54. Starting Your Book for the Third Time? Here’s How to Stop Starting and Actually Finish

55. Body Language for Writers: How to Reveal Character Emotion, Secrets and Lies on the Page

Body Language for Writers: How to Reveal Character Emotion, Secrets and Lies on the Page Writing Wednesday episodes explore the outer work of writing: craft, structure, revision, publishing, process, and the practical steps that help you finish your book. Body language is one of the most powerful tools you can use in your manuscript, especially when your characters are hiding something. A character can say, “I’m fine,” while their fingers keep worrying the edge of a napkin. They can smile at the detective while their feet angle toward the door. They can tell the truth in their words and still reveal the fear, guilt, longing, shame, or calculation moving beneath the surface. In this Writing Wednesday episode, we’re diving into body language for writers and how to use it to reveal emotion, deepen character, create subtext, and build tension in your scenes. This is more than a simple “show, don’t tell” technique. Used well, body language becomes story evidence. It lets the reader notice what your character is trying to hide, what they’re feeling beneath the dialogue, and what changes when another character sees the truth leaking through. Drawing on my eighteen years in policing and my fascination with human behaviour, we’ll look at how real-world behaviour awareness can help you write stronger, more layered scenes. We’ll also explore body language through the lens of baseline, context, clusters, contradiction, and consequence, so you can use physical cues with more precision rather than relying on random clenched jaws, crossed arms, or dramatic glances across the room. This episode will be especially useful if you write mystery, thriller, suspense, romantic suspense, crime, historical fiction, fantasy, memoir, or any story where characters carry secrets, hide their emotions, or say one thing while their body reveals another. In this episode, you’ll learn how to: * Use body language to reveal what your character feels before they say it out loud. * Create stronger subtext by showing the tension between words and physical behaviour. * Use body language as story evidence in mystery, thriller, suspense, romance, and emotionally charged scenes. * Understand why one isolated gesture rarely means much without baseline, context, and consequence. * Revise a scene so your character’s body reveals emotion, pressure, secrecy, attraction, fear, or desire without over-explaining it to the reader. We’ll also talk about why body language is so useful in everyday life and in writing. Once you start noticing how much people communicate before they speak, you begin to see your characters differently too. They stop feeling like people who simply deliver dialogue, and they start feeling like real human beings with bodies, instincts, defences, fears, secrets, and desires. Your practical tool for this week is the Body Language Scene Audit. You’ll choose one scene in your manuscript where a character is under emotional pressure, identify what is normal for that character, find the moment where the pressure changes, and revise one paragraph so the body reveals more than the narration explains. Because the body is often where the story leaks through. And as writers, we get to notice that, shape it, and place it on the page in a way that helps the reader feel the truth before anyone says it out loud.   Free Masterclass Invitation If this episode has you thinking about how you naturally write emotion, dialogue, body language, tension, or scene detail, I’d love to invite you to my free masterclass, Write To Your Wiring, happening on Tuesday 30 June at 10:00am Sydney time, live on Zoom. In this 45-minute masterclass, we’ll look at how your natural NLP modality shapes the way you think, create, access story, and move through resistance at the page. Some writers see the scene first. Some hear the dialogue. Some feel the emotional truth in their body. Some need the logic and structure to click before the words can flow. Once you understand that about yourself, writing can begin to feel less like forcing and more like working with your own creative wiring. Save your free spot at: maddisonmichaels.com/masterclass   ⭐️ If this episode resonated with you, I’d love for you to leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. It helps other writers find the show, and it means so much to know these episodes are supporting you as you write the darn book. 💗

