." When you want to just kind of burn it all down, what have you noticed with some of the most kind of prolific writers that you've interviewed or people that you've talked to? Do they have those same doubts and do they ever go away?

Linda Sivertsen:

Dude, it's always shit and it never goes away. Sabaa Tahir who was just nominated for the National Book Award for All My Rage, she used to work at the Washington Post, and she said it was the coolest thing to see that these Pulitzer Prize winning journalists would just turn in crap the first time they turned in a story. And then they would work with it and work with it. And over time it would become magnificent, but it was always crap. She says the same thing about her work. Cheryl Strayed says the same thing.

Nia Vardalos was a big surprise to me because known for screenwriter writing more than a book, although she does have a bestseller. But she had written the Oscar nominated screenplay for My Big Fat Greek Wedding and all sorts of other scripts. And she said constantly, she's got this self-doubt voice in her head saying, "You ain't nothing." Just constantly. I think it's human nature. I don't know why it's that way. I don't know why we're all hardwired that way. Some of us... I have noticed, and I'll tell you this is funny. The most grandiose people are the least talented.

Here's how it works. Here's how it works. The people who I think are destined to be writers, y'all, like Steven Pressfield and you and Van Jones and Liz Gilbert and Cheryl Strayed and Terry McMillan and on and on. Y'all are destined to be writers. So you knew growing up that you had big shit to do here. I mean, we all have an idea. I think we're all hardwired for what we're here to do. So I think everyone across the board has some kind of idea. But especially the people that are going to be touching millions of people, they really have an idea.

So I love grandiosity. I'm all about it. You have to think big to carry out something big. But the people who call me and they're like, "I'm going to be on Oprah in six weeks." They're crackers. They have no idea what they're talking about. And they don't understand that timeline for creating a masterpiece, how really rigorous it is. I mean, Mary Karr threw away 1200 pages of Lit. That's three or four whole books before she published Lit, which was the memoir to re-jump the whole genre.

But Rosie Walsh with Ghosted, which was a huge bestseller, international. She threw away 40,000 words three times. And not always by choice. This was her editor going, "Not there yet." And that's just so common, but it's common for the people who are the best. You read their books and you think, "Oh, that's a masterpiece." I guarantee you they threw away more writing than anybody else because that's what it takes.

Marie Forleo:

It does. I remember having a conversation with Dani Shapiro about this, and she was telling me how... I forget how many. It might have been 12,000 words. It was just an enormous amount. And she was like, "Marie, just done, gone." Was not working.

Linda Sivertsen:

So painful.

Marie Forleo:

Going in the wrong direction and had to get back on track. And the track that she got back on turned out to be extraordinarily right. But the pain of that. And I love having these conversations because most people in books and in other creative endeavors, they just see the finished product. They see the core. They see the book. They see the speech. They see the movie, and they're like, "Oh, that must have just poured out of them." And it's like, "Not always." I sometimes have a bit of wistful envy that I was really was like, "Oh, I wish I could do songs and sing," because I've had so many stories where it's like, oh, they were just having a glass of wine, or they were walking out and flying a kite, and then this tune came in and then they wrote it down and it's like three or four minutes.

But I was like, "Well, that's not me in this life. Books are very, very different." But I think it is important to hear that, because I just came back from doing a speaking engagement, and there's about, I don't know, over 4,500 people in the room. And so many people ask me, they're like, "Do you still get nervous before a talk?" I'm like, "I'm a mess."

Linda Sivertsen:

I saw that.

Marie Forleo:

I'm a freaking mess. I'm a total mess. I'm like, "I'm shit. No one's going to want this. They already know it." It's literally a mess. And I've been doing this for over 20 frigging years. I'm like, "This shit does not go away."

Linda Sivertsen:

It does not.

Marie Forleo:

It does not. But I think…

Linda Sivertsen:

That's good though. But you think that's good?

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Linda Sivertsen:

Because if it went away, it would mean maybe that we were just phoning it in that we didn't give two shit anymore.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Linda Sivertsen:

Right?

Marie Forleo:

Totally. But I wanted people to hear that because, again, it can feel really lonely. It can feel really isolating, and you can feel really broken when they're in the midst of the creating.

Linda Sivertsen:

Really, really broken.

Marie Forleo:

This is a big question, big question. I want you to think about the answer, although it might just pop out of your head. What would you say is the single most important habit for a writer? And if there's not one, if there's not one single most important habit, you might have one, give me your top three.

Linda Sivertsen:

I would say it, it's got to be three. They're all equally important. But I would say mindset is the number one most important habit. Because if you're thinking it right, you're not going to keep showing up. Or you're going to show up, but you're going to berate yourself and waste a lot of your damn time. So I would say, decide that it's going to be shit. Decide that it's not all up to you, that this is a collaboration with your muse, your God, just your unconscious that is trying to help your children live a better life.

