Interview with Daniel Willcocks

Daniel Willcocks is an international bestselling author and award-nominated podcaster of dark fiction. 

He is an author coach; one fifth of digital story studio, Hawk & Cleaver; co-founder of iTunes-busting fiction podcast, ‘The Other Stories’;’ CEO of horror imprint, Devil’s Rock Publishing; and the co-host of the ‘Next Level Authors’ podcast.

Dan is furiously passionate about all things story. He has written 40+ books in five years for himself and on behalf of ghostwriting clients. 

Dan now also provides author coaching services designed to help authors take the stories that they are dying to tell, and get them out onto the page.

Emma Dhesi:

Well, Daniel, thank you so, so much for joining me today. I’m really excited to chat to you.

Daniel Willcocks:

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Emma Dhesi:

Well, I wonder if you start off just by telling us about your own journey to writing.

Daniel Willcocks:

Yeah, cool. So I always tell people, I’m not one of these authors who have basically dreamed of being an author from as well as, as when they were tiny, tiny little children. I’ve always enjoyed writing, I’ve always enjoyed reading.

And when I was younger, there was definitely a part of me that thought writing would be a cool career to go into, but I never really saw that is accessible or in any way, something that I could achieve.

And over the years, I’ve I’ve tried lots of different things through my life, I’ve done lots of different jobs and kind of just worked my way around a bunch of different careers, and ended up graduating in 2012, doing English and Drama.

And it was strange, because it’s a bit of a weird tangent into how I got to where I am. It was in the latter years of my drama side of that degree, that I ended up doing a script writing module.

And I wrote this script to the featured I think it was for actors. It’s very, very small. I was very heavily obsessed with Samuel Beckett, and wrote this play, and it just did very, very well in terms of marks through that course.

And at the same time was put forward to be submitted to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And I never unfortunately got to go because I just didn’t have the funding to go there at the time.

But it was I think that was the first inkling that, you know, I could there was some success that could be had from my own creativity and then, when it came to trying to pick a career to go into at the time was a parkour freerunning instructor, as we so timely was talking about just before we started recording, and ended up teaching kids and adults across the county, how to free run and jump buildings safely and you know, build up on their progress that way.

And I unfortunate, injured myself, and then was forced to look at, you know, what are my career options? What do I want to do. And since I didn’t English and Drama, I figured I might as well do something that uses some of those degrees, and ended up making contacts with someone who run their own proofreading and editing business, primarily for nonfiction academic journals.

And I ended up sort of, almost be a being an apprentice to this person. And in the end, I got funding to run my own business doing that for two years. So I started to understand the journey of publishing what it takes in terms of the different layers of editing, how to get a book, typeset, and center print and all that kind of stuff. Then from there, I went to an internship at the local university, and what’s their publications team.

So again, it was working much more broadly, this time with, you know, images, funds, branding, everything to magazines, prospectuses, and digital literature that went out as well. And it slowly started to build up on there.

I have my son in 2014. And it was around that time that I started asking myself, as I think most new parents do, what is it that you want to represent to your kid? What How can you be the best person of yourself for this bundle of pink flesh.

And I ended up reading a book of short stories by Stephen King that I got gifted as a secret answer around that time. And just I was so obsessed with this book, and just the short stories because I’ve never really been much of a short story reader before.

And I ended up going really, really in depth, just in terms of the the different POV was writing with the different What’s the different tenses and just the variety of stories you can have from an author who is traditionally very horror, just in this book, and it blew me away.

So I started dabbling in short stories along the side of what I was doing. And that was that was really sort of the inception for where it started, I wrote my first novella, which was caught into smoke, which I then stumbled across KDP and indie publishing, and I was by myself at that point, it was just literally me and the fact that I wanted that book on my shelf.

And I released this 16,000 word novella into the world. And it was well received, it came out around Halloween time, it went up to the number one spot on the charts in horror, then, which you know, is very encouraging to see. And everything kind of is just just rolled off from that. So that was that was the initial inception. And then there is a lot between 2015 and now.