54. Starting Your Book for the Third Time? Here’s How to Stop Starting and Actually Finish

Starting Your Book for the Third Time? Here’s How to Stop Starting and Actually Finish Mindset Monday episodes explore the inner work of writing: blocks, beliefs, identity, resistance, procrastination, perfectionism, and creative flow. Have you ever opened your laptop, looked in your documents folder, and realised there are six different versions of a manuscript sitting there? Maybe it’s the same book you’ve started over and over again. Maybe it’s several different manuscripts you’ve written but never finished. Or maybe you keep moving between projects, telling yourself you’re still writing, while deep down you know one manuscript needs your full commitment if it’s ever going to reach the finish line. In this episode of Write The Darn Book, we’re looking at the restart cycle: why starting again can feel so productive, why it often happens when the manuscript starts asking more from you, and how to work out whether your book needs craft support, emotional reconnection, or a different kind of support based on your writing personality. Because unfinished drafts aren’t proof that you can’t finish. They’re evidence that you’ve had the commitment to begin, the imagination to keep creating, and a pattern that needs better support. Inside this episode, you’ll explore: * Why starting again can feel like progress, even when it’s keeping you stuck * The three common patterns underneath the restart cycle: perfectionism, fear of finishing, and chasing the energy of something new * How Dove, Owl, Peacock, and Eagle writers may leave the manuscript at different points * Why your book may need craft support, reconnection, or both * The Finish-First Framework to help you identify where you leave, what leaving gives you, and the next continuing action to take You’ll also learn how to use your Writing Personality lens to come back to the manuscript in a way that works with your natural wiring, instead of forcing yourself through another generic writing process that doesn’t fit.   Save Your Spot for the FREE Masterclass If this episode resonates with you, I’d love to invite you to my free masterclass, Write To Your Wiring, happening Tuesday 30 June at 10:00am Sydney time. In this free masterclass, we’ll look at how your natural creative wiring shapes the way you write, process story, experience resistance, and find flow. You’ll begin to understand your NLP writing modality, whether you tend toward Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, or Auditory Digital processing, and how that affects the way you show up to the page. Save your free spot here: https://maddisonmichaels.com/masterclass [https://maddisonmichaels.com/masterclass]   ⭐️ If this episode resonated with you, I’d be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. It helps other writers find the show and reminds them they’re not broken, they just need the right support to keep going. 💗

53. Is Your Writing Setup Making It Harder to Write? Ergonomics, Energy, and Creative Flow

Is Your Writing Setup Making It Harder to Write? Ergonomics, Energy, and Creative Flow Writing Wednesday episodes explore the outer work of writing: craft, structure, revision, publishing, process, and the practical steps that help you finish your book. Your writing setup is not separate from your writing momentum. In today’s Writing Wednesday episode of Write The Darn Book, we’re looking at how your desk, chair, keyboard, screen, and movement habits can either support your creative flow or quietly make writing harder than it needs to be. Because writing is physical. Your mind may be willing, your story may be calling, and your book may matter deeply to you, but if your body is uncomfortable, tense, or constantly pushing through pain, writing can begin to feel harder to return to. I’m also sharing my own experience managing a shoulder injury from my policing career, and how tools like a sit-stand desk, walking treadmill, ergonomic keyboard, posture support, and movement breaks have helped me care for my body while writing. We’ll also look at the other side of the equation: when researching the perfect setup becomes another form of procrastination. In this episode, you’ll learn how to: • recognise when physical discomfort is affecting your writing momentum • tell the difference between useful ergonomic support and setup-based procrastination • use a simple writing setup audit before your next writing session • care for your body so writing becomes more sustainable over the long term This episode is not medical advice. If you’re experiencing ongoing pain, numbness, tingling, headaches, or symptoms that concern you, please seek support from a qualified health professional. And if you’re listening before 30 June, I’d love to invite you to my free live masterclass, Write To Your Wiring: Discover Your NLP Modality and How It Shapes the Way You Write. You’ll discover how your natural processing style shapes the way you think, create, access story, and move through resistance. Join the free masterclass here: https://maddisonmichaels.com/masterclass [https://maddisonmichaels.com/masterclass]   ⭐️ If this episode resonated with you, I’d be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your review helps Write the Darn Book reach more writers who are ready to honour their stories, trust their creative process, and keep showing up for the book they’re meant to write. 💗 And remember, you are the vessel for the story. Let the words flow through you and onto the page.