I don't care what your motivation is, but find it and then keep your thoughts right. And if people get messy with their thoughts, garbage in, garbage out, look at what you're watching. Look at what you're listening to. Watch more MarieTV. Watch Seth Godin. I mean, there's so many people to watch. There's so many great podcasts to listen to. Abby and Glennon. I mean, on and on and on. There's so much value to be putting into your brain. 

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Marie Forleo:

Are you ready to create your own success story? If so, I’ve got a free coaching tool for you. It’s called, “How to Get Anything You Want.” It’s an awesome audio, it’ll give you three simple steps to create your dreams on your terms. All you need to do to get it is go to marieforleo.com/subscribe. That's marieforleo.com/subscribe. See you there.

Marie Forleo:

So I have a friend of mine who is a painter and she's awesome. We were talking just about the creative process and I was going into a new project and I said, "I'm taking myself away." I was going to just fly across the country. Josh is going to be in New York. I was going to be in LA for a while to just kind of get into it.

And she said, "Marie, you need to give yourself a few days to get back in the zone.:

Linda Sivertsen:

Oh yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Just meaning like do not expect Monday morning for example, to sit down, new day, new place, and then you're kind of cold and just to get back in. She's like every time for her when she's starting a new series or she's starting just a new piece or kind of getting it, she's like, "I always need this warm up time of a couple days to get into it." Have you seen that, A, to be true with yourself and with the writers that you've either interviewed or coached?

Linda Sivertsen:

I don't think so with myself, because I had a really kind of tumultuous first marriage. So I was married for 19 years and we fought more in one month than I had fought with anybody in my entire life, everybody combined. So we radically loved each other and we had lots of drama. And then we had a kid. Really great recipe, right? And then a million animals. And then my parents were dying. I moved home to take care of them and on and on and on.

The distractions in all of our lives are incredible. In mine we're like on steroids. So I had to learn how to write in any situation, in any amount of time as quickly as possible, and I got really good at it. I can write, I don't want to say in a storm, but I can write in a lot of drama.

Marie Forleo:

It's interesting. I think people are just built differently. I also have friends who they can just go and I have other friends who are just like, it's a little bit more of a slow burn. You know what I mean? It's a little bit more of like…

Linda Sivertsen:

But I will say I edit like a mother. I mean, I edit endlessly. I heard once that Hemingway edited every chapter 50 to a hundred times. And I'm like, "All right, well hot damn, then I'm like Hemingway, because I'm an obsessive editor." So I just forgo sleep. I have really bad habits that way. I'll just, not anymore, but for a lot of my career I just didn't sleep.

Marie Forleo:

You were just into it. Okay. So this is something interesting you've said before. "Writer's block isn't in our vocabulary." What do you mean by that? And what's your advice on how folks can avoid writer's block altogether?

Linda Sivertsen:

My favorite line is actually not mine, it's Seth Godin's where he says, "Nobody has talker’s blocks." So just write like you talk and then you'll go. I think that people have to figure out their way of hearing themselves, because I think we're all open channels. Well, I take that back. Some people have to get therapy. They have to find out why they're blocked, what's scaring them, what's clouding the space. But once you've done that, I think that you just have to find the mode that helps you create. So you are a mover, right? I know that about you.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Linda Sivertsen:

So you'll take your phone and talk into it, or you'll take your computer and walk around the house and talk into it, or talk to your team as you're walking or dancing or whatever. You're just a real movement-oriented person. And you know that about yourself. I remember Ariana Huffington said that she was having trouble writing, and then she went, "But wait a minute, I can talk for an hour with no notes on stage. Why don't I act like I'm on stage and just talk it?"

Lisa Gibbons talks her books. Tom Hanks in the car. He's talking into a Dictaphone. He says he takes that Dictaphone with him everywhere he goes, because the ideas are constant. So I just think you have to know how you best work and then set yourself up in your life up for creating in that space.

Marie Forleo:

It's such good advice. I actually have to do it more. I have such a structure in my head that in order to write, I must sit down and write. Even though I get tons of ideas when I move and I talk and it's super collaborative and good copy comes out, I want to experiment more with that on my next projects. Because I have this belief, and it's probably a bullshit limiting belief, but I have this belief that when I merely talk that it is not going to be as eloquent, well structured or cogent. You know what I mean?

Linda Sivertsen:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marie Forleo:

And powerful than when I sit down and drill out a sentence. But I think I might need to give myself a little bit of voice on that and at least get the bones down and then we can edit away.

Linda Sivertsen:

I was going to say, get the foundation down, and then you just put the mascara on the eyelashes with the editing.

Marie Forleo:

Editing is actually, Linda, one of my favorite things to do. I'll tell my teams all the time.

Linda Sivertsen:

Mine too.

Marie Forleo:

Oh my gosh.

