The three keys every author must have

James Taylor interviews Sha Nacino and they talked about The three keys every author must have

In this episode, we cover:

• Her formula for writing a book
• The three keys every author must have
• How to write a book in 90 days

Resources:

• Recommended Book: The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
• Recommended Tools: Evernote, Ideabank
• Official Website

For More of Creative Life Podcast By James Taylor

Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript

Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.

James Taylor
Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.

Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey, there's James Taylor. I'm delighted today to have Sha Nacino. Sha as a trusted global speaker on gratitude, happiness and productivity and jack Canfield, a certified trainer on success principles, and a prolific author of 12 books. She is recognized as a distinguished Toastmaster DTM the highest award given by Toastmasters International tourists members worldwide. A student of some of the world's best teachers Bo Sanchez, Brian Tracy, jack Canfield, and Tony Robbins. She loves to write books and teach people how to write books through the 90 day book writing challenge, which she shares at Shanacino.com for slash rate. Today's show has addressed thousands of audiences for from more than 2626 countries globally. She is an incredible woman. She has her own summits as you're doing very, very cool things. And it's my absolute pleasure to have her with us today. So welcome, Sha.

Sha Nacino
Thank you for having me here. James. I'm really honored to be part of your the international authors summit. So

James Taylor
show them what's going on in your world just now.

Sha Nacino
Okay, so I'm in there, I'm doing a series of interviews for the HR summit global. So just today, I had six interviews from the UK, from the US from Singapore and all over the world. So I am so thrilled about the upcoming summit. So

James Taylor
tell us how did you get into this world of wrangling you've written 1212 books now? You've I mean, I was reading one of your book and you have on the the kind of intro section you I think you've got a course from Brian Tracy jack Canfield, you've got some, you know, pretty heavy hitters that are coming in to do really support you. So how did it all start? What was the journey to becoming an author,

Sha Nacino
okay, it all started when I got married and credit card debt. So in my first year as an employee, I got married in credit card debts. And at that time, I wanted to quit my job, but I couldn't because, number one, I had no savings. I was buried in debt. And very importantly, I asked myself, if I will resign, what will I do? Where will I go? I didn't know the answer. So that was the first time I really invested in reading books, especially books on money. So I graduated in the top university in the Philippines. But when I started, I really started to graduate, okay, not really the Learn to get the degree etc. But so that was the first time I got interested the learning, read books on money, I attended seminars, I sought mentors, and I learned so much from what I was learning. So what I did was in three years time as I was able to zero out my debts. And that's when I realized a lot of young professionals in my my colleagues, my friends, were also into debts, they were in the same boat I was in. So I have this burning message to share financial literacy with as many people as possible. I started with my friends, I would tell them, Hey, you know what, I learned that you need to zero out your credit card debts, because if you don't do that, you're addressing my debt at a fast rate. So imagine even receiving at the rate of 3% annually. If you have credit card debts, you are draining money at 42% annually, so apply the power of compounding. So that's how I would talk to my friends because I'm a math person. I'm a numbers person. I didn't like to read I didn't like to write. But I noticed that my friends would shy away from the conversation. So that's when I realized how sensitive the topic on money is. So there's this burning message that I wanted to share, but no one wanted to listen to me. So in one of the seminars that I attended, it was a whole day seminar, the speaker said You want to make some money to spread the message, you write a book your recorded album, bla bla bla bla bla. So imagine it was a whole day seminar. But all I was hearing was shot, write a book, write a book, write a book. And it felt so uncomfortable because like what I said, I was not a writer, I was a math person. And so I really wanted to share the message. At first I wanted to Skype that idea, but I felt it was God telling me shot you need to write the book, because it's not for you. It's for the people who will be blessed by your book. So I felt like there's this burning message with a meet the share. And I felt like I would commit the sin of omission if I didn't share the message. So that that got me started into writing a book. Now,

James Taylor
how long did it take you from that saying, Okay, I'm going to write a book, I'm going to put this out, I have a message that I want to share that Pete that will help other people. How long did it take you from going from that point, making that decision to actually the book, you know, kind of getting out there and people buying it?