So I mean, just a whistle stop tour being that I jumped in with a group of authors who informed the CEO Hawking fever, we launched a podcast called The other stories, which is 20 minute fiction podcast, which has now had, I think, close to 9 million downloads in that time, and has recently won the this is horror fiction podcast of the Year Awards, which is amazing.

I’ve written my own stuff. I’ve collaborated with lots of people, including Jay Thorne and my family. And I’ve I’ve just enjoyed what I’ve been doing written stuff that has brought me joy.

And then over time, I’ve been very, very fortunate enough that that has built up enough of a career that in 2019 I will was able to go full time. And now I spend a lot of my time working on my own stuff. I’m a ghost writer.

I’ve launched my own horror imprint and my own nonfiction imprint, which I’m sure will go into. And yeah, it’s all kind of accelerated just from that initial writing a play and having someone pat me on the back.

Emma Dhesi:

It’s been a quiet a few years, then. Yeah,

Daniel Willcocks:

quite a few years. Yeah, it’s it’s very, very quite

Emma Dhesi:

But I’m having a look, having looked at your stuff, I can actually see where I can see your sort of brand and that internship, what you learned on the internship coming through and that you’ve started, kind of where many of us don’t on that, that other end, the sort of back end of it, but the editing and the proofreading, yeah. Sort of perhaps more technical side, perhaps.

Yeah. And then moving into the first draft writing. So because because your stuff is all really well put together, like your series all look immaculate. The way everything looks. Yeah, I know that you’ve given a lot of thought to that.

Daniel Willcocks:

Yeah, no, I have. I had the real thing with if, and this was, you know, before I heard the word advice, like I say, back in 2015, when I was putting that first book out, I didn’t, I had no, no insight at all into the indie community.

I didn’t know anyone, it was just a chance I kind of met some people. But the one thing that I really wanted to do was, if I was to have a book on my shelf, I didn’t want it to not look like the other books on my shelf.

And, you know, I think a lot of it comes down to reverse psychology, I know that if I pick up a book that looks shoddy, with a cover that doesn’t have the certain things in the front of the back, and just the way that the page is laid out. Even if it’s a fantastic story, I know that my brain is telling me that it’s not going to be so I don’t invest in it as much as I wanted to.

And I I spent this isn’t a joke or exaggeration, I spent two days on this book, studying fonts, and trying to work out what the perfect font was to have inside that book. And I can’t remember what I ended up settling on that I really, really liked.

And then when I went to upload it to Amazon KDP. It wasn’t a fun, they accepted, they only have about or back. And then he had about six months they accepted. So I went with Times New Roman.

But every every part of that it was because back then as well, I was formatting to do my own formatting, just learning all in Word. And I was looking at font sizes, spaces between lines or page layouts, what goes on the top and the bottom of each page and sort of just I was meticulous in trying to make it look like a real book because that that was what I understood as a quality product that then would potentially sell.

And I wouldn’t I wouldn’t accept anything less. So you know, some of that probably was massively influenced by the internship and everything else. Because I’d worked around, you know, university, you’re not going to put out anything that isn’t to a certain quality.

When editing and proofreading non academic journals, obviously has a certain standard for each publishing house. And it’s one of those things where I think at the time, I didn’t realize how well that would serve me.

But like you say it did build that foundation for knowing how to put out a book that feels like a book to a reader who hopefully doesn’t know, between traditionally and independently published.

Emma Dhesi:

Yeah, no, it definitely shows definitely. So you. You do right across genres. Yes. So it does your heart live with any particular one, I was curious as to if you’ve got a favorite.

Daniel Willcocks:

I think because I’ve been battling with this for a few years. Because I’ve gotten into horror, I’ve gone a little bit into sci fi, I went into post apocalyptic.

And I think just generally, it’s not so much a genre that I like more as the tone and the atmosphere and the feeling are very much I’ve had a lot I’ve had quite a simple non descriptive childhood is very, like I’ve had no real sort of issues or anything I can pray about. And I feel lucky in that way.

But I think because of that, I do explore a lot of the darker themes and a lot of the darker side of life through my fiction. So you know, the horror that I write explores, I’m not so much interested in slasher Gore, any of that stuff, I really like to explore the human condition through horror.

