Merging Your Passion With Meditation: Mindful Writing & Book Publishing w/ April Davila
In this episode, we explore the intersection of mindfulness and writing with April Davila. In it you will learn:
How April took her passion for writing and mindfulness and created a business
Advice for overcoming writer's block and writing your book
Integrating mindfulness & Buddhist philosophy into creativity
Having resilience in the face of criticism
Book publishing tips & strategies
GIFT FOR YOU
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Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello there, friend. Welcome to another episode of the art and Business of Meditation podcast. I'm excited for our conversation today with April Davila. She is an award winning writer and creator of the unique sit right here coaching program in 2020. Her debut novel, 142 Ostriches, was published by Kensington Books and went on to win the 2021 Willa Award for Women writing the west. She also has an upcoming book, scribbling six ways mindfulness can make you a happier, more productive writer, which I'm sure we're going to talk more about in our conversation. So, April, welcome to the show.
April: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Lou: So, writing mindfulness meditation, which of those comes first and how, though they meet each other?
April: Writing. Writing historically came first. And if I'm honest, writing usually comes first. So this is something my husband and I talk a lot about because we're both creatives and we both have meditation practices. But, like, if we have half an hour, I'm writing and he's meditating. So, like, I think that's very telling of how we actually do prioritize. Meditation is, like, such a close second that I even hate to rank them. But the truth is, like, if I have half an hour, I'm writing, not meditating.
Lou: Yeah, well, some people might say that you can write in, like, a meditative energy, right?
April: Exactly. Yes. Yeah.
Lou: Okay. So it's more. So maybe not in a, in, like, your current state of what you do, but just in your life. Like, were you writing as a growing up? Like, was that always a thing? Like you? You know, some people knew they wanted to be a writer when, you know, they're four. You know, other people, like me didn't realize that I loved writing and kind of exploring it more later in life. And so, yeah. Curious if that was always, like, a curiosity for you.
April: Yeah, I always loved writing, but I think I discounted it because it came easy. Was one of those things where people would say, oh, you're a good writer. I'd be like, yeah, whatever. I mean, isn't everybody? And never really appreciated that. It was something I had a knack for. And then my mom was an artist, a single mom, and a painter. And so financially, it was always a little bit of a struggle. So when I got to end of high school and was trying to decide what I wanted to do, I was like, I'm going to take the practical route, and I'm going to be a scientist. I went and got a degree in biology, and I wasn't great at it. I love science. I love the concepts around science, and I still very much integrate science, especially in how I teach mindfulness. I love the neuroscience part of it, but I wasn't a fantastic scientist. But people did love being my lab buddies because I was always eager to do the lab write ups because that was the part that seemed easy to me. It wasn't until like a decade later, I was unemployed and pregnant and living in student housing with my husband while he was finishing his master's degree. Couldn't really find a job. And what I found was that left to my own devices with, like, nothing to do, I just started writing short stories. And I thought, well, this is really fun. I wonder if I could, you know, make a living as a writer and started to investigate it. And when my daughter was one, I went back to school and got a master's in writing, which you don't have to do. I don't like. I'm a big fan of putting it out there. You don't need a master's to write. But for me, because my background was in science, I felt like I needed two things. I needed a little bit of guidance and actually I wanted to make a career of it. And to that time out, when you say, I'm doing a master's program, you kind of get this pause on everything else of like, I'm going to focus on this and make it a priority and really shift my whole life into it. So for me, I'm glad I did it. It was a good choice. And then I was very lucky. I got a job doing marketing right out of grad school. So I would get up early, early. By then I had another small child. I get up at five in the morning to work on the novel until I would write until the first kid woke up, it was usually like 6630, and then start all the morning hustle, get everyone off to school, go to work, come back, do it all again, fall into bed at like 09:00 and desperate for sleep, and do it all again. Those were exhausting years. But that's how I wrote my first novel.
Lou: And so after you write that novel, is it like, okay, what happens next? Like, are you seeking to get published? Are you just sharing it on a blog? Like, how are you thinking about getting it out there early on?
April: Yeah, I started a blog in 2010. Still my blog, aprildavila.com dot. In fact, I won. Writers Digest listed me as one of the best 101 websites for writers, which was a big honor. And I started it just because a friend of mine in grad school was like, you gotta have a blog. And I was like, oh, really? I don't know. But it has been such. First, what the blog helped me do was get writing work, because while I was working, before I got the full time job marketing, I was freelancing. And pretty much everyone who hired me said, oh, I read your blog. And they liked it, and that's why they hired me. So on that front, it was really good. And then as I started to work on fiction more, that was how I started to attract readers, was they would find my blog. And so the blog has been a really great support for me throughout. I knew I wanted to shoot for traditional publishing. So when I finished the manuscript, I did the whole query process, found an agent. In fact, I had kind of a fairy tale agent story. I queried my dream agent on a Monday, and he asked to rep me on Friday. Like, it was so fast, which almost never happens. I almost hate to share that story because it's such an anomaly. But it was fun. It was a fun little rollercoaster of a week, for sure. Yeah. Not that rejections didn't come, because rejections will always come at some point, because he loved it. He was really excited about it. He took it out. And then just rejection after rejection from the publishing houses, the editors kept passing. And at some point, I asked my agent, should I do rewrites? Like, why is it getting rejected? And he said, if we're getting the same reason over and over again, I'd have you do rewrites. But, like, one editor loved the characters but not the story. One editor loved the story but not the characters. It just needed to find its home. And then it finally did. And an editor at Kensington loved it and made it his project for. So Kensington generally doesn't do a lot of literary fiction, but their lead editor gets to pick one book a quarter that he just loves for, you know, because he loves it, and that becomes his kind of baby project for the quarter. And so he really liked my book, and they championed it, and they did a, they did a wonderful job. Sadly, the book came out in March of 2020, so it was really hard to get any news coverage.
Lou: Yeah. Wow. One of those, those stories.
