EP 370 - Questioning & Reflecting with Becca Syme

Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

Mark interviews Becca Syme, an author and a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach who has been helping writers with coaching success alignment for more than a decade.

Prior to the interview, Mark thanks Patrons and Buy Me A Coffee buddies, shares comments from recent episode, a personal update, and a word from this episode's sponsor.

Learn more about this self-publishing/WIDE-publishing focused cruise.

In the interview Mark and Becca talk about:

• How Becca deals with unexpected situations such as someone being late for a virtual meeting (Mark was 20 minutes late getting to this interview) and how this aligns with her strength of "Arranger"
• The Clifton Strengths personality metric and how Becca uses it to help writers
• Mark's top 5 strengths and Becca's top 5 strengths
• The pros and cons that come with a strength such as Empathy
• How emotions can have residue - that emotions are not false just because they're fictional
• Becca first taking the Clifton Strengths in 2005 and then immediately wanting to become certified and to figure this out; which is when her coaching began
• The "Dear Writer"/"Question The Premise" books that Becca has written to help writers
• How Becca's first book "Dear Writer You Need to Quit" has become a running joke, especially from people who have never read the book and have only heard the title
• The challenge related to the new place Becca lives and trying to get audiobooks recorded
• People who are pressure-prompted and the leveraging external motivation VS internal motivation
• A look at home office versus having an office space separate from the home and how that can work better for some people
• How our visions of ourselves are not correct because so much of it is based on impressions we were fed before we were able to effectively grasp a more pure vision of ourselves
• Being able to look at what's often seen as a weakness as a strength
• How even the more benign moments and experiences in childhood can have a dramatic life-long impact upon us
• The way that Becca questions almost everything, including the thoughts and feelings that she has
• Being an intuitive writer verses writing a book to outline
• How 100% of the things that "everyone says" are for everyone, are definitely NOT for everyone
• That most people are not lying to you, but they are lying to themselves, often because they just don't understand
• How a person who NEVER questions themself is a major red flag
• The "reach for my phone" game that Becca plays when she's traveling or out in public
• The 12-Hour Walk
• Becca dating someone who was comfortably disconnected from their phone, rarely ever reaching for it, but just being in the moment
• The problem with interrupting the thought cycle and being able to get all the way to the bottom of the cognitive process
• And more . . .

After the interview Mark reflects on a handful of things that came up in their conversation, which he felt was a lot of good therapy for him.

Links of Interest:

• Becca Syme's Better Faster Academy Links
• The QuitCast Blog
• QuitCast Podcast for Writers
• Becca Syme YouTube
• EP 359 - The DIY Writer with Kaye Lynn Booth
• DropCap Marketplace
  • Use coupon STARK20 to get 20% off
• Cruising Writers
• Buy Mark a Coffee
• Patreon for Stark Reflections
  • How to Access Patreon RSS Feeds
• An Author's Guide to Working With Bookstores and Libraries
• The Relaxed Author
  • Buy eBook Direct
  • Buy Audiobook Direct
• Publishing Pitfalls for Authors
• An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores
• Wide for the Win
• Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books
  • This Time Around (Short Story)
  • A Canadian Werewolf in New York
  • Stowe Away (Novella)
  • Fear and Longing in Los Angeles
  • Fright Nights, Big City
  • Lover's Moon
  • Hex and the City
  • Only Monsters in the Building
• The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles
• Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard

Becca Syme (MATL) is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and has been coaching success alignment for more than a decade. She is the author of the Quitbooks for Writers series and the popular Write Better-Faster course. She also writes mystery novels in her spare time and lives on one of the thousand lakes in Minnesota.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0