So usually how that shows itself in my work is that it will be people trapped in situations where all of the gadgets, all of the luxuries, everything is stripped. And all that’s left are basic human emotions and interactions.

So my latest book, when winter comes is about a town in northern Alaska, who, you know, it’s a different life anyway, they’re isolated there hundreds of miles from anywhere sort of modern. But then he gets blanketed by this freak storm and sort of preachers come out of the storm and take over the town.

And even though a lot of people might argue that, you know, it’s a horror, and it’s a monster to make that story for me, it’s really the interactions between the characters and the things that they do to try and survive.

Because you can be the nicest person to someone standing next to a bank, or an absolutely horrible person standing next to someone at the bank. But suddenly everything closed down, the power went down, the doors locked and you were strapped in there for five days.

I’m sure how your emotions showed themselves, which changed quite a lot. So I think that’s that’s kind of What I like to write in terms of it is that human condition, it’s reality, it’s that sort of gritty, a bit darker.

And I like the genre is where I feel like I can express myself freely without restriction.

So that often comes back to horror, because really, there aren’t many limits in horror. But the minute I am going for a bit of an internal struggle to run word, but reassess, and looking at going into a bit more of a darker fantasy side of things.

So I’m currently doing a bunch of percolating and research into Yeah, dark fantasy, I’d say, but sort of quite dark fantasy along the lines of HP Lovecraft sort of Cthulhu and his mythology and that kind of thing to see if I can bring something to that.

Emma Dhesi:

Oh, well, it’s, it’s, I think it’s one of the lovely things about being an indie author is you have that flexibility.

And wherever your heart is taking you your passions are taking you at any given time, you can follow that. So….

Daniel Willcocks:

Yeah, I will say that doesn’t lend Well, or as well, to sales. So you do see a lot of people that can stick to genre and can really sort of nail down the world or universe or like a series of a character, you tend to give yourself a bit more of an advantage, because hopping around, what I have found is that even the people who enjoyed my apocalyptic books, which I know you’re quite horror, there’s zombies.

And there’s that kind of stuff in there. They aren’t as easy to convert over to my horror, because it’s it’s a different feeling. It’s a different world. It’s, it’s a different genre.

So I thought they would cross over but I’m having to essentially manage two different mailing lists two different overall over arching genre is just to try and keep those books moving.

Emma Dhesi:

The human psychology, it’s a Yeah, guessing. Yeah, you’ve mentioned it here. And it mentioned in your bio, as well, that, you know, you’ve got your host multiple podcasts, you’re writing coaching ghostwriting, and you’ve got a community, which we’re going to talk about a little bit later.

So there’s a lot going on, you’ve obviously got family, too, there’s lots going on.

One of the questions I often get from my audience is well, how do you balance all of the things going on? So for you, how do you manage to balance all those different aspects of your life?

Daniel Willcocks:

So I think the the first thing to say on that is that it’s a process that evolves over time. So it was never a case of I sat down and went, I’m going to do all these things at once.

And it’s been an evolution of, you know, where my interests have lied, what things I found that readers and other authors have reacted to, and I’ve gone well to sort of build my business.

But in the beginning, it started with me just writing a story.

And then as time has gone by, I’ve met more people. When I joined the horse and cleaver guys, I was writing my own stuff, but then also working with them on the podcast.

And it’s very much an it’s a, it’s an ever ongoing process of reevaluation and being really brutal and critical about your time, and whether or not things are working for you.

So even just a couple of days ago, and like, I don’t know if this is video, but on my board, I’ve got an entire sweep of things in which I spent my entirety of Monday writing down everything I was doing, to look at what I need to be doubling down on what I need to stop doing.

Because I think as time goes by, we say yes to stuff, we say no to stuff and we end up becoming unaware of where our priorities lay. So I often every few months or so will have this a week or two where I feel really foggy in the brain.

And then I have to have these moments where I just stop, literally lay it all out. And put stuff in tears as well. So in the example next to me, I’ve got categories for sort of the nonfiction activated all the stuff I do.