Sha Nacino
Okay, so it took me three years to write and publish my first book, because I didn't know anything about radio book. I didn't know anyone in the publishing industry, and no one knew me. In fact, in our inner company, I was like a wallflower. If you would see me in the corridor, he would say, Oh, you work here. And I was like, Yeah, I've been working here for five years now. So I was a wallflower. I was very introverted and shy. So what I did was, the first process I did was I went to a local bookstore in the Philippines, I looked for the best selling books. I zoomed in on one author, my member, I bought all his books. I read all his books from cover to cover, not just twice, but three times I studied. How did he do the introduction? How is the sentence construction? How thick was the book? What were the what were the titles of the book, etc? And how how's the tone of voice of the, of the author? So, so I really started that. And I immersed myself so much in his writings, that when I wrote my first book, my next step was, who do I get as an editor? So I got my college friend who was good in the English language. And when she read the book, she said, You sound like both Sanchez. advice, their advice, you have to find your own writing voice. So I had to revise it from from beginning imagine writing. How many pages might inherit the reason you have to revise from from the beginning. So enter device it. And then the next time we met, she asked me shot, what is your thesis statement? And I asked, What do you mean my thesis statement? And then she told me in a few in one sentence, what is your book all about? And as I tried to explain, it's a money management book on global level. It took me forever to explain what my book was. And my editor Clyde said, shot, you go find out what your thesis statement first, and then let's talk again. So imagine, so anyway, when I when I finally discovered my thesis statement, I went back to Clyde and and I said, Clyde, so this is my thesis statement, Please edit my book. There were 32 chapters in my first manuscript, first draft, and then played said, Okay, so this is, this is your thesis statement, this chapter is the only unrelated the, we least write that, no, it's not really that delete, delete, delete, delete, in effect, she deleted 22 chapters, just because just because those chapters were not related to the thesis statement

James Taylor
that must have like you've sweated blood over those. And you're, you know, you're basically getting rid of over half over half of the chapters in your book that had How did you feel when when, when it when your editor said that to you,

Sha Nacino
I had to fight for my chapters, like good luck, Clyde and Muse that trick when it comes into the book, so we agree disagrees at the fight for my chapters. And she had to say, No, shut the lid off. And I had to follow her because it looks like she knew what she was doing. So anyway, in the process, it took me three years to write and publish my first book, but like what I said, I'm a math person. I love formula. I love formula, because I believe that once you know the formula, you practice a bit, and you're off the goal. So during those three years, I was trying to devise what is the formula for writing a book, what is the formula for writing a book such that we I was not a writer, you can still write a book. So what is that formula? And I said that formula in myself, I was able to write my second book, which was an E book in one day. So from 6am to six o'clock midnight, I wrote it and I also tested it among my friends and They were pretty good, they were able to write their books as well. So I thought that the formula was really working

James Taylor
amazing. So you can have you. And I love that. One of the interesting things is it needs to be all these different authors. And all of them kind of got slightly different kind of attitudes towards writing and how they think about it. But you're the probably the first race that I've spoken with that has that quite mathematical approach to to thinking and I like thinking about like a, like, like a formula as well. So when it comes to, when it comes to your daily writing practice, are you kind of going in everyday thinking, for it to write, if I if I want to write, you know, 100 word book, within 90 days? I need to be writing 500 words a day? Or are you thinking in that kind of way?