Linda Sivertsen:

Love it. I'm obsessed.

Marie Forleo:

Just finding that right turn of phrase or moving something that was at the end to the beginning or shaving something down. It feels to me like one of the most joyful processes ever.

Linda Sivertsen:

I know. It's so addictive.

Marie Forleo:

It's so good. What have you seen to be the difference between people who land a big book deal and people who don't?

Linda Sivertsen:

Oh, well, there is some good news on that front because we're all so terrified of the platform numbers. People are so worried about their Facebook numbers and their Twitter numbers and I get it. And that is a real thing. If publishers are looking at two different authors and one has no social media and the other one is really active on social media and everything else is equal, they love their projects equally, they're going to lean towards the person with the social media, so they have a partner in the market.

It's just that simple. It's just how it works. However, and years ago, Mary Karr told me that, "If you write a really good book, it doesn't matter. It will get sold." Ann Patchett says the same thing. A lot of the people who started out in publishing and got famous before social media, they say that. And I was like, "Mm, I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure I'm buying that."

That's maybe old school, but that's not so... However, oh my god, I had a client recently, 1,200 followers on all of the socials, and she got a million dollar preempt from Simon & Schuster. And the reason was because what she wrote was so beautiful and mass market. I don't want to give too much away about the book, but it's the thing that helps you with time. It helps you with organization. It's super, super mass market, beautifully done. She's a designer. So she made it just so delicious and hard to put down and boom, Simon & Schuster fought to keep it off the market.

I see that over and over with high quality stuff. So the people that I've seen who are the most successful are the people who've been teaching their work for a long time. So they own it, they embody it, they live it, they breathe it. A publisher doesn't have to worry that they haven't really thought it all through or that the arc won't work or that the ending. They'll buy the proposal with the sample chapters, but then the ending won't ever make sense because the person hasn't figured it out.

None of that is a worry if you've been teaching the material for a long time. So I think those people are the most successful. I have a couple of clients recently who've sold really big novel deals. Again, very little social media because the books were just unputdownable. I mean, that's where my heart still gets so happy with this industry is that the people who are saying yes and no, that got into this industry, not for the money, God knows because if you work at Random House as a new person, you go from intern to associate editor, you're not making much money. You probably can't even afford to live in New York.

So they get into it because they love stories. And that's something I want every writer who's listening to this to hold in their heart that look at agents and editors not as mean people or scary people, or even intimidating. They're just lovers of stories and ideas. And the reason they're intimidating is because they see so much great stuff. So it's hard to get their attention. But if what you deliver is beautiful and well done, you're going to have success.

Marie Forleo:

I love that. So let's go to... And I love this as we're kind of rounding out to the end, these three ways that people can set themselves up to actually write their book. You've got 3H's, habits, health and happiness. Let's talk about habits first.

Linda Sivertsen:

You have to set yourself up for success. So the people that I admire the most are the ones who have boundaries like you. I mean, Liz Gilbert said that she almost had a nervous breakdown. She just gave it all away and to the point where she was left with nothing. So I think the biggest and most important habit is around time, scheduling your life appropriately. I was looking at your time. Your time course today.

Marie Forleo:

Time Genius, yeah.

Linda Sivertsen:

I got to do that. I mean, I did a whole talk on time debt and I'm still wrestling with time.

Marie Forleo:

Of course, we all are. 

Linda Sivertsen:

I'm going to do Time Genius. But at any rate, so putting boundaries around time, I think that's the most important habit of all. But health is just key. Liz tells a really funny story like, "If you know you're going to write at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning, you don't binge watch Netflix. You don't drink a bottle of wine the night before. You really got to think about it."

In this country, we have a real entertainment zombie sort of approach to our time. I think the national average is five hours of television a day. I mean, we take less vacation time than medieval peasants. You hear that? Less vacation time than medieval peasants. So you've got to fuel your life with good stuff. Good food, good water, good habits.

I didn't sleep a lot throughout my career, but I ate so clean. I exercised. I was happy. I felt great. And so I was able to deliver. Let's see, what else? Happiness. Drama makes for really good stories, but not a great life.

Marie Forleo:

Amen. 

Linda Sivertsen:

Yeah. I mean, I had a lot of drama in my first marriage, but we also had a lot of great stuff. And I, for whatever reason, thank you, God, I am a naturally high serotonin person. Thank my parents. So because of that, I think I could handle more drama than the average bear. But why put yourself in it? So happiness I think is really key to being a beautiful writer. It just makes it easier and more fun and you're going to do a better job.

Marie Forleo:

I could not underscore the importance of those habits too, and of course health and happiness, but for me that waking up every day at 5:00 AM was what allowed me and what still allows me when I need to really move on a significant in-depth project. That's how I got a roll. And here's the other thing I always like to tell people. I don't roll that way 365. It's not for me.

Linda Sivertsen:

Me neither.