Everything that’s fiction, for me falls under my heart imprint, devil, Devil publishing. And then I’ve also got podcasts and client work and things that I do.

So I lay that out. And then I sort of spider diagram, all the different assets of that anything that’s outstanding smaller little projects, and just be brutal, just be brutal with my time. Like there’s lots there’s so many more things I want to be doing.

And so many things that really drive passion that I want to get involved in. But now that I’m in the position where I’m a full time author, I there is an element where I have to prioritize some stuff that brings income, and then leave myself enough room that I can still explore my passion.

Because I think that’s something that a lot of people struggle with is they’ll go entirely down what brings me money.

And then forget about you know, this is still should be something that I enjoy. So there’s a lot of projects on there that are they are passionate things are things that I really want to do. But I’ve had to either push back or just basically simplify.

So rather than working on three at once, I’m working on one at the minute because you know I’m working on a lot of things behind the scenes.

But what I have found just repeatedly again and again and again, is anytime I do fully focus and prioritize on the business income and you know, scaling that and just that I hit a wall and I get there’s a voice inside me that just basically stops me from doing other things and then pulls me back into the things that I enjoy and

The I was actually speaking to because I do consultancy as well with authors and I was doing a Power Hour yesterday with a with a client.

And I could tell in what they were telling me that they were writing across three genres. And they kept coming back to the two that were making them money. And that’s what they wanted to write or not. That’s what they wanted to write air quotes.

But then when they actually were speaking to me in between the gaps, the passion, and the fire, always came back to the genre that they didn’t think would sell. And it’s that kind of thing where I’m like, you can create a career out of stuff that you don’t enjoy themselves.

So I’m not in any way saying anything against romance.

But this is always a good example to country, because if you can hit the right vein in romance you can make you can do a very, very well, very good career in that you can make a lot of money because they’re just voracious readers, you can get a series building, like it’s a very good way to make money in fiction.

But when you get on that treadmill, and you’re making that money, you’ll keep getting pulled back to the things that you love more.

And you got to remember that in building any business, there has to be that balance of, yes, this brings me money, but also what’s going to keep me going in the long term. And the only thing that I have seen keeps people going in the long term is in some way, finding the passion in what they’re doing, and not just stepping back and going. It’s all for the money, even because I realize this is a very long answer.

But even in so I, as I say I’ve written with Mike Langley in his fifth year in Gambit universe, and he has a company called LM VPN with a lot of authors. And I’ve met a lot of authors in there that have written very, very fast for short periods of pumpout load of books.

And one of the common denominators in that situation is, so many of those authors who were rapid releasing their books are now coming back to wanting to write slower and in a different genre to what they were writing, because, you know, it’s it’s commerce versus passion.

And so, you know, you can make money very quickly, by doing the right things.

But the same time, in my opinion, if you’re gonna build a business that’s sustainable, that serves you and what you want to do long term, even though it can be a slower build focus on the stuff that actually lights your fire, because then it becomes easier to keep moving forward with that.

Emma Dhesi:

Oh, so much good stuff in there. I’m kind of thinking about our listeners and where they are, I think the three things that sort of came out of what your answer there was, that this is an ever evolving process as well, that balancing of life and everything else.

And so keep reassessing. Nothing is set in stone, no, prioritizing what is important that kind of came out as well, that you know, a lot of lot of my listeners are working full time. And they’re sort of writing on the side.

And so there will be times when perhaps the writing has to take a second place. And then there are other times when you can give it priority.

So just be aware of that. And then thirdly, for longevity is, you know, good to be doing something that we’re passionate about.

And that brings joy. Yeah, that’s all worth remembering.

Daniel Willcocks:

Yeah, it’s when when you start off, I think most people have this very rose tinted view of what writing is as a career. And after a few years, you very quickly learn what the realities are.

And you can you can just put your time into writing. And if that brings you joy, then by all means that’s like there’s literally nothing wrong, as long as you’re enjoying what you’re doing, and you’re happy with it.

But like a perfect example of just staring into the wind, with the wind, where the expression is, is this time last year, I was just beginning to get my offer coaching services up and running. And in November of last year, I ran a bootcamp for NaNoWriMo.