52. How to Write the Book Only You Can Write: Accessing Your Unique Creative Truth

Mindset Monday episodes explore the inner work of writing: blocks, beliefs, identity, resistance, procrastination, perfectionism, and creative flow. Have you ever looked at your book idea and felt that little tug inside that says, this matters, this is mine to write? And then almost immediately, another voice comes in. Who are you to write this? This is too personal. Someone else has already said it better. Maybe this story only matters to you. In this episode of Write The Darn Book, we’re exploring how to write the book only you can write by accessing your unique creative truth. Maddison talks about why the most personal parts of your story are often the parts that become the most universal, why writers sometimes pull back right before the truth comes through, and how your NLP modality shapes the way you naturally access emotion, meaning, story, and voice. You’ll learn how Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Auditory Digital writers may each access creative truth differently, and how to begin writing the scene, chapter, or message you may have been circling for far too long. This episode is a reminder that your book does not become powerful because you sound like everyone else. It becomes powerful because your lived experience, perspective, emotional honesty, and creative wiring are allowed to come through on the page. In this episode, you’ll explore: • Why personal stories often become the most universal • The difference between literal truth and emotional truth • Why resistance can show up when the writing starts to feel real • How NLP modalities shape the way creative truth comes through • A simple practice for writing one honest page from your natural wiring   Free Masterclass Invitation If this episode stirred something in you, I’d love to invite you to my free live masterclass on 30 June 2026 at 10am AEST: Write To Your Wiring: Discover Your NLP Modality and How It Shapes the Way You Write Inside this free masterclass, we’ll explore the four NLP modalities, Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Auditory Digital, and how each one shapes the way you access story, process ideas, experience blocks, and find your way back into creative flow. You’ll learn what your modality means for your writing rhythm, your story access, your resistance patterns, and the practical shifts you can make in your very next writing session. Reserve your free place here: maddisonmichaels.com/masterclass   ⭐️ If this episode resonated with you, I’d be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your review helps Write the Darn Book reach more writers who are ready to honour their stories, trust their creative process, and keep showing up for the book they’re meant to write. 💗 And remember, you are the vessel for the story. Let the words flow through you and onto the page.

51. Can Coloured Pens Help You Write? How Stationery and Handwriting Can Unlock Your Creativity

Writing Wednesday episodes explore the outer work of writing: craft, structure, revision, publishing, process, and the practical steps that help you finish your book.   Have you ever walked into a stationery shop and felt that little spark of possibility wake up inside you? The coloured pens. The highlighters. The sticky notes. The beautiful notebooks. The fresh blank pages. And maybe you’ve wondered whether you’re just procrastinating, or whether there’s something about those tools that genuinely helps your creative brain come alive. In this Writing Wednesday episode of Write The Darn Book, we’re exploring how coloured pens, handwriting, notebooks, highlighters, sticky notes, and messy handwritten pages can become practical tools for unlocking creativity, especially when your writing feels stuck, flat, tangled, or too much like a task. This is not about abandoning your laptop or hand-writing your entire manuscript. It’s about understanding how colour, handwriting, and physical stationery can help your brain access your story in a different way. In this episode, you’ll learn: * Why stationery often feels so creatively energising for writers * How handwriting can shift your brain out of stuck, screen-based thinking * Why coloured pens and highlighters can help you make invisible story threads visible * How to use colour without creating an overwhelming colour-coding system * How notebooks, pens, and sticky notes can become writing-state cues * The difference between stationery as a creative doorway and stationery as avoidance * A simple three-colour practice to help you work through a scene, chapter, character, or idea Try this simple coloured pen practice Choose one writing problem or creative question you’re currently holding. Take a notebook or blank page and choose three colours: * One colour for what you already know * One colour for the questions * One colour for the sparks, meaning the words, images, ideas, or emotional truths that make something inside you lean forward Give yourself ten minutes. Write messily. Draw arrows. Circle things. Highlight the sentence that surprises you. Then ask yourself: What is the colour showing me?   If this episode made you realise that the way you brainstorm, plan, organise your ideas, and reconnect with your creativity might be deeply connected to your writing personality, you can book a Writing Personality Blueprint Session at: maddisonmichaels.com/blueprint   And if you’d like to begin by discovering more about your own writing personality, you can take the free Writing Personality Quiz at: maddisonmichaels.com/quiz   ⭐️ If this episode resonated with you, I’d be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your review helps Write the Darn Book reach more writers who are ready to honour their stories, trust their creative process, and keep showing up for the book they’re meant to write. 💗