Think Your Book Is Done? It Probably Needs Three More Drafts & Other Writing Advice from Brad Listi

And I think what it maybe taught me or what I could see in it now is that I'm not a writer who can just churn them out.

It takes too much out of me.

I've got to genuinely have something to say.

And that might mean I only publish a small handful of books.

I'm totally fine with it.

I'd much rather publish books where I think I have something real to say than just like I'm a storyteller machine.

Like I can't do it that way.

Some people can and that's like great for them.

But I...

That's not my orientation to the work.

Again, it all comes back to being like bewildered and like looking to books for instruction and for solace and then trying maybe to create books of my own that can offer something similar.

Okay.

So, but you've interviewed, I think I just saw a post you've been doing your podcast for 10 years.

No, almost 15.

Oh, almost 15.

What was the milestone? You'd interviewed a thousand people.

A thousand author interviews, not a thousand people because there are like a few repeat guests, but essentially a thousand author interviews.

And I'm in my 15th year now.

So you essentially have like beyond a PhD in like other author journeys.

Do you feel like that's common? Like the sense of not totally understanding the industry that you're getting into and like the I mean, you're not the only one, right?

No.

I mean, and maybe in my generation, it's more common.

I feel like the younger people are savvier and they've also come of age post 9-11, you know, the financial collapse of 2008.

Like these are people who are not looking at the world through rose colored glasses.

Right.