And that was meant to be a one month I take a group of authors, I helped them write 50,000 words in 30 days. And when December came around, pretty much this is an exaggeration, but 80% of the members were begging me to continue the group.

And since then, that group has now become a fundamental part of my week. It’s where I interact a lot of authors, obviously business wise, it is an income generator as well. But it’s something that year ago, I would never have 1000 years of expected to be in the position to run this.

And it’s just a perfect example of how even if just things can take you by surprise. And often that can be a good thing if you embrace it. But if I had, for example, stuck steadfast to, you know, this is what I’m going to do with other stuff, then I might not let this opportunity flourish.

So take those opportunities, assess them and like we said, prioritize and make sure that you enjoy as you do it.

Interview with Daniel Willcocks

Emma Dhesi:

Yeah. Well talking of NaNoWriMo you and that boot camp, you’re running it again this year. So yes, tell us about it and and how it works.

Daniel Willcocks:

So it’s very simple. The idea came from I have done a lot of stuff in the past with groups and leading groups and I know that when you’re trying to achieve a goal if you’re doing it in a group surrounded by people also trying to achieve that goal, it can just maximize your chances of actually doing the thing that you set out to do.

There’s a reason that you know, in writing when we’re writing books that people recommend accountability partners, because when you’re in a room doing something by yourself, the only person you’re accountable to is you.

And in the weirdest, most annoying way possible, even though our brains know that this stuff is good for us, and we want it, we don’t do it. And it’s, it’s it just hurts. So I put a call out, I put together this nano bootcamp group.

And the idea was simple it was that we would all come together during November and several times a week, I would run zoom sprints where we all jumped on camera, we have 20 minutes writing followed by what turned out to be seven minute breaks, we trialed with the break time to see what worked well, people like seven minutes for some reason.

And then we do another 20 minutes, seven minute break than another 20 minutes. And just having that punctuation mark in the week, where writers knew they had to be in that room. And that was the time to work.

People honed their productivity, they focus, they got the words down, they had fun, they met other people in the community doing that same challenge. And then as part of that, as well, I would every morning, send everyone a message with daily motivational message just to be like, Oh, you’re on day eight.

I know we’re starting to get tired now. But remember, we’re almost a third of the way through this challenge. And just those kinds of snippets based off of you know, progress, quotes from people that found inspiring people stories on digging deeper.

And, you know, the fact that pain is only temporary failure lasts forever, that kind of thing, just to really bring people along and make it so that people had the best chance they could have hit those 50,000 words.

And the national average or the international average for people who have successfully completed the Nano challenge is just under 20%. And in the bootcamp last year, I had a 78% pass rate on people who hit 50,000 or higher.

So for me, it was it’s, yeah, it’s a no brainer in how community and accountability can just help you achieve the things you want to do. Because as writers, and I say this definitely to myself, and I know a lot of people in my group, confirm this.

We don’t often live in how do I say this, we don’t live in reality around people who get what we’re trying to do. I mean, digitally, it’s quite easy to find, you can jump into Facebook groups, you can do, you know, join communities as people do.

But like, my dad doesn’t get it, my mom doesn’t get it, my ex didn’t get it. Like there’s a whole plethora of people who live locally that they’re not right, they just don’t understand what I’m trying to achieve. So I do remember doing my first NaNo back in 2016, I believe it was maybe 2015.

And I was working a full time day job. I was snatching moments, I had to walk past my group of colleagues who were having lunch just to get to the library and have that awkward kind of like, Yeah, I’m not I’m not sitting with you today, just so I can get my words in.

And I would stay because we were attached to a bar where I used to work, I’d go to the bar after work and just sit and type on this like little tablet and keyboard and things. And I was alone, it was it was me just trying to drive me and it was incredibly difficult.

And then the following year, I actually got a few accountability partners did it with other people. And just having those other people around you and just someone who say I’m really struggling today, or this is really hard, I don’t think I’m going to quite make it or you know, I really need help with this plot point.

