I was talking to my soul sister Suzanne Boothby who is a writer and book coach extraordinaire and I said to her these words: “I am not a writer.”
She looked me square in the eyes and lovingly said, “Yes you are. You write all the time. You have a blog, you’ve been published in the Huffington Post and MindBodyGreen and YOU WROTE A BOOK! Guess what? That makes you a writer.”
Isn’t it funny the stories we tell ourselves. I was never the best student. Actually, that’s not true. I was very good at all the classes that involved creativity or being active. Most of the time I got horrible grades in my English classes which is why I made up this story that I’m not a writer. I totally forgot that I got excellent grades whenever we were asked to do creative writing or any type of storytelling. Another reason I said that I wasn’t a writer was because if I admitted that I was, then it was real. If it was real then there was the possibility that I could fail. I hid behind pretending that it wasn’t real to protect myself from the pain of failure.
I am now admitting to the world what Suzanne saw in me and deep down I knew was true.
Hello. My name is Taraleigh and I’m a writer.
The awesome thing about the world today is that there are editors to fix my not so great grammar and there are book coaches out there like Suzanne that brought my book from a dream in my head to reality.
Just like any dream you may have, you weren’t meant to do it alone. Every dream requires a dream team. Michael Jordan is an extremely talented basketball player, but he wouldn’t have gone as far as he did without amazing coaches. As writers, artists, entrepreneurs, poets and musicians, why do so many of us think that we don’t need an amazing coach too? We do. At least I do and I’m so grateful that I hired Suzanne to bring my words out of my head and into the world.
Suz and I are up to something for writers that involves mountains, epic food and Ryan Montbleau that I’ll be sharing with you at the bottom of this post. If you can’t wait and want to know what it is, you can find out HERE.
It’s because of Suzanne that the Sweet Ass Self-Help Book is now a real book that will be released in the next few months. Here’s proof. You are the first people to see the cover. Yay!
Why did I choose Suzanne Boothby as my coach? One reason is the woman is the book whisperer. Seriously. This woman is a genius at bringing the book inside of you out onto real life pages. She does this by lovingly pushing you out of your comfort zone, somehow getting inside your head to say what you want to say when you can’t seem to figure out how to say it yourself, giving you simple tasks to accomplish and cheering you on all along the way.
When she expressed to me that she had a desire to teach her magic in a retreat setting, I jumped at the chance to allow her to do just that.
Do you have a story to tell?
If so come to the Berkshire Mountains Writer’s Retreat November 10-13th with me, Suzanne and Ryan Montbleau.
Writing is a solitary act and it can be very common to feel alone in the creative process. At this retreat you will be in a community of writers (all levels) just like you and surrounded by breathtakingly beautiful nature. We will break new creative ground in an environment of fun, sharing, and learning. This retreat is for 9 songwriters and 9 book writers and there are only a few spaces left. Find out more and sign up HERE.
I’m so excited to hold space for you to finally tell your story. The world is waiting to hear it.
The magic in me sees the magic in you,
Taraleigh