Marie Forleo:

It's like I go in and I'm like, "All right, I got this stretch. We're going in. We're focusing." And then I need to step back and go, "I need the variety." Even if I'm waking up still at 5:15, I'm like, "Not going to go hit the page. I'm going to go do other stuff." Because it's like I need that rest time so that I can work on the other aspects of it. Because whether it's a book or it's a course or any kind of big project, it's like there's the creation of it, then there's the marketing of it, the promotion. There's so many bits to it, but those habits, they truly are everything.

One last question, Linda, about really surprises. Surprises from authors that you've worked with or students or even your own as it relates to just what comes through when you commit?

Linda Sivertsen:

I've got one.

Marie Forleo:

Go for it.

Linda Sivertsen:

Oh, okay. So two things. What comes through when you commit is magic. So I really think that the muse when she or he... I think it's a she. When she sees that you're taking your book seriously, she goes, "Ah, okay. Now we can trust her with the good stuff.” Because I really think we have to earn the muse's respect. I don't know if the muse is our unconscious. I don't know if it's God. I don't really care. I don't know if it's Fruity Pebbles. It doesn't matter anything to me or my dead grandmother.

But something makes me a lot smarter when I commit. Something gives me a lot more inspiration when I commit and everything flows better when I commit. I think the muse, again, no matter what it is, goes, "Yeah, just not taking it that seriously." So neither am I. That's number one. The biggest surprise I've had overall through all of this has been how much writing heals. When I was working on the precursor to Beautiful Writers was my divorce memoir, which I never published. It was called My Midlife Mess.

Maybe I'll publish her one day. So I was pulling my spleen out through my nose, every morning in my bed office at 4:00 AM grieving, grieving my horrible divorce and just saving my own sanity by getting it all down on the page. Over the years that I worked on this thing, I kept having this fear that my ex-husband would kill me if he ever found out. He's an intense guy. Marie, over the years I couldn't handle that stress anymore. I thought I'm making myself nuts. And so I called him up. We were not friends, I called him up, he was so happy to hear from me. And I said, "Can we go to lunch?" I printed up the manuscript like 350 pages and I said, "I need to show this to you." I said, "I've written our story."

And he goes, "What? Oh my God, I can't wait. Can I read it?" And I go, "Dude, you are not going to like this. You are not a hero." And he goes, "I don't care. I was an asshole." I said, "Don't worry, I didn't put in all the bad stuff." He goes, "Put it back in. Do you want me to call Tom Hardy's agent and see if he'll play me in the movie?"

I mean, he was all excited. And I thought, "Oh, this is ridiculous." So I gave it to him. He drives off on his Harley. It's like a rare day in LA where it's actually raining. He zips up his leather jacket, puts it on his heart and drives off. And I'm like, "What just happened?" Calls me every day for seven days, crying every time, "Linda, I'm so sorry. This is the most beautiful thing I've ever read."

And it was like he was able to see the world through my eyes for the first time. The healing was outrageous. He told me it healed him. I know it healed me. It healed my kid. He was dating somebody at the time and he said, "Can I let her read it?" I said, "Are you crazy? She's going to break up with you." He goes, "I don't care. If she doesn't know the truth. Screw it." He gives it to her, she breaks up with him. I mean, to this day we still laugh about it.

So to me, I literally could not believe that outcome. And I'll tell you the last thing. Before I went to that lunch with him, I was on a phone call with a friend of mine and she said, "Script out the result that you want." And I said, "What do you mean?" And she goes, "Write down exactly what would be a dream come true." And I'm like, "Okay. So he's super happy with the book.” I mean fantasy land. Just craziness to say that." And it was exactly as I scripted. I don't know.

Marie Forleo:

That is extraordinary. There's a lot of research around the power of journaling, which is obviously just a hop skip and a jump away from continuing to write for a whole book about healing power, of getting our thoughts, our emotions, and our stories down on paper. I cosign on that one, 100%. What a beautiful story. Linda, you are an incredible human. Thank you for giving us so many insider tips and tricks, and insight to help this, again, 80% reportedly of the population that is like, "I want to write a book." And that 95 or 97% of people that never finish it. Thank you for the work that you do in the world and just your spirit. You are incredible.

Linda Sivertsen:

Ditto. Ditto, sweetie.

Marie Forleo:

I so hope you enjoyed this conversation and all these tips, and tricks, and insights. And remember, if you've got a book in you, get going now. Until next time, stay on your game and keep going for your big, beautiful dreams because the world really does need that very special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll catch you next time

Now before you go, if you want even more on this topic, watch this next video. You’ll get 100 years of writing experience in just 20 minutes. So many takeaway tips, you got to watch it now.

Seth Godin:

We have to acknowledge we have finite resources. Finite time. Finite connections. How will we use them to produce outcomes that we’re proud of?