We all get it sometimes. That feeling that there’s no reason to keep writing. Today I talk about my experience with writer’s despair and giv eyou 5 ways to fight it and keep going.
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Kat
Welcome back to Pencils & Lipstick. I’m Kat Caldwell, I am your hostess for this podcast. It is November 24, as I record this. Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans out there and Happy Thursday to everyone else. This will be going out, of course, on November 28, so it’s technically Monday if you listen to the first day. So happy Monday. Yay! Mondays are always the hardest.
Today it is just me, I want to talk to you guys a little bit about giving up and despair. It’s going to be fun, right? Sounds like fun. Such a dark episode. No, it’s all right. I am going to be going into the New Year with a little bit of change to the podcast. There will be a couple more episodes where it’s just me, and then there will be a lot more chats and conversations with people about specific topics of writing, specific challenges that writers face, whether they’re new or experienced. So we’re still going to have author interviews, as well. If somebody comes out with a new book that I find interesting, we will chat with them as well.
Pitch to be on the Podcast
I want to get a couple of people from around the world, just to talk about how writing is a little bit different, possibly in their culture or in their writing, in their language. Because the American market is not the only market out there, and there are certain tropes that the American market is looking for, but that’s not the tropes that everyone’s looking for. So if you guys don’t know, or if you already know, like I read in three different languages, and I can tell you that the way of writing that is acceptable in Europe is different than what is acceptable here in America. So I would love to chat with other people from outside of America, if you know of somebody, or if you yourself are a writer, an experienced writer, from outside of America, or if you write in another language as well, but you feel comfortable speaking in English on the podcast, you can tweet me @pencilslipstick. On Twitter. You can go to PencilsandLipsick.com, which that website will be getting better, I promise. You can contact me there. If it’s easier for you to remember KatCaldwell.com as well, you can contact me there as well and just pitch your thoughts on coming on the podcast or pitch who you want to come on the podcast and I’ll reach out to them.
Kat
So coming up in the new year, we’re going to be talking from the point of view of a coach or an editor as well, which will be a lot more technical talk on writing, or on scene, or editing, cleaning up, maybe dialogue. We’re going to get a little more technical in that in that area of writing.
So let me know what you think about that. You might get a little bit more of my voice. Hopefully that is okay with you, and we’ll catch up on some news around the industry as well.
If you guys haven’t heard, the American Department of Justice has decided that we are not allowed to have just four publishing houses. We are good with five somehow that’s fine. When we went from six to five, it was no big deal. But now five to four, it’s a huge deal. And those poor authors, blah, blah blah. I say blah, blah, blah because I don’t think they’re actually thinking about authors. I think they’re actually thinking about Wall Street. So there you go. The DOJ, that’s what we call it, Department of Justice has decided that they can’t merge Simon & Schouster and Penguin, or whoever was merging or eating who. Who knows what’s going to happen with them?
I am not sure that this is something to be celebrated as of yet. I imagine that there will be a large change anyway. Something’s going to happen. I don’t know if they’re going to go after Amazon now, the Big Five, and sort of try to take down their power. This is all very corporate. And of course the CEOs of each company are like the big roosters on the block. I can just think of them as puffing out their chest and clucking about, and that’s fine. They have to think about their company. They have to think about their own employees, right? And authors are part of that, but they’re a small part of that. So obviously they are going to continue to publish big name people. Not necessarily big name authors, but big name people. I think nonfiction brings in more money than fiction does every year. So that’s what they’re going to continue to do.
As authors, I’m not sure us little people are going to see much benefit to whatever comes down the road. I know other authors who are big name. You know, like Stephen King. He’s probably happy he sided with the DOJ on this whole thing. But I think, like you and me, especially if you’re just starting or only have a few books or if you’re just trying to pitch your book, I’m not sure that this will do much for us. The industry is still wobbling and it’s unstable. And you are still going to have to continue to market a lot as an author and make decisions for yourself, be your own CEO. You have to think of yourself and your family and your employees, if you have them, and push forward on what you think is right for you.
So as an indie author, I personally think that a lot of people should try to go the indie route. There are lots of strategies to this. We talk about them here. The novel marketing show talks about them. Joanna Penn talks about them. Who else? Sell More Books Show talks about them. All these other podcasts are mostly focused on indie authors. So there’s a lot of marketing strategies that you can do. And more than anything, what we need to do is focus on our writing, if that is what you love to do.