April: It was one of those. And I remember just being like, oh, okay, so this is how this is going to be. Okay. I really tried not to dwell on it. All the, all the events I had planned, the book tour. We did as much as we could online. And I will say that, like, being pushed into doing things online kind of forced me to get comfortable with it. And I ended up doing, like, book clubs in Rhode island and stuff that I probably would never have really taken the time to do if we hadn't all been on lockdown. So silver lining. And then I just focused on the next book. Just start writing. Keep going. And that's kind of where. So I've written the second book. It's with my. Well, I'm trying to. I'm actually thinking about new representation for this book. Long story. But while I'm waiting on that to happen, I wrote the nonfiction book that you mentioned, the scribbling buddha. And I actually think I'm changing the subtitle. I had it six ways mindfulness can make you a happier, more productive writer. I think I'm changing it to six ways mindfulness can help you write more and suffer less. It's a little more concise for less.
Lou: Yeah.
April: You're speaking, like, more to the point.
Lou: The pain. Yeah. The suffering.
April: The suffering part.
Lou: Yeah. Yeah. Now for that are you. Because I know for nonfiction and fiction, you know, I was so. I laugh at. And I love. I love my naivete so much. Like, I just want to, like, hug my nine year, nine year years ago self of having the inspiration to write his book and going on that journey and, you know, trying to cold call, like, having absolutely nothing, like, to, like, no platform, trying to cold call publishers or agents and just, like, you know, trying to live this dream. And, you know, I'm so proud of how it all unfolded and whatnot. But there's. There was this, like, really naivete of, I'm just gonna publish a book. People are gonna find the book. It's gonna make a bunch of money on Amazon. I'm going to get some speaking gigs, and that's just going to happen. It's just, you know, people are just going to find it. Like, it's going to be out there. And so there's more. We could talk about the actual, like, marketing and what happens after you publish a book, or at least maybe your experience, but just. I'm just curious of. Because you're now doing a nonfiction. What I understand is that if you were to pitch a nonfiction book to an agent, you would not actually write the book. You would write the proposal, focus on the proposal, get that approved. But a novel, you'd actually write the novel, right? Is that correct?
April: That's correct. So if you're writing fiction, you write it first, and then you try to sell it. If you're writing nonfiction, you sell the proposal, and they pay you to write it now, I've already written it because my initial thought was I was just going to self publish it, keep it simple. But I don't know. Now that it's done, I think I might reach out to. Sounds true. There's a couple imprints that I think might be a good fit, and so it might be worth reaching out, doing a pitch, see if they go for it. If not, okay, I'll just do the Kindle direct. But, God, publishing is such a mess. It's such a crazy game, and it's so hard to know what the right steps are to take and how to put together your career. I'm actually working on a class right now that I'm. Because I have so many. I work with fiction writers, and then when they're done with the book, they're like, okay, what's next? And I know a lot of stuff about publishing, but I haven't formalized it. So I'm actually, like, this week, working on putting together an outline for a new class of, like, okay, now that the book is done, what do you do with it? But I am staying in my lane of fiction because I think nonfiction really is a whole other beast. It's. It's trickier.
Lou: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's. There's many ways. If you are building a platform like, you're building now, and you're able to, like, dial in the audience through as you're helping writers. And I can. I can see both ways. I can see it. So, working. You self publishing and.
April: Yeah.
Lou: And you're. I know you're not doing it, and some people do do it for this reason, and I don't totally. I don't align with that because a book's a huge project to just do a crappy business card for. Right. That, like, promotes, like, program. You know, people will do a book that's, like, a shortened version of their program, and so you do the thing, and they'll go into the, you know, space with you, and that. That's fine for whatever, but it sounds like this is. Can be. This can potentially be. Can be that, but it sounds like you're doing it based on how much this has really impacted you. And. Yeah, I'm just saying all that where I could see it work in that way, and then I could see Soundstrew is, like, the dream publisher for me, for sure.
April: Yeah, they're great.
Lou: Yeah.
April: So, I mean, that would be lovely.
Lou: Like, you know, might as well throw. Throw a shot in there. Okay. So there's. There's a few different ways we could. We could take this because the of the experience and what was gonna say. So you're what it reminded me of your. When you talk about this other program, it's like the hardest part is over writing the book, but then there's, like, the other hardest part.
April: The next hardest part.
Lou: Yeah, the next hardest part. And so what do you see in maybe let's just more practical of people writing their novel or book, whatever it could be. What are the common challenges that you work people with that you see?
April: That's a really good question, and I think I can answer it best by backing up a little bit. So I think I mentioned the writing came first. I took my first meditation class in 2004 or something like that. And a lot of people, I dabbled for a long time. You know, I would say I meditated. I kind of always meant to meditate, but I never really sat down and did it very much.
Lou: The idea of meditating felt so much better than actually meditating. Telling people about you, like kind of meditation.