Sha Nacino
I was not thinking in terms of how many words? So I was thinking in terms of how can I communicate this particular message, it would, if it would take 1000 words, then go for it, if it would take 100 words, and it will go for it. That's why when I teach the students of my 90 day book writing challenge, when they write books, I tell them that it's not about the length of your book, it's about how can you be able to get across your message. If you need this thick, then go ahead, if you need to boost this thin, then go ahead. So there, and a lot of people like to write a book, but they have so many hesitations, for example, he would say, who would listen to me? Who am I? Why would these people listen to be? So I would tell people because a lot of people want to read books, but they have this, this blacks, so I would tell them? Those are valid questions, but those are not the right questions to ask. Okay, for me, the right questions to ask would be, will my book inspire someone? Will my book bless someone? Is there a message that, that I that can bless another person that can solve another person's problem? So if the answer is yes, then you should write a book, you don't have to question your credibility, because I believe that everyone has a story to share. But one of the things that I also tell the students of my courses that you write, because you care, and you have a message to share, and when you write a book, you are not just the messenger or coach. So for example, your if you want to write about how to have a happy family, you yourself should have a happy family. If you want to write a book on financial management, you yourself has to be have nice or good financial management, or you are not in debt, or you should be you should be earning the amount of money that you want to earn, because you're writing nonfiction.

James Taylor
Here, there's no it's not. It's not it's not it's not fiction. So you have to, you have to go walk your talk there. So I'm intrigued with this idea of, you know, so many people feel maybe they don't want the this idea that blocks you were mentioning about writing a book and one of them is always going to be this multi year process. And it's going to be the you talk about how to write a book in 90 days. And so totally talk us through what are the big, you know, the big kind of building blocks of that in terms of how to write a book in 90 days, because that seems like a like, wow, like 90 days, everyone can kind of get that in their head. If I start writing this in 90 days, I will have my my first draft or I'll have a version of the book Ready to go? How does it work?

Sha Nacino
Okay, so the first is you have to have the three keys that every author must have. Number one is you have to have the message. So you write a book, because there is this message that you want to communicate, let you write a book because you want to gain this credibility or you want to have this fame or money, those are positive consequences of writing a book. So first is you have to have a message that you would like to share. The second is you have to have the passion to share the message through writing a book, because there's so many ways to share a message, it could be through speaking it could be through singing, blogging, blogging, etc. So yeah. is you have to have the systematic way of writing a book is now I call this now what I call the the formula for writing a book.

James Taylor
So that first Katie mentioned that the message of finding your message is that when you're working with authors, it is a struggle to confine the message and you mentioned there that you you can have written an entire book and then you can talk to find your thesis message like right and very at the end so you Is that what you try and start with that's that's kind of point A to kind of find that message and and how easy is that to work with an author and finding that

Sha Nacino
right. So there are five steps in on how you can write a book in 90 days. So this is now the system or the formula. So the first step is you have to determine the topic that you would like to write about. So that in terms of the topic, it should be something that you really love you are so passionate about and you know a lot about the game. Maybe I'm talking about nonfiction, because this formula is good for nonfiction, although some of my students also use this for fiction. And it worked as well. But I primarily develop this spread nonfiction. So the first is the topic. So for example, if you're a keynote speaker, and you have so many topics in mind, what you can do is to write down maybe 10 things that you you want to write about 10 topics you'd like to write about, for example, money management, creativity, gratitude, happiness, and so on and so forth. So once you have the the 1010 ideas or 10 books, what it is to narrow them down into three topics, again, narrowed them down into three topics. And from three topics, you pick your top one topic. Alright, so that's the brace step topic. So now you have the topic. And now the second step is to define your thesis statement. So let's say you want to talk about creativity. So creativity is is a vague topic. It's, it could you could talk about, you could don't so much about creativity. So what you would like to ask yourself now is, what is your thesis statement? In simple words, what is your book all about? Okay, in one sentence, what is your book all about? And I'd like to pull out one of my books. All right. So this is the latest book I wrote, just to demonstrate the process. It's called conquering stage fright. And I remember, before I wrote a single word in this book, I told my marketing manager, please, please, I'd like I'm writing a book. Can we launch it in two weeks time? And he said, she said, shot that's that's too. That's too soon. Can you give Can you give me one month for the marketing preparations? And or, as I said, Okay, so let's decide on a date. So we set a date. And the next thing I did was, I posted on Instagram coming soon, I posted the date. Okay. But I did that, but I went, I didn't write a single word yet. So conquering stage fright. Now let's talk about thesis statement. That's step two. So the title of my book is conquering stage fright. Okay. And then the thesis statement, if you ask me, so shot, what is your book all about? I could say in one sentence. Well, it's all about the five steps, five secrets on how to speak confidently in public. Even if you're shy and introverted.

