Overview

This is an interesting discussion with Jimmy. We start by finding out that Jimmy used to stutter and used music to overcome that. This leads to a mind blowing bit of philosophy from Jimmy and how he views the spirituality of writing.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/BVb158MEbmk

Transcript

[00:02:45] Stephen: Alright, so let's talk some author stuff. So obviously we mentioned, we were talking about your books. You've learned a lot from when you were 10 years old and couldn't get past 30 pages tonight. You've got a book out, several books out. So what are [00:03:00] some of the. Biggest things you've learned that you're doing now that you didn't do when you first started 10 or more years ago.

[00:03:07] Stephen: I think that

[00:03:08] Jimmy: practice is really important. And I think I was maybe mentioning in our mastermind group the other day, Steven, that I wish that when I started writing, I had approached it more like I did music because when I was writing songs, I never really aspired to be a great guitar. I just want it to be a good enough guitarist so that I could play the songs that I heard in my mind.

[00:03:35] Jimmy: And a lot of times I would hear songs in my mind that I didn't have the technical ability for on the guitar. So I would have to practice guitar. So it was very, it was a means to an end and a discipline. And I wished that I had approached writing in a similar way, 10 years ago to dress right scene after scene.

[00:03:53] Jimmy: Because I need to be able to have the chops to write those stories that I see bloom in my [00:04:00] mind. And so I'm doing that. I'm doing that more now, but it would have been nice to have been doing that a lot earlier.

[00:04:06] Stephen: Okay. You got to learn. Oh, we all have to start somewhere. And I think we all start at different spots, different places in our writing.

[00:04:13] Stephen: When you're writing, what software and services do you use?

[00:04:18] Jimmy: Scribner is indispensable for me. I actually use Scrivener for everything. I even use it for invoices for work and because it's just so easy for me to use and I use it for journaling every morning and yeah. So Scribner's the most important and yeah.

[00:04:39] Jimmy: And then besides that, let's see what else. I haven't formatted a book in a little while. I think that I want to use, I think that I want to get a map. Just for the purpose of using vellum next time I've never used it, but I think I'm going to do that for the next, for that, for the next manuscript.

[00:04:59] Stephen: And [00:05:00] arguably we both use the mastermind to not only keep us motivated, but accountable for our writing and to learn new things off of other writers.

[00:05:09] Stephen: I think that is a tool. A lot of people overlook sometimes.

[00:05:14] Jimmy: Yeah. The mastermind is huge. That's another thing to answer your previous. Question. What would you do if I went to the thing that I'm doing right now differently than I did 10 years ago is interacting with the community of writers. I had tried to in the past, I had joined writers groups in Portland and whatnot, but it just never really took.

[00:05:36] Jimmy: Um, but yeah, using slack, like you're saying which slack is a great piece of software for keeping in touch with the community, like a topic based community. And so using a slack to kid to stay in touch with people that is, that's been really powerful. And then the mastermind, which is attached to slack also has been really good.

[00:05:59] Stephen: [00:06:00] Yeah. Agreed very much. So. There's our shout out. Uh, everybody listening, go check out. Jay thorns, the author success mastermind.

[00:06:08] Jimmy: Definitely.

[00:06:10] Stephen: All right. So I always ask authors. Think of a topic to discuss something that has affected you, that other authors may be interested in. And we've already talked about you as a musician and losing your hearing and how that a...