Kat
Despair
But as we focus on our writing, what I want to talk to you about today is this thing that happens to me sometimes when I go into a bookstore. So if you watch Booktok at all, whether on Instagram reels or on TikTok, which is where I guess it originated, you always see these readers going into bookstores and making it look beautiful, and they’re all excited and they’re always talking about how many books they’re reading and how many books they went in for one and came out with five, which tends to be me as well. But this other thing happens to me as a writer, and that is that sometimes I go into the bookstore and I just stand in the middle of it with a feeling of despair. Has this ever happened to you?
Like, you know what’s happening? I am comparing myself to the other authors in there, and I’m wondering at the speed of light in my brain, what am I doing wrong?
Why am I even doing this?
Where does my story fit in?
How could I not be here yet?
Why didn’t I start sooner?
m I too old to continue this?
Should I just give up?
A million and one thoughts come through my head, spinning around and around, and I’ll pick up books and read the back of them, and I think, this is so much better than my book. Or I think, okay, my book is just as good. Where is my book? Why isn’t it here? And I know the answer, logically. I know what the answer is logically. I am an indie published author. Barnes & Noble very rarely picks up indie authors. They mostly go with the big publishing houses. I haven’t even tried, that’s another one. I haven’t even tried to get on those bookshelves. But I already know if this feeling comes over you, as well. When you walk into a library, when you walk into a bookstore and you just think, oh my goodness, there are so many books to read, there are so many books written, how am I going to break through? How am I going to be seen? How am I ever going to sell my book? Maybe I should just give up. So that’s what I want to talk to you about today, giving up.
Kat
It is the end, or we’re coming to the end of NaNoWriMo, and depending on where you’re at, I think a small percentage of people are very excited with what they did. Another, bigger chunk of people are like, feeling like, thank goodness it’s over. I tried, but okay. And another bigger chunk of people are like, what happened? How could I not get this done? I can’t believe I didn’t get this done. And they’re beating themselves up. They either didn’t make it to 50,000 or they don’t think their 50,000 is any good, there’s not any good words in there. Their stories stinks, they’re kind of throw it across the room. They are done, it is over. Some people, you know, depending on your personality traits, are going to push through just because until December 1, that you’re going to give up altogether.
And that is valid.
On one hand, there are tons of strategies that you can do next year to try to avoid that. But the truth of it is, these feelings come all the time, throughout your career, because you’re creative. Doing a creative thing, having a creative job or hobby, if you want to call it that, I think it’s a job, is difficult. It takes a lot of perseverance. It takes a lot of pushing through. It is mostly a grind, and not always an inspiration. It takes courage to do it. It takes knowledge to do it. It takes training and practice. And if you are in any of the percentages, other than the one who is super excited by what they got done, I am happy for you if you’re super excited, but you’re not feeling this right now. You’re not feeling like giving up. So the rest of you who are feeling like giving up or feeling a bit of despair or feeling like you’re just not good enough, your writing is not good enough, we are going to talk to you today about why and how you should keep going forward.
Kat
1. Your writing Goals
So the first thing that I want to talk to you about today, is as this month closes, and as this year closes, start thinking realistically about your writing goals. I always have a bit of a goal in mind, and I set one big goal, almost unattainable goal, and then I have to set myself three or four challenges. And I don’t like to call them challenges because I like to make games out of them. So because part of the reason, let me go into this first, part of the reason that I like to make them into challenges, and I think 90 days is a really great challenge time chunk, is that you have to try a lot of methods and activities and habits, to find what’s going to work for you. And even if you are a writer, that last year it worked to write every day at 5:00 a.m.
Maybe this coming year, it’s not going to work because something has shifted in your job or your life. Maybe it’s not going to work anymore because you’re just tired. Maybe it’s not going to work anymore because now you need to swap that out for marathon training or just working out, or just meditation or prayer in the morning, whatever it is. Our lives shift a lot, especially to all you women out there who also have kids, who are working in the home or outside the home, or even as a stay-at-home mom. You’re still working. You tend to take on a lot and you tend to give a lot of your time to other people around you, namely your kids and spouse, right? So your life tends to shift a lot, and this can happen to anyone. So I talk just from personal experience as a mom, but this can happen to anyone. Any sort of big life shift can make you have to move around your habits and your goals. So our lives are dynamic, they’re not static, so we have to move with the dynamics of them. I travel a lot during the year, so every time I hit a new habit, it seems like jet lag or travel sets in and then the habit just goes, pew!