James Taylor
That's almost like you're gonna sub headline subtitle, subtitle, right.

Sha Nacino
And that is also the subtitle of your book. biggie. So again, the first step is the topic. The second step is the thesis statement or like the subtitle of your book. And the third step before you write your book, before you write any any word, you have to create your mind map first, or the blueprint for the book. Okay, so I like creating mind maps, I just take one clear sheet of paper like this, and then I draw in the middles side. Like the topic, and then I put the sub topic and I just draw 10 couples, okay? These are the chapters, these will represent the chapters. So before you write your book, you you create your mind map first. That's the blueprint is just the one page Yeah, okay, one page. So you can see everything about the book, you can see the big picture. And then so there's this thing that we learned in Toastmasters, the formula for writing speeches, etc, which you can also use in writing books. For example, we have the rep or the position, reason example position, SMG story message to gain their the PPF, or past present future. So for example, let's say five secrets, right? elbow, five, five tentacles. So let's see, the first one is read the book aloud. Okay, that's the first secret. So I'll think of a story is there a particular story in my life where I read a book aloud, and it helped me gain confidence in speaking. So I'll write a story of is this particular story and in what was the message from that particular story? And then the game could be the call to action? Okay, in the same way, I could use the prep method. Okay, so the practically, what is my position? Read a book aloud? Do I believe in it? Yes. So reason is because in an example, I read this book, and bla bla bla, so therefore, I recommend that you read the book aloud. Okay, so that's right. So there is a formula. So if you encounter a black or black or challenges in writing, just go back to the formula. So what is the story? What is the message? What is the game? Or what is my position? What is my reason, an example position? Or what happened to me in the past? What is happening to me in the present, and what will happen to me in the future, so see, there's this formula, and you can do hybrid, you can combine all these formulas right? So that's even before you write your book, okay, so you already have an idea on what story you'd like to share it so and so on and so forth.

James Taylor
So you basically got the mind, you've got the mapped out with little tentacles, you've got your five chapters or your 10 chapters, you've kind of got, okay, this feels like it's more of a prep thing. So this is, this will be a useful one to use here, because this is a good way of, you know, I mean, I've ever seen Brian Tracy, talk about this prep this prep idea on the speaking side, I can completely see how it can, you can use that same, that same kind of formula for writing your position, reason, example, back to position again, and kind of pulling them backwards. I love that,

Sha Nacino
right? Because when you write a book, it's like you're talking to your audience. So when you write a book, when they read your book, it's like, you know, they can hear your voice. Yeah. So something like that. And then so that's the third step. The third step is the mind map or the blueprint for your book. And the fourth step, now is the right. Okay, now that you have the mind map of ripe and just keep on writing, Now, the problem of many offers is that they they write and edit at the same time, when they write, they critique their work. And they see and think, is this good enough, maybe I should delete this page, maybe I should put this, put it here or there. Things like that, like that. So my key rule when you write is write and write and write and write and write, don't edit. Don't care about your grammar, don't care about the punctuation and the organization, etc. Because when you write the purpose of ratings for you to release all the messages, all the ideas that you want to release, just dump it, okay? Just let it flow. Because if you, if you try to write and edit at the same time, you are restricting your creative process, okay? The flow, the creative juices won't flow as freely as he as it would have, if you would just write and write and write. So the purpose of writing is for you to write down everything that you want to share. Okay, so once you've written down everything that you want to share, you ask yourself, Is there anything else I would like to share? If there is then keep on writing? And when you come to a point where you Okay, I think I've really been everything that they wanted to share on this particular topic on this particular thesis statement. That's when you begin the editing process.