Just is just surrounding yourself with people that are trying to achieve the same stuff as you just as it’s proven in the numbers, it works wonders to actually achieving that goal. So that was last year’s boot camp.

And this year, we return for round two. So I’ve currently had a stack full of new authors jump in a lot of the offers from last year have actually stayed in the community for the entire year.

And I’m very excited to be running it again and seeing how people can hit that target.

Emma Dhesi:

Yeah, well, we’ll definitely be linking to that. So anyone who’s listening and is interested, they can go to the show notes and link through to get signed up and join you for November.

You’ve mentioned there how important you certainly find having accountability partners are having a community. And I imagine that through hawk and cleaver that you have good community there, too. Yes.

So is this the you mentioned also that, you know, through doing nano the bootcamp last year people were looking for that community to continue?

Is that what has now become the activated authors community that you host?

Daniel Willcocks:

Yes, it’s like we were saying earlier, it’s an evolution. So in November, it was the NaNoWriMo boot camp.

In December, it was the NaNo Editing Camp. And then in January, it became a group called Willcocks Writers, which was very much just Yeah, it was just right.

Is it right with me, Daniel. And then I kind of over sort of six months from January as I was running this group as I was kind of looking into nonfiction and coaching and all that kind of stuff. And just the seed of the idea came to find a way to build a brand and cuz a lot of the stuff I was doing started to feel quite dispair.

So I’ve tried to find a way to link them all together to unify them and put together a package in a way that it can help authors in the most effective way possible. And so it’s, it’s still kind of a little bit in transition in terms of stuff on my website and things, but everything as of the end of September merge into activated offers.

And that’s where we’re going forward with. So yeah, that’s the that’s the community that I run,

Emma Dhesi: 

that’s exciting. So tell us a little bit about it. And what could if somebody wanted to become a member of Activated Authors, what sort of thing might they expect from it.

Daniel Willcocks:

So my, my big thing with it is I wanted to create a home for authors. I looked at it from a lot of different angles. And you know, there are many places you can go online to do marketing for authors to understand business for authors ads, craft very, very specific things.

But in my own journey, and in the people that are in the community with me, one thing that I found that was a common thing that kept occurring that I just didn’t, I haven’t seen elsewhere, was a focus on healthy productivity.

Because there are so many people busting their ass trying to get a book written. And writing a book is undoubtedly hard. Like, you can’t argue otherwise, it’s a lot of mental work.

If you’ve got family, if you’ve got a full time job, I get it, I, I spend quite a few years squeezing in time wherever I could just to write and I was exhausted by the end of it.

And so over the past, well, I’d say a year or two, but pretty much the past five years, I’ve been doing a lot of personal growth in terms of my own life outside of writing.

I’ve done a lot of research and practicing with mindset with nutrition with fitness with just habits and routines and really trying to find ways to make it so that I could sustainably be productive because you know, I wanted a career as an author. And the only way I could do that was to not burn out was to find ways to actually consistently put out work.

And as we all know that, you know, the next book sells the last book, so kind of keep creating products and putting out good stories into the world. And so Activated Authors is pretty much a combination of all of that it’s like I say it’s a home for authors.

For me, the focus is really on understanding each offer that comes into community, letting you be respected as an individual, because I think you go to certain Facebook groups, and there’s definitely a herd mentality that everyone is capable of achieving this in this way.

And the reality is, that’s just not true. Because not only do we have our own lives, our own family, our work schedules, our own preferred sleep schedules, our own fitness levels, our own biology, our own nutrition, all these different factors that make us a unique person. Lost my train of thought.

Emma Dhesi:

It’s a holistic approach, it feels like..

Yeah, it’s a very holistic approach.

So it’s people come into, we have a Slack channel, Slack community, with lots of different channels.

So we have sort of everything from as a meditation channel in there.

There’s a venting channel for people that have had like just a crap day, and they just want to vent it and have people to say, oh, no, that sucks.

But then we have like craft, we do have business and marketing and things in there and I’m obviously in there a lot. I try and stimulate conversation, I asked questions where I can we have everyone the community from USA Today best selling authors to people who haven’t yet published.