April: Yes, exactly. And I did that for a long time. And then I guess, and I struggled with my writing for a while, too. So I mentioned how I was getting up early to write the novel. I finished grad school in 2010, and it was until 2016 that I started having any success with it. And this is, like, writing pretty consistently almost every day. And when I looked back at what changed in 2016, like, when I finished the book and I found the agent and my short story started getting published, and a short story of mine won an award, and things like that were happening, the thing that had changed was that I had started meditating regularly. And at first, my science brain is like, well, correlation is not causation. That couldn't possibly be the reason. But when I really started to break it down and think about what had changed, it was all directly related to my practice, my sitting practice. And so those are the things. And I've thought about this a lot over the years at this point, and I'm really kind of fine tuned and honed. And that's why, like, the subtitle of the books is the six things or six ways mindfulness can help you, because I really have come to six main ways that it has helped me and that I can teach it to people to help them, too. The first step, the place I usually start with writers, is just the get out of your own way part of it. Dealing with writer's block, that's usually the first biggie, is that it's writing is kind of like meditation, where people want to do it. They want to say they've done it, but sitting down to write is hard, and everybody is different. So the specific reasons that anyone is avoiding their writing are different, but they tend to fall into certain categories and that when. When we can train ourselves. So my background is in insight meditation. Oh, I should mention, too, like, once I realized how much the meditation helped me, I actually enrolled in a two year program through, sounds true. With Jack Kornfield and Tara Brock, and, like, became a certified meditation teacher, trained or I did their MMTCP, the meditation. Mindfulness meditation teacher certification program. It's a mouthful. Yeah. So I did a two year program before I actually started integrating it into how I was working with writers. But that's where I start, is I teach them, like, a basic mindfulness of thought exercise, where I have them anchor their attention on something, whether it's the breath or the sounds in the room, and just notice when their mind wanders and come back to the anchor. And then what I invite them to do is that when I ring the bell that we're not so much ending the meditation as we are switching the anchor to the writing. And so the writing becomes the thing that you're focused on, and the thoughts still come up, right. You'll still have the thought of, like, oh, I should go move the laundry along, like, okay, just another thought. I'm going to keep writing. That sentence sucked. You better delete it real quick before anyone sees. Okay, just another thought. I'm going to keep writing. This idea that all of these thoughts that arise, they don't stop. When you stop meditating and start writing, they're all still there. But if you can just notice them very much like you do in meditation and let them go, it takes all the power away from them and allows you to get that first draft on the page. And then from there, there's some other ways that I integrate mindfulness in terms of editing or. And I usually wrap up when I'm working with writers with equanimity, compassion, practice, because writing is hard and there are rejections. There will always be rejections, and there will always be the disappointment. We're, like, in our head, the book is an instant bestseller, and we're getting all the speaking gigs. And that might happen, yes, but it might not. And how do we persist and not go down a spiral of self loathing or recrimination or whatever and stay the course and do whatever? Our next step is, in my case, write the next book.
Lou: Right. It reminds me of, like, have you followed Steven Pressfield and you know his story at all?
April: No.
Lou: Oh, my goodness. I feel like it's right in your, in your lane. Steven Pressfield, he wrote, he wrote a legend of Bagger Vance. I'm trying to think of other popular fiction writings. He's wrote a couple other fiction writings, but he's like, if you listen to, he's on a ton of podcasts. So if you listen to his story, and I would find one maybe from an older podcast of him because he's probably talking about different things now. So maybe like 2015, 2016. But his story was for years working as a writer or not working as a writer, working as any odd job you can get writing, writing, writing, writing, writing. Having the novel finished, putting it out there and then getting rejected. It's like, what do you do now? You just write the next one, right.
April: And write the next one.
Lou: He found he broke some, broke through in his later fifties, like, got like one novel published. And now he does. Now he does a lot of, he doesn't do a lot of, but he has some nonfiction books, one of called the war of art.
April: Okay. Yes, I do know that one. I didn't recognize his name, but I do know.
Lou: Yeah. So that one. And, you know, he talk, he, like, teaches about the resistance and whatnot, of doing that. But it's always fascinating to, like, that's the other. Always trying. And this is what I'm trying to do with this podcast. And a lot of the work I do is finding doing the thing that is fulfilling in itself. Yes, it might be hard, yes. Resistance to it. But if you're doing it because you think it's going to get you that thing in the future, either it's going to get you that thing in the future, and then, okay, great, now you still got to do something else, and you just put all that time in or it's not going to get the thing in the future. And then you just wasted all that time not in enjoying or not really being in alignment with something that's really fulfilling. Fulfilling you. And just one other thing that came up as you were speaking is you talk about writer's block, and I love.
April: Getting out of your own way.
Lou: Yeah. I love this practice of using what might distract you or what the judgments around this is not good. Oh, just like in meditation, you would see that. Let it go away. But I don't know if you know Seth Godin. I'm a huge Seth godin.
April: Yeah.
Lou: Yeah. He talks about, he doesn't believe in writer's block because he says no one has talkers block. Like, everyone can just talk.
April: Yeah, I was just reading that somewhere. I forget, like, that popped up in my inbox somewhere. Yeah.
Lou: That's funny.
April: Yeah, you just. Just write like you talk. Well, and actually, this is another thing I have a lot of my writers do, is if they don't already have a journaling practice, is to start journaling, because I feel like that's the best way to find your voice as a writer, because our brains go way faster than our fingers can, whether we're handwriting or typing or anything. But if you can make your thoughts slow down enough that you can write them, whether you're typing or handwriting, you're getting this alignment with, like, what's in your head and what's coming out of you, and then your writing voice will start to match your actual speaking voice. And you don't have to journal about anything in particular. But I start every day. I write one page in my journal while I drink my coffee. That's like my morning routine. And it makes writing so much easier because it's not. You're not overthinking it. You're not trying to figure out how to say something. It just feels like you're just sharing your thoughts like you would anywhere with anyone. Yeah, I don't believe in writer's block either.
Lou: Are you writing every day whether you want to write or not? Is it kind of like that baked into your schedule?
April: I write in my journal every day. I mean, that's. It's such a habit at this point that, like, I get up, I write in my journal, I drink my coffee. If I'm not, if I'm not writing my journal, I'm not having my coffee, and something is deeply wrong. I don't. I can't say I work on my fiction every day. I would love to write every weekday. That's kind of my goal. I mean, at this point, I want to treat it like a job. I try not to work on the weekends. My dream days are when I get up, I journal, I meditate, I work on my fiction for two or 3 hours, and then I switch into working with clients. And then, you know, I usually. Afternoons are kids stuff, running around, going to soccer games, that kind of stuff. So that's the dream day. I very rarely have perfect dream days, but sometimes they happen. Sometimes, yeah.
Lou: I love that. Any other common blocks you see novel writers or any writers go through that you work with?