James Taylor
And I I think that's so important what you just said there, though, this idea of, of separating a process of writing and editing. And I talked about in terms of creativity studies, but you know, stream don't edit, because I think is that really common people kind of get into, and then they kind of get that critical voice starts to come into like, Oh, that's right, then you know, it starts from, oh, that's, that's no good. And then it will start from, you can't write this book, who you start writing and if you can get into this little kind of spiral of things as well. So by just saying, almost like kind of blocking out, I know that this is the week I'm going to be doing edit work. So you know, now is just I'm in writing mode, I think that's a very useful way of thinking about it,

Sha Nacino
right. And when you write so you don't restrict you don't edit, you write with your heart, okay, and then you edit with your mind. So this is the creative side you write. And then this is the critical part. So there is time to edit, don't rush it, just trust the process, even if you feel like editing. Now, don't edit, okay, just trust the process. And then once you've written out everything that you want to write about, that's the time when you edit. And even when you edit, it's not about editing, editing right away for grammar, you know, you you check the grammar and all. So the first thing that you need to do when you edit is you you read the book fast, just to make sure that that you were able to strengthen the thesis statement. Okay, just to make sure that the the book is cohesive, okay, the message is there, and all the chapters re, all the chapters enhance your thesis statement again, the next part of editing is when you edit, you check the organization, for example, is this particular idea supposed to be here? Or should they move with another chapter? Is this supposed to be here? Should they deleted things like that? And so before you even check on grammar, on the sentence construction, etc, you have to go to, you have to make sure the message is there, give big picture first and then go to the nitty gritty. So you can do that the first few steps of editing yourself as the author because you know, your content. And then the ones you're okay with that, then let the professional editor do the editing for you. In terms of sentence structure, in terms of the technicalities of the English language,

James Taylor
such as I've heard other authors kind of go at that, that separation of writing versus editing us in a slightly different way, where some of them especially their speakers, they use things like dragon, the speech app, the records, the does the writing when you speak to it, and because they think they're thinking in their heads, and I've spoken to someone before they say They found that when they sat at a computer to initially get these things out of their head onto some form, because they were sitting at computer writing, they almost automatically were going into edit mode, because they're so used to writing and editing at the same time. And he said, so for some of them, what they decided to do was just, we're going to use this, this transcription dragon thing. And I'm going to get out my head, I'm going to speak my book out, and then get it onto the page that will transcribe it. And then I'll kind of go and go into these next stages that you were talking about, but they the that was how they some of them did it because they were so used to like sitting at computer, like writing and editing at the same time, it was so difficult for them to separate out those two different things. Right. So

Sha Nacino
actually, that's a very good method of raping. It's it's like raping, but it's you're speaking with it. When I say raping, you're actually letting the message out letting your voice out. I actually did that for one of the books I wrote. So I just created the mind map. And because I was busy, so what I did was, I would record Okay, chapter one levels, okay, speak on it. And then I let someone transcribe it. But maybe I shouldn't get attacked an Alfred Chad scripture, the dragon that you're saying? Yeah, because what we did was it was a manual transcription. And then from there, I can see the book. And then it's very easy now for me to edit it. So the dragon,