And if people ever do jump in there or get the opportunity to jump in there and try it, you’ll just see that everyone’s supportive and everyone understands that, you know, there’s not one way to write. And that’s, that’s really as young as I think I found.

One reason I’ve gone to slack for this kind of forum, is that I personally started to get quite this chant, not the word, but disheartened, I guess we’re social media in that places like Facebook, if you go into groups, if you go into pages and things. It’s really a gamble.

It’s where you’re going to get an answer. That’s an answer in the first place, or anything that’s tangible, and it’s built for lots of people.

So you don’t really get that unique, considered response. And then I looked into sort of Patreon as an option as well.

But one thing that I found with Patreon is doesn’t really facilitate community, you can come in to creators and creators can comment back, but there’s no real interaction between patrons who have pledged to you.

So I built this community like say, on Slack, you get that within the office membership. And there are two levels. So if you come in at the light membership, which is a 10 pound a month at the minute, I’m doing a beta period just to make sure everything’s working as it should.

So 10 pounds gets you into a Slack community and gets you into our monthly socials that we run that we do sort of like we’ve got one for Halloween, which is fancy dress, and it’s games and things.

We can just all just socialize with the writers and have some fun. And then the upper end is 30 per month, and that gets all of the writing sprints that I run every week as well. So as we kind of mentioned with the bootcamp, my writing sprints are very much just stayed the same.

So it’s focused work in the breaks, people can ask questions, you can, you know, chat to each other, whatever it is that people want at that time. And then there’s also sort of discount bonuses and stuff as well. But that’s kind of the the trade off is experience.

It really is. If you’re an author who just wants a community, I just want to be around passionate, driven individuals who are all looking to level up their own craft in their own way, then that’s, that’s where we go. I mean, like I say, we’ve got career authors, USA, bestselling authors.

And then we’ve got people that literally just want to write for fun, and they’re in there just to meet people at the time.

Emma Dhesi:

It sounds great. I’m part of a Slack community as well. And it’s a great tool. It’s a great way of communicating, and as you say, kind of fostering more of a community and you get to know everybody who’s in it, rather than necessarily, then a big Facebook group that’s got just two people.

Yes, yeah. Yeah. So if anybody is looking for a community, I recommend Activated Authors, even just kind of on that the idea that you’ve got this close knit community, and I love that you do the writing sprints as well, I think a lot of people are coming around to realizing the benefits of those are huge.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, lovely, gosh, you are busy. He met you did sort of just talking and writing sprints, because one of the things I wanted to ask you because you are so busy. What are your tips that you use for your own productivity to mention, you know, to get all these different things done?

What can you share with us one or two of your own tips?

Daniel Willcocks:

Yeah, of course. So I think the biggest one for me. And this has been proven again today is this, my top productivity tip is making sure you get decent sleep. Because I’m generally someone who works better in the mornings.

And I had a very late night last night on a couple of different calls. And weirdly enough with work, so it was good in the way but like i i try make sure that if I do have a lot of writing the next day that I do, get a decent night’s sleep.

And then I tend to be a person that I’ll get up and I’ll get at least the first chunk of work some because I like to start the day feeling ahead, and not feeling like I’ve got more work sort of trading as the day goes on.

So I’ll generally sit down at the keyboard, the minute I’ve got a coffee, and I’ll try and get 1000 words just to start my day.

I think if you build a habit and a routine of getting to the keyboard the same time every day, that’s just going to serve you unbelievably well, in the long term, when I was working a full time day job, the only time I could get any consistent writing in was before I went to work, and I’d have to leave work at half, seven, my son would be up at about quarter seven.

So there was a point where I was getting up at five every morning just to have an hour where I could get some words in and just write the books. And it’s hard to begin with. And that would be hard.

And it takes anywhere from sort of 14 to 28 days before you actually start to feel used to the routines that you build. But I would find that getting over five, getting those words on any anywhere from I think that time is between sort of 300 words to 800 words.

And then just that habit, and that consistency builds and helps you get through your book and just at least get something on page.

And I actually found that once I was able to stop doing that morning routine, I still continued doing because my body was used to it, I kind of come out of it now like a gap a bit later.