April: One of my favorite to talk about, especially for people who understand mindfulness a little more, is the concept of how. The concept of right view can really help when you're writing, because getting over writer's block, noticing those thoughts is great for getting that first draft on the page. You got to get the first draft on the page. You can edit a big pile of shit into, like, a gorgeous manuscript, but you can't edit something that isn't on the page. So you do that first, and then you have to be able to read it with a certain amount of objectivity. And this is another place. There's so many parallels with mindfulness, right, where if I read something that I've written, I know what I want it to portray. Like, I have an image in my head of what I'm trying to describe. Does what's on the page actually evoke that in your brain? That's hard to say. It's always going to be hard to say, but there are definitely ways of looking at. So I'll give an example. When I was writing my second novel, I had this idea for how I wanted the story to open. I wanted my main character to be born in a storm. And I had this picture of thunder and lightning and the trees thrashing in the winds and big fat raindrops bursting in the mud and all this. And I'm like, oh, this is so juicy. And so I write it, and I write through, and I wrote the whole book. And my process is usually that I, like, write straight through, and then I print it out and I take a little break, and then I just start over at the beginning again. So I print it out, take a break, went back to read it from the beginning. And what I had written for that big, juicy scene was, it was raining. That was all I wrote. And in my head, when I had written it, I was like, oh, yeah, it was raining. Like, I had put so much mental overlay onto those words. But if you read the words, it was raining, it could mean any. It could be a sprinkle, it could be a. It could be any kind of rain. There was no description at all. And it's a fine line. You don't want to totally overwrite things, but when something is important to you as a writer, that, like, that scene was really. I ended up cutting it, such as life, but it felt important to me. And those are the moments where you actually want to make sure that what's, what you think you have written is what you have actually written. And I find this, like, this has been such a game changer for me in life, too. I'm sure you've had this experience, like, with your spouse or anyone else in your life where, like, they say something and you totally react to something that they didn't really say. Like, my husband will be like, I thought you were going to unload the dishwasher. And I start like, well, I had to go pick up the kids and blah, blah. And I get all defensive because in my head I have, like, woven in some kind of accusation or, like, he didn't say anything that, like, all he asked was, like, he didn't even ask. He just, like, made an observation.
Lou: Yeah.
April: And so, yeah, it's that same thing where mindfulness can let you pause and be like, okay, what's really happening here? Why am I freaking out over, like, something. A really simple statement of, I thought you were going to unload the dishwasher.
Lou: Yeah, yeah. That's fascinating because the. You're getting on to potentially things that are so hard to communicate in writing, like body language and, like, tone. Right. Tone of voice. Like, to how you would receive those words in an accusatory, accusatory way versus just a matter of fact way. And it's like, okay, let's say if you were just using that example in a book, it's like, how would you write it in? How would you make that character, say, in an accusatory way versus that way? Like, how do you get that across? Like, that energy that's fascinating to think about.
April: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a way that whoever reads it can't help but see what you're seeing.
Lou: Yes.
April: Because that's the goal when you're telling the story, is that you want to bring the reader into your experience of this made up world.
Lou: Yeah. So the right view in editing. Love that. Any other, I guess maybe even just keep continuing to interrelate the mindfulness or buddhism into writing, like any other principles that you found supportive in writing in the process of it.
April: Yeah. Hold on. I should be able to quote you in my six ways before I start marketing this book. I'm going to have to memorize the six ways.
Lou: Mail that in for the book tour.
April: Yeah, exactly. Hold on, hold on. I'll pull up the book. I have it right here.
April: Let me put the dog in.
Lou: Perfect timing for editing. Yeah, we'll get.
April: I'll put the dog out. All right.
Lou: So, Lester, make sure you edit this in a way that sounds very cohesive.
April: Okay. Okay. Yeah. So the six ways. The six ways that mindfulness. So, first is getting focused. I start with teaching that insight, meditation practice, the mindfulness of thought, of simply allowing yourself to drop into that deep state of focus. The second way is using that awareness to notice what's keeping you from writing. That's the writer's block part of it. The third one is to allow yourself to be really still allowing. How did I phrase this? I'm trying to think, oh, it's about conflict. That's right. Again, I got to work on my pitch on this. But, yes, conflict is such a hard thing in fiction, particularly for new writers, because it's very uncomfortable. And this is something we deal with a lot in meditation. It's like, can you be comfortable with uncomfortable? Can you be with discomfort? And so when people are writing as humans, we don't like conflict. But a story without conflict is not much of a story. So when you're writing a couple arguing, or if you're writing, I don't know, someone's heartbreak or the loss of a loved one, as humans, we don't really like to go there. And so much in new writers, I read their work, and they just jump right over those parts. They'll just, like, they tell it, they'll refer to it in the past as if they had written it, but they didn't actually write it because it hurts. And so the next, the third step is to really allow yourself to be still and get comfortable with discomfort. And the practice that I recommend for that is just simply doing, like, a more formal practice where you try not to move that simple. Right? Like, you just try to sit with an itch and not scratch it. And it is amazing how that translates to your writing. Just being able to be with that little bit of discomfort allows you to stay with things long enough to find the words for them and get them on the page.
Lou: Quick question. Would you say it's helpful when I hear you talk about, like, let's say something like a loss of a loved one? When I think of creating meditations or leading meditations, I'm often, for me, feeling into that experience as much as I can. Like I'm meditating and feeling it. Some teachers are not doing it like that. That's okay.
April: Yeah.
Lou: But I'm curious, as a writer, would you suggest if I'm wanting to write about the grief of a loss of a loved one, would it be helpful for me to actually let myself feel that grief deeply in the moment as I'm writing it, to connect with it more? That felt sense, because that's actually probably going to come through more on the page than if you were to not do it.