James Taylor
and if you think about it, you know, I was having a conversation yesterday with someone he said, many of the great teachers, we think of teachers in history, whether that's Jesus Buddha, they didn't write things, then they they spoke, they spoke their ideas, and then then, you know, someone else would come essentially was scribe it, you know, would write it down for him. So that that we there is where there is a kind of tradition of that. But I know, for me, I am i tend I like writing, I like sitting down and actually writing. For me, it helps kind of clarify, it's not so much I'm editing but it helps just start to kind of clarify as I'm going to go it's almost like having a conversation with someone. For me. So I think is the as you say, you just kind of you've experimented in different ways, you're gonna have to find out what you you enjoy what works for your particular method, right? That's correct. So if you're more of a writer, I've been through the writing if you're more of a speaker that Luda speaking with the recording, so you've got these steps here. So you're finding your topic, you're defining a thesis statement, you've created your mastermind, your your your writing, then you're moving into the editing stage, where else where else kind of comes after all of that

Sha Nacino
again, so that's the last part of of writing a book. And of course, the next part would be you have this proofreader, you have this graphics artist, the layout artist, etc. And that's actually part of the publishing already. Because in terms of writing, those are the five things that you will need. And then now in terms of publishing, there's so many ways to publish now you can publish, you can be a self published author, you can get a traditional publisher to publish it for you.

James Taylor
So we you've kind of gone a different options, I believe over the years, you've been even self publishing and more traditional publishing. What was your take on self in a big debate amongst authors? Which which route to go with? What what why did you decide for more one option over the other?

Sha Nacino
Okay, first is because of the timeline, I wanted to release the book right away, that's why I chose and then also explored on having a traditional publisher publish my book, because I'm because they have the reach key, they have the distribution system, which I didn't have yet because I was still starting out then. So there are pros and points to self publishing versus getting a traditional publisher. When you self publish, you have full control over everything, every the layout of your book, title, subtitle, etc, correlates with everything. And also, for example, when you self publish your book, you take away all the costs of the printing, editing, etc, and you get all the profits, okay? Whereas if you have a traditional publisher, what's good also is that they have the reach they have the market, but there is this misconception that when you have a publisher, they do the marketing for you. So that is a misconception, because imagine a publisher publishing 100 books in one year. So, of course, the the focus will be divided in in amongst all those 100 other books. So, publishers right now, they also expect that the authors would market for their own books. Okay, so what's good about having a publisher is that, of course, they have the credibility, they have the distribution system, which she can tap. The disadvantage, though, is that in terms of come in terms of royalty in the Philippines, it's 7% or 12%. Okay, so let me just give us some competition. Let's say the book is around $1. The book is around cost $1 to print. Okay, and you're selling it for maybe 60 US dollars. That's the price of the book in the Philippines. So the printing is just $1. And then you're selling it for $6. So you have, technically you have around $4 profit minus all the other costs, again, with the, with the publisher, level first dollars, and you take 10% as your royalty, so seven to 12%, let's take 10% for easy computation, that's just the six cent hours per book. Okay, versus $4, if you are the, if you self publish your book, now for the for what the, let's say you're a speaker, and you would like to sell your books during your events, or during your talks. You can buy books from the publisher, normally, it's a 30% discount. Okay, so still, you're better off if you Self Publish many ways, or profit wise, I think it's better if you self publish, especially if you have the network. But if you want the if you want the marketing aspect, or the visibility aspect, it's good to have a publisher.

James Taylor
And so one one author, author, speaker, I know be successful. He one nice things he writes his latest book, in the insight, he says for his clients, if you have me come and speak and if you're I'm speaking to 2000 people will do a copy of a version of the book with the company logo on the first page, you know, inscribed, you know, with some wording from the CEO or something. And he said, you could only do that if you're self published, because no publisher would ever wanted to do that kind of thing. So he said there's there's some there's definitely some and he's gone. He's on both ways. He's on both routes. So so thank you so much for kind of laying out those the way you think that there's differences. I'm just going to be intrigued as well, as you've been doing your writing, you know, 2012 books. And can you tell us about a story about a time when you were working on one of these books, and you were giving it everything you're giving your heart and your soul? But it didn't work out like you'd hoped? And more importantly, what was the what were the lessons that you took from that experience?