So NaNoWriMo this year, I actually did pretty well. I think I’m going to hit the 50,000 goal. But the truth is that there were lots of days where I only hit 600 words. And one day, I literally talked about this last week, wrote 299 words, that’s it. Of course, I had to make up those words on other days when I was really feeling it. But this is the first time I’ve ever finished it, guys. The very first time, I ignored NaNoWriMo for a long time. So that doesn’t count, or does it? I don’t know. I know for most of my books, to get them done, I did challenge myself to write 1500 words a day and then they always got done. I think that then the editing makes you have to shift because editing 1500 words is nothing, really, you know? So then you have to shift your habit again. So this is what I’m saying.
I like to look at them as 90-day challenges because of the dynamics of our lives, right? So I want you to start thinking, maybe take a few days of rest, and I want you to move your body, take a walk, do some yoga, do some Pilates, go weightlift. I like weightlifting, but I always try to get your yogis in there too. Move your body and just think about what you want your one or two, almost dream, almost unattainable goals, to be next year. Because for me, that’s like, I can then look back and see how much closer I am to those dreams. It works for me. I really like an almost unattainable goal. If you don’t like that, if you have to really check the box, think of an unattainable goal and then bring it down a few notches, okay? But I do the unattainable goal because like I said, I take out some three or four smaller, more realistic goals and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.
So this year, in 2022, the first quarter of the year, I tried to write every single day and I would mark down how much I was writing. And interestingly enough, it kind of worked, and yet it kind of didn’t. So as I said before, my other books got done because I set a goal of 1500 words a day, which takes me about an hour and a half to two hours depending on, you know, my brain working at the moment and interruptions. But this year, I had split off this book and made it into a duology and had to really start from scratch. And I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about this character. And so really, what ended up happening the first three months was that whole writing thing was just me discovering my character, and then I had to toss it. Yeah, I tossed it. I tossed the like 50,000 words that I had written, and started over. I think it was more than 50,000 actually. I started over but with a clear view of who my character was. My other, more realistic goal was to try out some different promotion sites which I tried, which I did, and some of them have done really well. I have another sort of experiment put up that will come up in about a week. Yes, I’ll tell you about that next week and we’ll see how it goes. And the other goal was to get the podcast transcript out every single week and along with the social media and be a little bit better about the social media on both ends, which kind of fluctuated back and forth.
Of course, if you look back in my social media you can see where I was really focusing on that goal, at sort of quarter three and now it’s dropped off. So it clearly didn’t become a huge habit but it was something that I played with. My other goal was to work on my Fiction Book Coaching Certificate, which I finished, and I got certified, and I’m super proud of that one, being that was sort of like something that I could see the finish line on. So you always need one of those, right? Something that you can finish and see that finish line on there. For this last quarter I will be focusing on finishing up the Ads for Author course that I bought with Self Publishing Formula, Mark Dawson and James Latch created it. It’s a really great program, but of course, like many courses you can fall off the wagon, and so I’m going to finish that one. And I also did finish a course with C.S. Lakin, who I really, really love. You can find her at LiveWriteThrive.com, I believe C.S. Lakin, her courses are great. Her workshops are great.
So you see what I mean? Like these little tiny goals, because in between these things, life happens. I also have goals of working out five times a week. Whether that’s taking a walk or lifting weights. I cannot set it to every day, as much as I would love that, because in my mind, if I set a goal, I get upset if I don’t make it. So you will have to adapt this to your personality. So with your writing, what can you do if you feel like giving up. A. Set a goal to rest a little bit and then start thinking about a goal. Your big goal could be finish this book and get it out published. That’s your almost unattainable goal in the next twelve months. But that would be how I would do it. And if next year at Christmas time I have the manuscript done, but I’m waiting for the book cover, or I’m working on my book blurb, or I’m waiting for the last edits, I would still count that as like a huge accomplishment.