April: Absolutely. I totally agree. And I think one of the reasons, I hope one of the reasons that you don't see this much in terms of meditation is that it can get very sticky. I mean, we start to edge into the realm of therapy. Right. And you want to be very careful not to open up old wounds, re traumatize. And so I always like to preface anytime. This is step four. Number four on my list is exactly. This is diving into emotional experiences so that you can portray characters more richly, more three dimensionally, and to do exactly what you're saying. Like, if I'm writing a character who's heartbroken, I'll, in my meditation, and I always take 510 minutes just to sit and get quiet. But then I will intentionally bring to mind a time when I felt really heartbroken and really let myself kind of revel in that pain, like, almost to the part of, like, am I crying or, like, what does it feel like? And it hurts. And at that point, if I'm really trying to capture something specific, I don't usually do this with my meditations. This would be the one time I do. I would actually open my. I would do this meditation at my desk, and I would actually, like, open my eyes and start to write down the sensations that I'm feeling, the memories that are there, how it relates, just, like, everything I can think of to put on the page. And then, of course, later I'll edit it down. But sometimes, especially when you're dealing with emotions, you kind of just gotta, like, blah, just get it all on the page. You make it pretty later.
April: But again, I always like to just, like, put it out there. Anyone who's listening, tread carefully with that. Right. If you feel like, if you tap into something, if you're trying to remember a time you were heartbroken and it's like, wham, it hits you upside the head and you're bawling, step away, take a few deep breaths, and maybe get someone to do it with you. Find a therapist to talk it out with. Like, you don't want to do too much of that on your own because it's just going to make you sad.
Lou: Yeah, yeah. You have to have some self awareness and the opportunity to pendulate and, like, know when. Where your edge is at. And if you are reaching your edge, you having some self awareness to just to step off of that edge and not. Not go over it.
April: Yeah.
Lou: That's a really, really important.
April: Yeah. It doesn't really benefit anyone to, like, re traumatize yourself.
Lou: Yeah, no, yeah, yeah. And that reminds me also of, like, I think that's how method acting is. Like, you would actually go into that feeling to really try and be that, to act it, that makes total sense where it almost feels like you're actually experiencing it, but you're playing role in this character. And, yeah, I think that's what I think there's. I think that's what makes the art real. There's a real felt sense when we really can connect with, whether it's an actor or a writer. It's like, yes, they might be playing a role sometimes in the acting sense, but they're so connected to it that time and space and what that role is is actually not exist. There's like an invisible world that you just. Human experience of life that I'm able to feel that's getting to an essence of what I think art is.
April: Absolutely. I mean, I think that's why we love art. I mean, whether it's painting or music or film or books, to feel deeply or to experience deeply something that someone else has portrayed in some way from their own heart and soul. I just. I freaking love it. And I really, like, I more than love it. Like, I feel deeply the power of that, like, the power of fiction and that being that that's the world that I'm in. The way that fiction can build empathy with other people, the way that fiction can inspire. Like, you look at things like science fiction, and. And that's what our scientists are using science fiction to make the future happen. Now, it took some creative person not worrying about the how to just write a story where, I don't know, watches could talk to you or something. And then the people who are good at the how come in, and they're like, oh, I could do that. And they make it happen. Fiction is amazing to me. And human stories, we can talk about AI if we want to. Like, I got no problem with AI, but, like, there will always be a place for human stories for that very reason. The connection, that empathy of emotion. I just. I love it. I get excited.
Lou: I hear you. So, I don't know if there was a couple more in the series.
April: So that was, number four was the emotion part of it. Number five is the right view, and then number six is the equanimity part of it. The how do you stay sane in this whole process of laboring over something for years, putting it out into the world where somebody will be meaningful and, you know, somebody's gonna say something. Not nice.
Lou: Yeah, not attached. I'll have an episode coming out on the podcast soon. Probably it'll be out by the now. By the time this episode comes out on dealing with negative reviews in general, like, or dealing with negative feedback, because I think it's just important to work with. So, yeah. Having that view of, like, can we. I love this Tim Ferriss quote is you're neither as. And it's one, it's like separated. The number one is separating you and your work. Right. Like, you are not your work. Your humanness as a person has nothing to do with. So really learning to separate that and realizing that the work's not as good as people say it is and it's not as bad as people say it is. And if you can just hold that line of, like, people are going to project their bad stuff, their good stuff, it's not, it's not for them. Like, it's, we have audiences, we find our niches. It's actually not for that person. Great. And, like, celebrating that feedback. And I think what you're saying is doing that from that kind of equanimity, releasing it, not attaching to it. Yeah. You can just say you have so much more power to just keep creating and like, it's so, it's such a strengthening factor.
April: Yeah. Yeah. That I always like to think of it as kind of like a marble on a plate. And we're always trying to, like, keep our marble in the middle of the plate. And that, like, with equanimity practice, you can make it a little bit, a little bit more of a bowl. Like just a little bit right curve the corner so you don't lose your marbles.
Lou: That's a great imagery. I love that. So I'd love to maybe shift. I'm just curious, as someone who writes publicly on the Internet and considers myself having a blog, to quote Mac Miller, it ain't 2009 no more. And blogs are not what they, what they are, what they were in 2010. Virtu, maybe even 20. I don't know. You tell me when it started changing 20 1920 2018. Because blogs were a huge, huge thing and now podcasts started becoming more of the thing and then video and it's like the world of blogs. So I'm just curious, as someone who's been in like an, I would say an OG about blogs. It's like, how do you feel about the state of blogs? Like, what have you noticed in your own blog, like, the change and are you considering doing more video content or more this type of content and trying to bring your work to, to more people where people are going?
April: Yeah, that's a really good question. I have been toying with the idea of a YouTube channel. I'm not ready to commit.
Lou: But it's say that you would do really. I think you would do really, really well. And I think that's, that's the platform, everyone. If you're going to consider a new platform, like a new platform.