Sha Nacino
Right? So I was, I was writing this book, it's called Is it time to quit your job. And technically, I can write a book in 90 days in one month, in one day, one week, etc. But this book took me forever to write. So I was writing this book, but the ideas won't flow the words one flow. And it's one year has passed, I was not yet done with the book two years as fast. I was not get done with the books, I was telling myself. Wait a minute, I'm teaching people how to write a book in 90 days. And now I'm stuck with this one particular book, but I cannot write it even two years. But in the process of writing that one particular book, I wrote another book, which is money and me. And an in between I wrote another book, which is mission happiness. So what I learned from that is that sometimes the book has a gestation period, we cannot rush it in the same way that you cannot rush, quitting your job. So that's the lesson I got. Sometimes there is a gestation period for a pretty clear idea to fully blue and just let it flow. But just keep repeating it. And in the process of writing that but but the decent thing there is to keep writing every single day. There's this writer that I really admire. His name is Ricky Lee. He is very famous in the Philippines because he he wrote about 50 screenplays. And he's an award winning film screenplay, right. And I organized a call organized an event for human one of the questions that was asked. And then he said, I don't believe in writer's block. Okay, so there is no such thing as writer's block. What he believes is that you keep on writing and writing and writing. So for example, day one, you were not able to write a single word, just keep writing again on the Boo. It's like reporting to work, keep on reporting to work. day three, keep on writing even if you cannot write anything, because as you keep doing that, then the idea will move maybe on the 10th day maybe under under on year one maybe on year two, but that idea will not bloom if you haven't, if you haven't been writing everyday consistently everything. So if you're right, just continuously write everything

James Taylor
there's an expression I think it's from the songwriting world from I'm going to say it's Carole King, great song songwriter and I think there was they were they used to write there was this one street in New York the most used although songwriters had little apartments in these to write in. And I think there was a quote from that time which was saying something like inspiration is for amateurs. So they would go in every single day nine o'clock like night right songwriting nine to five and that was, that was their day, and we When people come up to them say, oh, but when do you find? How do you get inspiration and things? Like, this is what we do. You know? Yeah, inspiration, sometimes inspiration happens, but we can hope there's just going to happen. We have to we've got songster, right? We've got, you know, things to do so. So I love that just having that level of consistency. As we start to finish up now I've got some kind of quick fire kind of questions for you. And probably one of the first ones is, you know, you talked about your, your kind of your habit, your kind of habits for writing Talk, talk us through like, when do you write each day? Do you have a particular kind of ritual that you have for writing?

Sha Nacino
Yes. So what I do is that I have this journal, it's called the gratitude journal. In fact, I created it. So let me just show you. Okay, so I have this gratitude journal. And every day I would write down the things I'm grateful for. And then, after a few years, I kind of revise the gratitude journal, so I don't just write about the gratitude. I also write about my goals about about my growth, my gift, etc. And I came, I came up with this journey. Now we're in a journal, five things daily, five G's daily. And it only takes five minutes. So you know, just five minutes of consistently writing every day, but not just that the key. I read this book, it's called the one thing by Gary Keller, I think, interviewed

James Taylor
Jay Jacobson.

Sha Nacino
Right. So what I liked about that book was that he thought, as he taught me, the book taught me how to how to really prioritize my one thing in the morning. So now my writing routine would be from 8am to 12, noon, all I do is to write the gay write or create. So whatever that whatever writing would mean, it would be right up, right up top, write a blog post, write a chorus, or things like that. But it's the writing section that by 12, noon, whether I was able to do the other things, and good already, because I was able to, yes, I'm done. Because I was able to tackle that one thing that that is the driver for all the other things. So I write consistently, every single day from 8am to 12. noon, unless I have meetings.