Okay, so that’s how my almost unattainable goal works. If that’s not how you work, then set it as the manuscript is done, or just waiting for the last cleanup. That’s twelve months to do that, right? You have twelve months to learn what you need to learn, to dive into the story a bit more, to do the hard work, to clean it up, to rewrite it, to get some edits, to go back, fix it, get some more opinions on it. So this is something that takes a long time, especially if it’s your first, second, or third book. We’re still learning, you’re still learning, if it’s a new genre, you’re still learning. And hey, if you hit that almost unattainable goal within the year and you start writing on a new book, that’s awesome, celebrate that. And how you would sort of break that up into smaller challenges is like challenging yourself to take a writing course, to read a craft book, to, I don’t know, to set yourself up with a book coach, to talk with a book editor. All these little attainable goals that you can do in between.
2. Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Writers
The other thing that we need to do, and this is the big one, especially as I’m standing in the middle of the bookstore, or as we come to the end of NaNoWriMo, is to stop comparing yourself to other writers. In the indie publishing world, let’s start with them, with us indies. There are some writers who were established or got themselves established in 2012, 2013, and by now, ten years in, they are cranking out their books. They know who their fans are, they know what makes them money, what works and what doesn’t. They are in a groove. They hit the Kindle when it first became really popular. They were on Twitter when it was not like billions of bots, and it was actual people, they were just at the right place at the right time. And you can’t compare yourself to them. You also can’t compare yourself to writers who, sort of do it as a career in which they are very formulaic and they just get the books out. So, like harlequin and a lot of romance writers write like this, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re not this way, you might be comparing yourself, and you shouldn’t. So a lot of harlequin, let’s say it is a template. They have to have certain things happen in the story on this page, sex on another page, kiss on another page. It is very much a template, and so once you get into the groove, once you learn how to do that, people can crank out books pretty quickly. Possibly people who have gone through maybe a fantasy writing course, maybe who have gone to take a couple of classes and have gotten feedback already and have learned and done the hard work and that. They’re cranking out books faster than you. Well, that’s because they did the hard work behind ,the non-sexy work. Maybe people just write in a different way that you really love, but that’s just not how your writing comes out. We have to appreciate everybody’s way of writing and working, without comparing ourselves to them. I know that there are times with the podcast I’m like, oh my gosh, I am not reaching people like I should. It’s not getting on the charts, it’s not doing these things. And look at Joanna Penn’s podcast, look at these other podcasts, and I just have to stop and say, you know what, I cannot compare myself to them. I can learn from them, I can maybe tweak things, but I can’t compare myself to them. Joanna Penn has been doing her podcast for like twelve years, or more maybe. If I’m not where she is in twelve years, maybe I should give it up. But, you know, this is the trap we fall into with social media and with everything else. Somebody can have a great book at age 18, and maybe you’re 55, and you feel like giving up because you’re not 18. Who cares? We need to stop comparing ourselves. We need to take, you know, celebrate the win with that other writer and then keep going with our writing. Because your writing is different, your story is different, your experience is different, your life circumstances are different. And just like in every other part of life, we need to take a deep breath. We need to feel happy for everyone, not begrudge them their success, and then realize and remind ourselves that we are not all the same. And we didn’t start at the same place and we won’t finish at the same place, and we don’t have the same goals. So, it is okay. Stop comparing yourself and your writing to others and stop comparing your books to other books.
Kat
3. Get Feedback
The other thing that you can do to get out of your despair, and this might sound kind of funny, is to get feedback. Getting feedback is extremely important to a writer. I know most of us are introverts, and we’re very shy, and we don’t want to share our writing. I will fully admit that for years I was very afraid to share my writing. I was very afraid of the feedback and very afraid of the criticism. But everything that you do in life, that is scary, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. It is hard to get feedback from people. It is hard to get criticism from people. But I want to reiterate to you, it is easier to take it from writers, or a coach, or an editor, than it is to get the feedback in a review on Amazon or Goodreads that will never, ever go away. Now, there is certain kind of feedback there’s that feedback of, well, I wish that she would have chosen the other guy. And that feedback is not valid at all, and not helpful, because that’s just wishful thinking from the reader. And there are tons of those reviews out there, and you can’t do anything about it.
But for your writing, you can stop the reviews before they happen, by getting feedback. You join a writing group. You join a feedback group. Everything’s opening now, for better or worse, go to your library, find a writing group. It doesn’t matter if they’re the same age as you. In fact, do the challenging thing and join a writing group where you know the least, because you will learn the most.