April: Yes. YouTube's the one that means a lot coming from you, actually. Thank you. It's on that short list of things I will do soon that I haven't gotten to yet. I continue to keep up my blog almost out of habit. I'll tell you why. The main reason I keep my blog up is that it pushes me to create the content that I kind of use throughout my sphere. So I write a blog post. I have a weekly newsletter called the Scribbling Buddha, which is. It's not my content, mostly. Mostly I call it eight great things from the world of mindfulness in writing. And so mostly it's just stuff I have come across in the last week that I think is interesting. But I usually will put in something from either my blog or an offering that I have coming up, that kind of thing. And so the blog gives me content to put in the newsletter, and then it gives me something I can post to Instagram because I'll take the same image that I use on the blog and I have chat GBT. Rewrite the blog post as an Instagram post. I'll just be like, hey, rewrite this with hashtags for me. And it does, and it's great. And I post that, it becomes the thing that I can reference people. So a lot of times if I'm working with clients or if I'm doing an online class or something, and some question comes up, I'll be like, oh, I wrote a blog post about that, and I can just send them the link rather than trying to remember everything that I said about it, you know, I have so many well thought out, beautiful blog posts that I've written over the years.
Lou: I love, like, Rick Rubin, I'm sure you do know. I'm sure you know Rick Rubin.
April: His name sounds familiar.
Lou: You got to check out Rick Rubin. He wrote a recent book called the creative act. He's a music producer, famous music producer. Has worked with, like, people from Jay Z to Linkin park to Beastie Boys. Like, really, really accomplished producer. But he's, and he's also like a guru. Not a guru, but very a spiritual being. And his, he would always talk about, like, you know, I have no idea what I'm gonna say. And if I said it, you know, sometimes I said it five years ago, I don't know if it's gonna come out now. Like I said that two years ago or last year or last month, and it was what I did in that moment and this moment's different. So it's like I gave my all to that moment and how was I let it go and now it's like, yeah, yeah. So, yeah.
April: And I don't have to figure out what I said and say it. Well, again, I'll just send you the link to the blog post and you can read it.
Lou: Totally, yeah, I gave it my best that time and I'll just send it that. Yeah, yeah. Which some people can take as like, oh, you can't tell me what you think now. But that's, I, that's, I don't, I wouldn't put too much stake in that.
April: I'm a big fan of not changing lanes. The older I get, the more I just don't want to, like, I want to be doing one thing at a time. And if I'm doing one thing and someone asks question that's like half a step off of what I'm doing. I am so glad to have like a reference I can send them and be like, okay, that's not what I'm talking about right now. I totally want to support you in that. Here's the link. I'm going to keep going on this path. I just, I just don't like jumping all over the place anymore. It's exhausting. It's one of the reasons I like fiction. Like, give me one project to work on for five years. I'm a happy person. I love it.
Lou: Yeah. I really think you and the YouTube channel would thrive, like, like very nice YouTube channels, like helping people develop their writing. Like, well, the SEO. SEO on that is crazy good YouTube. Such a good search function and it's such a good, interesting, it's such a good. And I, because I watch a lot of running YouTube now, so I'm seeing how it's working as a user perspective on how many more people I'm subscribing to that are kind of in the same lane as these other people. And just the, the organic, the way that it promotes new content. To me, it's like, I look forward to. YouTube is like my, I don't, it's like the social media that I really ingest the most of as a consumer, which is why I think I'm bullish on it as a producer, if that makes sense, because, like, it really suggests really good, similar content that I always love and then I might follow the other good person. So I don't think Instagram does that as well. And you just have, you're able to teach a lot better on YouTube. And so for everything that you're doing. Yeah, I mean, again, I'm not going to say, like, you got to follow your truth in that way, but I just can see it. I could see you really thriving in that.
April: I've gotten more and more comfortable with video, and I have to, like, say, that's a Covid directly related to Covid because I, my meditation teacher training program, I started it in 2019, and in the second year of the program, we were supposed to start teaching. You're supposed to actually start going out and teaching. And of course, 2020 couldn't go anywhere. And I kept saying, like, oh, I can't teach meditation online. I'm just going to wait till all this Covid nonsense is done. And it keeps going and keeps going. And it got to the point where they're like, if you want your certification, you have to teach something and you have to record it and send it to us. And so I was like, fine. And I taught a six week course to my friends and family and I had this feeling like it's just not going to be as good. And I was so surprised to find to learn that actually, I don't know, you can make a pretty decent connection with folks. Sitting and meditating with people on Zoom is so much more connecting and grounding than I ever thought it would be. I don't know if I've mentioned to you, it hasn't come up, but I lead a mindful writing group every weekday at 930. We meditate for 15 minutes and then we write together for an hour. And then we just kind of hang out for a little bit. I call it my sit right here mindful writing community. And when I first started, I kind of had this, like, who's going to actually show up for this? Like, first of all, we're sitting in silence for 15 minutes, which I guess you could totally do on your own, but you don't. That's the thing, right? And then writing for an hour. You don't have to be. I mean, we don't even turn on our cameras. We'll have our cameras off and we're just. But to look up and see everyone's names, there's. And I know they're all writing. And I'm going to stay there and keep my butt in the chair and I'm going to write. And then when the hour's up, we check in and talk about it. And it is such a wonderful community. It has become the cornerstone of my writing practice. I know no matter how crazy, like business or the kids or whatever gets, I know that an hour every day, I'm going to sit down with my friends and I'm going to meditate for 15 minutes and I'm going to write for an hour. And it's amazing. And I never would have thought that would be possible on Zoom.
Lou: Such a cool offering. And it's like how you mentioned this when we talked through email around, bringing your unique thing that you love, combining it with mindfulness.
April: Yes.
Lou: I'm curious, maybe speak more about how maybe it's not writing for some people, but I'm curious, curious what you think of, like, other examples where you can see people bringing weaving mindfulness into what they love or what they do in a unique way. Because I think you've done it really, really, really stellar.