James Taylor
Great. And then what about online tools or resources you're writing is there a particular tool that you use for for writing, you find very useful for yourself as a writer,

Sha Nacino
right, so I like Evernote, because it syncs with my phone, and it also syncs with my laptop. So what I like about Evernote is that, for example, you can create one notebook, and then you can create notes within that notebook. So one note could be one chapter of your book. So different notes could be different chapters. So it helps me be organized. And since I bring my phone all the time, I don't bring my laptop all the time. So when ideas come in, just write it here. I also have one called idea bath, it's just a small notebook is everything I have an idea for maybe a new book that I want to write, I just write it down whether or not I know everything about that particular book yet I know all the steps, I just write it down. Every idea that I have I just write it down, even if I didn't know yet how to make that idea come through again. And then I just go back to my notes that my idea that I just look at minus Oh, now I know how to make this happen. So there is there is a gestation period, I really believe in the in the process.

James Taylor
And what about a book, if you do recommend one book to someone that's watching this just now could be on the craft of writing, it could be on more than the marketing of writing? What would that book be?

Sha Nacino
Again, I haven't really read the book on writing. So that's the weird part. I haven't read the book on writing. But there's this chorus I got before from Brian Tracy on how to write a book. And what what I got from that was the editing part. So I learned that Brian Tracy edits his own book, because when it comes with came to a point that I was so prolific with writing, I didn't publish For example, I wrote three books, but I didn't publish them because I got so obsessive, compulsive, I became perfectionist. Is this, is this good enough to be published? And then, and I read that Brian Tracy writes or edits his own books, and I said, Why don't I edit my own image? Just no publish it anyway. So it helped me in terms of the editing process, but I think it's not really that the book writing but it's related to doing to being so productive. I really highly recommend the one thing by Gary Keller and Jay papasan.

James Taylor
And it's funny, because Brian Tracy, he publishes a book every three months, I believe, I think someone had some telling me this recently. And when asked why, why does he produce at that rate? He said, Well, because he goes through the through more traditional publishers. He said, You have to remember that May Trisha publishers, they're only thinking about in that quarter that they're currently working in. So, if I'm publishing every three months, I'm always in their mind. They're always thinking about me. What's the next Brian Tracy books that was gonna his record. So I'll put that in one thing. One thing is a great book I love I love that book as well. So finally, I'm let you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, and you're gonna have to start from scratch, you're gonna have to start all over again. No one knows you, you know? No, when you have no books published, you have to start again. What would you do? How would you restart?

Sha Nacino
Okay, I would look within myself. Why does that give that they have? What is that message they have? What is that particular problems, I was able to overcome and conquer? Again, and I think of one person who needs that particular information, that one person I will serve, I will write a book for that one person. Actually, that's, that's what I do every time I write a book, just so I do. Imagine that person I imagine his pains, right? Peace, pains, desires, etc, I will still do the same. Because sometimes we get so caught up about with the with the fame, money, etc, that we don't go back to our core reason why why do I do what I do? What is my reason? So me my reasons really am writing a book because I want to change one person's life. Because I want to solve that person's problem. And I believe that if that book can can bless one person, it can bless 101,000 1 million, and as many people as possible

James Taylor
one for us a great, great way of finishing up. So shout if you want to connect with you to learn more about you, your courses, your books, where's the best place to go and do that?

Sha Nacino
Alright, I created this free guide. It's called the it's about how you can I answered the top 10 questions that hinder people from regular books. So top 10 burning questions, I did some research. And I answered them. And it's called Ready, set. Right? You can get it you can download it for free at Shilohseannal.com slash ready. Ready, find that fun slash ready.

James Taylor
I'm gonna have a link here below. So you can just click on that head over there, download, download that as well. Sure. Thank you so much for coming on today. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you interviewing you for this and learning how you've could have really developed as a writer. I'm looking forward to seeing you You're so prolific in terms of your writing. So I wish you great success in the future. Thanks so much for coming on today.

Sha Nacino
Thank you, James. And thank you for having me here. God bless.

James Taylor
If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.

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