Get a book coach. I know that that is a little bit expensive, but I promise you, you will learn so much and you will then apply that to your book. And then you will make more money, from the beginning, because your book is well crafted and the readers will like it. Now, lots of us like to say that we don’t have the money, which is perfectly valid if you don’t have the money. And I’m not encouraging you to go to in debt, at all. But the problem is, in the writing world, you don’t know what you don’t know, and if you’re not willing to pay for it, in which a book coach you can find good book coaches for much less than an MFA, but you can also read all the writing craft books and take cheaper courses. Courses are still a couple hundred dollars, right, because you’re paying somebody for their knowledge, that you have. Or you can pick up craft books from the library and just apply them. And that takes much more work, but it’s less money, right? So everything has this sort of exchange, but you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know what your writing is lacking, what is missing in your character development. Unless you get feedback on it. So whether you are going to work with an editor, work with a book coach, work with a writing group, you know, make your own writing group with your friends, if that’s going to be possible, to be upfront and honest with them. Okay, so the other part is if you’re going to give feedback back to other writers, you need to understand how to give feedback, which means you need to know about the craft. So get out those craft books, start setting a goal to read maybe four next year, one per quarter. Take a course, sit in on webinars, learn about the craft. This is just like painting, or ceramics, or cooking. We can all sort of do something in that area, but if we want to take it to the next level, we have to take a course, a class, read a book, watch a video, whatever. So get feedback.
Kat
4. Get Inspiration
The next one is to get some inspiration, now. If you feel pretty low, pretty in despair, like giving up, go out and get some inspiration, fill up your creativity. Go out and people watch and find some inspiration for stories there. Listen in these next few weeks during the holidays to people’s secrets. Listen to your aunt and uncle and your grandma and grandpa. You might find out some crazy history about your family, that you can use as inspiration. Watch your nephews and nieces interact with each other. Watch your aunts and uncles interact with each other. Try to find stories, instead of being upset at the holiday season, try to find a story in what’s happening around you. Just be curious about what’s happening in people’s lives and you might find some inspiration. Go out into the world and find inspiration there. You know, get out of your office, put your computer down and put your pen down and go out into the world. Go see a movie, and look at it from the point of view of a storyteller. Get a book, you know, in a genre you’ve never read before, and look at it from the point of view of a storyteller. Go to the museum and see if you can make up a story about what you see in the painting or the sculpture or about the artist. Just take a walk around town. If you live in a city especially or a nice town, take a walk, see what’s going on. Go to a historical landmark where you are. Take a class in another art, like maybe when people ask you what you want for Christmas, maybe ask them for a glass blowing class or a ceramics class. Where you are allowing your brain to just relax and watch something else, you know, and your hands working something else. And you might be pretty surprised at how doing a completely different artistic, creative thing, I say thing a lot, so I’m trying to not say same thing, activity will help your brain sort of categorize and file things away and reorganize and regenerate new stories. So go out and get some inspiration. We cannot be in our offices, forcing the story all the time. Sometimes we need to go out there. If you have, let’s say, a book, or a spaceship, or an aircraft, or something in your book, go ahead and see if you can talk to someone who knows about those things, who can help you touch the spacecraft or the boat. There’s a boat in my story, and boats actually freaked me out, they’re so big. I especially don’t like seeing, like, the hull. I don’t know why, this is like one of my fears, I don’t know, they just strike fear. They’re just awe inspiring, awesome. I also don’t like looking underwater, so maybe it’s because it’s something that’s like underwater, I don’t know. I actually love the ocean, so that’s complications of me and my brain. But maybe go out and see the ship, I’m not going to do that. I’m just saying it and my brain sees the ship and I’m like, But B-26, you have a B-26, go see it or whatever other things, like swords. Do you have sword fighting? Go out and see if there’s somebody who makes swords. There’s this place in Texas that makes swords. It’s pretty unbelievable. I think it’s like angel swords or something, pretty cool. If you can’t get there, watch their videos on YouTube.
Kat
5. Define What You Want From Your Writing
And the fifth thing I want you to do before we wrap up, is take some time this month to answer the question, what do you want from your writing? What do you really want from your writing? What do you want from your story? You know, as we compare ourselves to other people, as we read books that we think are so much better, as we fall into this despair of, I only sold this many books this year, or maybe I didn’t get my book out this year, whatever it is.