April: Thank you. Thank you. And I. The thing I love best about it, I do have thoughts on that, but I want to share one thing. The thing I love best about it is that people don't come to me for mindfulness. They come for writing. And then I get them meditating, people who might never have meditated, and I get them to do a little bit of it. After they've done it for a little while, they'll be like, wow. And they'll just start telling me about all the things in their life that are just better and they're just a little calmer and they like how someone cut them off in traffic and they didn't freak out. And I'm like, just like. It makes me so happy that people who might not have found meditation otherwise are meditating. But to answer your question specifically, that niche. So when I did the teacher certification program, the people that I've kept in touch with, who have really done well with their business of being a meditation teacher are people who had. Who had something else they did and they've combined the meditation with it. You've been on insight timer forever. You have this wonderful following of people who know what they get from you in terms of as a mindfulness teacher. But I feel like sometimes when we're new to the game, there's this, like, oh, the market's so saturated. Who's going to listen to me? Why should I bother? And I have a friend who was in the training program with me. She was from the finance world, and she'd had it with finance, wanted to teach mindfulness. And when it came time to put together what class she was going to teach, she decided to bring mindfulness to the financial banker world. I mean, what world could use it any more than the finance world? I love what she's doing. So she's basically teaching people to bring mindfulness to the practice of managing their finances. I don't even fully understand it. It's her niche, but I love that she's doing it. Yeah. And I had another classmate who, she was a pediatric nurse, and she is bringing mindfulness to help kids deal with like bellyaches and stuff. Like, I just, I feel like everyone has something that they love or they're passionate about or like, I don't know if you know, Kevin Griffin, he's a meditation teacher out of spirit rock. He was like a musician. Probably still is. I haven't checked in with him in a while, but he got sober. He started the twelve step program decades ago, and mindfulness really helped him in that process. And so he brought mindfulness and sobriety together and made that his niche. He wrote, I'm forgetting the name of his book, twelve breaths or something like that, mindfulness in the twelve step program. So I just feel like everyone has something that they know a lot about and that they're passionate about and that if we can integrate mindfulness into those things, we can bring mindfulness into niches that might never otherwise be exposed to them. And there's so much goodness in mindfulness practice that I think anyone that we can introduce to it, that's a win.
Lou: Yeah. Yeah. That's finding a niche and bringing that in. It's really, I'm trying to think of, like, the alternative it is. As someone who has a podcast called the art and business of meditation, if you're just wanting to teach meditation classes to the broad public, there's a few different ways you can go the route, I think, of a spirit house or an insight meditation society and really devote to. The longer you're becoming a teacher in the Dharma lineage and you're often teaching those retreats, living on donations, really going that route, which I have so much respect for because in so many, that's like an, you know, the real deal route to go. Um, but just as it's hard for yoga teachers to make a living, just teaching yoga in meditation can, can often be the same thing. Like, if you're just trying to do classes, if you're just trying jumping from here to there, um, it can finding some kind of niche that you can bring it in, creating programs, creating offers that are actually going to support, support your life. I think it's definitely important to think about. And I love the community aspect of what you're sharing is so important. And the accountability of being together on a call. Like, I have a mastermind group and included in that is a co working session and there's just so much power and just, we're just going to get on Zoom together and everyone's going to share what they're working on and we're just going to be quiet and we're going to work. Like, the productivity that happens when you're on Zoom with another person is so wild. Do you follow Darius Bashar at all?
April: No, that's another one that sounds familiar. If. Tell me more.
Lou: He has a community called Artist mourning.
April: And, oh, I heard your podcast with him. That's how I know his name.
Lou: Yeah. So he's a. He's a friend, but he has. He has something similar to you where every Friday at 09:00 a.m. he has a. He has a huge group of people gather, they do a meditation with him, and then they journal for a while and it's like he's doing so well with that. And so I love hearing. I think there's so much space to think those offers, like, you have, like, sit right here is so valuable to find and tap into something like that.
April: Right. And I just feel like it makes it a little more accessible for those of us who are just trying to get into teaching meditation because it can feel overwhelming. And at first I thought being this nichey, right, like mindfulness and writing, who am I ever going to find? Turns out there's a lot of people. I don't need that many people. I just need enough to pay my bills.
Lou: No, exactly. Do the numbers. I have a pockets episode. A thousand true fans. You don't even need a thousand true fans. You need a thousand true fans to spend $100 with you. You need ten true fans to spend x amount with you if you want to do it like that. Right. So, yeah, you have a great, I think, your niche, but it's actually a pretty large niche, I would say, like mindfulness and bigger than I thought. Yeah, I could see that. So I'd love to. I know we have a few minutes left. You mentioned that you've hired a business coach and just maybe for my own selfish reasons, would love to hear you. The wisdom that you gleaned or like, maybe there's so many ways that I guess you could take that. What you've. What's worked, what's not worked, what you taken from that experience or maybe you're still working with this person, but maybe something also, maybe something surprising that you've implemented that's, like, worked.
April: I don't know.
Lou: Take this wherever you feel called to.
April: Go as far as, well, I'm happy to share the. So it's a business group. It's called bold heart, and it is run by this woman, Fabian, but she has, like a whole system set up where, like, you have, it's a community and you have different, like, accountability sessions and you have a sub coach and a quarterly coach. And I don't know, she's got it dialed in.
Lou: She's got the coaching.
April: She's got it, and it's really useful. And I just, after signing up with her, it took me about nine months. The first nine months of working with her were really about getting weeding out the things that weren't working because I was doing so many things. Some of them were kind of working, some of them weren't working at all, but I kept doing them thinking they might working well, freelance work. So name one. I really wanted to pivot more into coaching, but I was just afraid to do it. And so getting her to say, like, if you had a lot more freelance work, would you be happier? And I'm like, no. I mean, I would be making more money, which would be good, but I wanted to be doing more coaching. She's like, stop. Just stop doing the freelance work and focus on the coaching. It's what you love. Do that. And I just, I needed someone to say that I was like, yeah, you're right. Okay. I also, like, I started charging for my community for a long time. I didn't charge. It was free, and people didn't really come. And it's funny, you charge them and they show up. When you invest in something, money is this symbol, right, of how much we are invested in something. And so I ask for a small monthly fee. And people started actually coming to the meetings and the same people over and over. And so the community actually got a lot more cohesive. So that was a big shift, not only better for my bottom line, but better for the community. I was really happy to do. And then just some practical things, like putting together packages in a way that I hadn't done them. But, like, I never used to sell packages. I would do an hourly, like, how many hours did I spend on your manuscript? Which sucked for the writer because they never knew how many hours it was going to take me. And it sucked for me because I couldn't financially plan because I didn't know how many hours I was going to. So putting together more of like, packages, having more pre recorded material that I can combine with, like, say, if I'm reading your manuscript while I'm doing that work, you can be watching my pre recorded classes on structure and plot and, you know, all those kinds of things. Yeah. So, yeah, boldheart.com, they're fantastic. Tell them I sent you. They're great. It's a really great group.
