This is an excerpt from a blog interview I did this past summer with JoAnn Grote … good info if you’re a writer or looking into getting a writing coach. If you have additional questions or want more information, check out my Writing Coach website.
###
Judy Baer is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach with a Master of Arts in Human Development which focused on writing, coaching, faith and spirituality. She is the author of 75+ published books, primarily novels.
Judy, how long have you been coaching, and what made you decide to become a writing and creativity coach?
I began coaching in the year 2000 and have certifications from three different coaching schools and have attended a fourth. I began as a personal life coach but found it was often writers who showed up as my clients. When I began my master’s, I wanted to combine my love of writing with my love of coaching. My final paper involved developing a new model of coaching for fiction writers who were struggling with character development. This was also a time when I developed a way to use coaching skills to vision and develop non-fiction books. Although I didn’t initially intend to coach writers in particular, it was a very natural client group to relate to. After as many books as I’ve written, I doubt there’s an experience, hang-up, excuse or block that I haven’t suffered myself. As one of my clients tells me, “You never let me get away with anything.”
What are some examples of problems you’ve helped writers resolve at different stages of their careers?
We start wherever a client wants. Sometimes it’s writer’s block, sometimes new writers simply don’t know how to begin. I have non-fiction writers come to me with an idea they’ve had but they’re not sure how to work it into a marketable book. That’s when the visioning process is very helpful. Oftentimes the book a writer thinks she or he wants to write is very different from the book that they actually produce. We refine and define ideas together.
Where one starts isn’t always where one ends up. One gentleman came to me to write his book, decided to truly become an expert on the topic and is now getting his PHD and using his original idea as the jumping off point for his thesis. If an audience member wants to learn more on a subject, they can purchase a book for a more in depth look at the speaker’s ideas. That’s fun because, although the client might not be a professional writer, they are very well educated in the area they want to write about.
I’ve coached people through writer’s block, organizing their offices, confidence issues and just about anything that stands in the way of becoming the writer they dream of being. I’m not an editor but I work with the client’s ideas, emotions, roadblocks, etc. That’s a pretty general answer but coaching is a very agile, flexible thing and we hone in on issues whatever they might be. People can resolve their own issues, certainly, but what I know about coaching is that you can resolve them much faster with a coach walking along side you. Read the rest here.
for many spouses to meet their peers and assure themselves that they all have the same problems and pleasures of living with a writer.
with me because one of my favorites is a caprese salad. That’s fresh ripe tomatoes, fresh sliced mozzarella (I buy the mozzarella balls) and basil sprinkled with olive oil. I’ve thought of adding a little spinach and a dash balsamic vinegar to the mix but haven’t tried it yet. This is the time of year to enjoy all these wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables—especially for someone like me who lives in the northern climate and see snow many months of the year.