But that was that was a huge thing. And also just tracking my words. That’s that’s always a big thing. I think when you’re lost in the middle of a draft, and you have no idea how many words you got left, how many of your writing each day, kind of you’re not tracking your progress, that makes it a bit harder.

So I do have a sheet in which I give myself some kind of deadline, even if it’s just a deadline to myself.

And then I’ve got a sheet that I’ve made myself with sort of formulas and stuff on Excel where I put my work out every day and it tells me how many I’ve got remaining each day, how long that should take and everything else.

And that visual representation just keeps you driven and keeps you moving forward.

Emma Dhesi:

As is my favorite one of your tips, though, is sleep. Yeah, amazing. Just how how that does just set you up for the whole day.

And no matter if you’re someone who needs six hours, or someone who needs eight hours, as long as you get the right amount for you, then it will set you up for the next day.

Yeah, I think this is maybe the first person to have said that to me.

Daniel Willcocks:

Well, this this is this is exactly what I’m saying. Like, I understand that in order to be productive with writing you have to write. But the thing I’m really trying to bring to activate authors is to be a writer.

It’s it’s a lifestyle. It’s not just a hobby, it’s not just a passion, like if you’re not eating right, if you’re not exercising if you’re not getting your sleep, you know if you’re not connecting with the right friends, because I know a lot of writers who have come to my group because their particular group of friends were just dragging them down.

Or they were just you know, trying to just gently tug in a way that dream like what you’re doing this for why can’t you do this? Why can’t you go next hour instead of staying at home? even reading or doing the book that you want to work on.

And so there are so many factors that aren’t necessarily to do with the actual writing. They just over the years, the more I thought about it, the more I’ve gone. It’s it’s not it’s, it’s not just a thing that you do. It’s a life that you live.

Emma Dhesi:

Yes, it is a life that you live. So are you working on anything for yourself at the moment? Are you working on any of your own projects?

Daniel Willcocks:

I am between projects at the minute. So I’ve recently brought out the collected edition of my winter comes horror apocalyptic series, which I’m very proud of very happy to have that turned out.

nd as I mentioned earlier, at the minute, I’m kind of in a bit of a phase at the minute of looking at what my next projects are.

So I’m doing a lot of researching into dark fantasy come across a genre that I’ve not heard of before called grim dark fantasy, which is interesting, it’s a bit more of a, it’s dark fantasy, but we have a very gritty, underlying tone through the whole thing, if that makes sense.

So kind of more more of The Witcher side of things. And I’m trying to give more examples. But as you can tell, I’ve got I’ve got a long way to go. So I’m allowing myself while I am in a bit of a busy period at the minute to just read, and research and percolate.

And then it will probably be somewhere around February, March, I think I’m going to be diving into whatever my next fiction project is. But I’ve also come out of a long period of writing a lot of fiction for myself, and also ghost writing.

So in the last, so what year are we in 2021 From the beginning of 2022. Now, I have written 37 books, wow, for myself and for clients.

Okay, and so what I’m doing at the minute is really just hitting pause, reevaluating what I want to do now maybe going sort of headfirst into whatever that is next year.

Emma Dhesi: 

Okay, exciting times ahead. Yes. Well, listen, I have loved chatting with you. I have gotten a lot of tips from you, too. So thank you very much.

Daniel Willcocks:

Thank you for having me.

Emma Dhesi:

Just before we sign off, please do let listeners know where they can find out about more about you. And in particular, of course about Activated Authors.

Daniel Willcocks:

of course so everything that I do is over at www.danielwillcocks.com and that’s Willcocks. And then everything that I trade office is over activatedauthors.com go over and check them out.

Emma Dhesi:

Fantastic. I’ll be sure to link to those. Well, Daniel, thank you very much.

Daniel Willcocks:

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a blast.

Emma Dhesi:

Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

I hope you find that helpful and inspirational.

Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, turning readers into writers.

It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel.

If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet. They’re called three secret hacks to write with consistency.

So go to emmadhesi.com/turning readers into writers. Hit join. Can’t wait to see you in there. All right. Thank you. Bye bye.

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Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.