Lou: Amazing. So yeah, I think that's for, especially in the creative industry, actually, just watch this video on exactly what you're talking about. It's a little bit tougher. I'm still trying to navigate around the coaching that I do and I don't, I don't want to. Charging for an hour doesn't do justice around, like, what could potentially happen. Because I've said this before, it's like I've done, I've done one coaching session and it's worth the entire, the entire thing that I've invested in. And especially for creative projects. This is what, this is a guide. Chris Doe, he does a lot of business for creatives, graphic designers, I would say when you have a result, people, he used this example of, because someone was asking him, what is your rate per hour? And he's like, well, I don't charge per hour. And he's like, well, how do I know that you're going to do how much work you're actually doing into it? It's like, does that matter? If I work like, more? Would you pay me more like, or if I took four months on doing this, would that be more valuable to you? And they're like, no, I want this thing in two weeks. And it's like, why would, he's like, why would give less energy to it if it was over in four months? And so he's trying to make the example of, actually, we want the, when you're, I think you were wanting the results. And often if you can do it faster, then that's actually more valuable than like if you, you know, the hour per time. And so that was a good example of, of, of that and understanding that that value is so subjective. It's so subjective in what we value. And I think, yeah, I'm still, it's, it's this line. I'm always fascinated around coaching, prices and packaging and how, and how we navigate this because it's a kind of a wild west world, but there is understanding that the value that they're paying is for the thing that they're, whereas manuscript, very specific. Right. This is the result you're getting versus. Okay, how have you getting away from. We've been indoctrinated in this. Our hour is, like, worth a certain amount of time. Like, an hour is worth a dollar amount, and we have to grind more to get more. It's kind of like, when did this start? This is actually coming as I'm speaking. This wasn't.
April: Yeah.
Lou: This started in the industrial kind of revolution where we had. We had to quantify people's labor, and we've just taken this. And now when you step out of that kind of rat race world, quantifying the labor in that same way is. Yeah, it's like, it's almost unique. Natural. It doesn't even feel natural.
April: It doesn't feel good. Definitely like, the hourly rat race. The, like, trying to value yourself on a per hour basis and even something like a manuscript review. I do put a certain number of hours into that. But the value is that their book is going to get better. That's the thing that they want. Right. They don't care how many hours I spend on it. They want their book to be better. So trying to focus more on that thing that they get at the end of this. All the thing that I can help them do. Like, right now, putting together this class on querying agents, is like, yeah, I have all the content, and I've got the sales pitches and stuff, but the bottom line is, they want help finding an agent. That's the thing that they want. They want an agent. So can I help them with that? Yes, I can. And that's really, like, all they want to know.
Lou: Well, they want. In some ways, this is another Seth godinism. It's like, they actually don't want an agent. They want what the agent will give them.
April: Right? Yes. That's a good point. They want the book deal.
Lou: They want the book deal. Right? So it's like, that is what they want. It's. Seth Godin would say, no one wants a two inch hole. They want the picture on their wall or something.
April: That's a good one.
Lou: They want, like, what it's doing well.
April: And my business coach always says, she says, nobody likes to be sold to, but everyone loves to buy. We love buying stuff, but you got to speak to the, like, don't try to sell people. You got to just show them the value of what they're getting, and then people are happy to buy. Yeah, it's. Yeah.
Lou: To spend. Like, there's this. Yeah. Spending. I try and think about this, too, of, like, spending the money with joy and, like, excitement. And, like, when I. Yeah, whenever I'm making a. A purchase that feels like I know that it's an investment, I do this more so where I feel like, okay, this is an investment. I'll take a moment. I'll do, like, a little prayer in a way of, like, spending this with joy and often receiving it with joy. Right. But we often have this, like, we're putting money away, and it's almost this contraction that happens. So, yeah, the energetic is interesting.
April: I love that. I've only just started trying to play with that a little bit, too, of, like, even things like, if someone, like, on the freeway exit asks for a doll, they've got, like, this sign up. Sometimes I'll give $5 and just, like, see what it feels like.
Lou: There's people that I know this is kind of like a money thing. Like, I've never done it. I'm not, I'm not. I'm definitely not opposed to doing it. But I know it's like, a common thing in the. This weird spiritual coaching world where they're. They'll to, like, change your relationship to monies to. To take maybe $210 bills and just go around a street and just start, like, giving people anyone you see.
: Let's get the flow going.
Lou: Just giving, like, feeling this unattachment to letting it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little woo, I guess.
: But I'm up for the woo. I like the woo.
Lou: Yeah. All for the woo. So, April, where can people go sit and write with you? And where would you like to send anything you want to share about, obviously, your book and your program?
April: Yes.
Lou: Feel free to share.
April: Well, and I'll share with you when the book is available. I'll let you know how that comes. But aprildavila.com is my home base. Everything's there on my website, there's a tab for writers, and that's where people can find out about the writing community if they want to come join me there. But pretty much my website is the place to start.
Lou: Awesome. Yeah, go check her blog. She's still rocking it old school. Sign up for her newsletter. Awesome. April, thanks so much for taking the time. This was a lot of fun.
April: Yeah, it was nice talking to you. Thank you.
Lou: All right, bye, friends. We'll see you next time.