We have to answer this question, what do we want from our writing? We’re about to hit another year, so it is the time to start thinking, what do you want?
Do you want your book to get out there? I
s that what you want more than anything?
That’s a different goal from, I want my book to sell up to the New York Times Best Seller. Now, New York Times Best Seller, you best have a book that typically hits the New York Times Best Seller. You better have your marketing in order and so many other things. You’re going to be focusing on craft, and marketing, and maybe writing query letters, if you want to do the traditional route. If you just want your book out there, I would still encourage you to look into your craft.
But if it’s mostly for showing yourself that you got something done, or showing someone else look, I told you I was going to write this book, and I got it done. That’s different, right? Do you want to continue this, or is this a one-time effort? Do you want to make this a full-time career? You’re going to have different focuses. You’re going to have to focus a little bit more on marketing and not write as much every day. I don’t know, there’s a ton of things out there. What do you want from your writing? Everyone can have their own little answer to that. So I would take some time, take a walk, think about it, write about it. It could change from day to day. I know this great habit, and I have never gotten this one done, is to write out the entire month of January, every single day, write out your goals for the year, without looking at what you wrote the day before, because you’re sort of honing what it is that you want. You’re kind of going from this cloud of a goal, to more honed by the time the month is done. So you can do that. Why don’t we try that every day or every other day in December? Write out, what do you want? Answer that question. What do you want from writing? What do I want from my writing? And write it out. And it could change every day, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. It’ll be a fun exercise to go back and look at maybe what influenced you that day. So try that, write it out, take a walk, talk about it with your significant other or another writing friend. Maybe get together as some writers, go out for a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and ask each other, what do you want from your writing? You don’t have to have a concrete answer. This is a brainstorming session. What do you want from your writing? What do you want to do with these 50,000 words or 20,000 words that you got written this month? What do you want to do with it? Do you want to carry it through? Do you want to start over? Is this one not what you want to do anymore? But you thought of another story. Do you realize that you need a class or two? Do you realize you want to get a book coach and dig into it? What do you want to do? What do you want from your writing?
Kat
So I would highly encourage you guys to do each one of these five. Set a big goal and three more realistic goals for next year. Don’t compare yourself to other writers. Get feedback on your writing. Get some inspiration and answer the question, what do you want from your writing? You can tweet me @PencilsLipstick on Twitter. You can find me on Instagram, @PencilsandLipstick, all written out, or @KatCaldwell.Author. You can find me at KatCaldwell.com, and there if you want some feedback, if you’re ready for feedback, I am taking draft. Where it’s draft feedback where I just look at your draft, I talk to you, we talk out the story and you’ll be able to see what parts of the story are going to be great moving forward, what you need to develop more.
This is great for anyone who has gotten through NaNoWriMo, or who got stuck in NaNoWriMo and just needs to sort of brainstorm it out. So you usually just send me a couple of pages and then we have a one-hour chat. So you can find that on my website. You can sign up for my writing newsletter, which comes out every Tuesday and gives you lots of inspiration and thoughts on writing. If you’re done with a draft, I would love to do a developmental edit with you, and that will be feedback as well. Or if you’re ready for a coach, if you’re really ready to have somebody help you through getting your dialogue done, looking through scenes with you, really honing new skills, having someone there who can answer your questions.
I am opening up my Book Coaching as well, because a couple of people finished, and some people are going to continue. So I have a little bit of a room there, so you can find all of that at KatCaldwell.com. But remember, you can get a lot of things done yourself. Reading the craft books. There’s courses out there, again, I love C.S. Liken’s courses. Emma Dhesi has a great course for beginners. Stacey Juba has a great course for editing, that we talk about here, she sponsors the show. So many things out there. Let me know how you are going to answer these questions. Let me know if you are a writer who speaks another language, writes another language, or writes for a market outside of America. I would love to talk to you as well. Remember to tweet out the show. Share the show on Instagram. Share by mouth, word of mouth, is that how we say it? Tell all your writer friends to come listen to the show. We’re going to go into a new, exciting format in 2023. I hope you all had a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving, and Black Friday, and happy Cyber Monday to all you shoppers out there, and I will see you next week.