Have you ever sat down to write… only to find yourself picking up your phone and scrolling social media instead?

In this episode of Write the Darn Book, we’re unpacking why this happens — not from a place of blame or willpower, but from a neuroscience and attention-based perspective.

You’ll learn how social media trains your brain to seek quick dopamine hits, why that makes writing feel harder than it should, and how even a short social media detox can help you reclaim your focus, creativity, and writing momentum.

Because the truth is — this isn’t a discipline problem. It’s a conditioned pattern. And patterns can be changed.

• Why scrolling hijacks your focus when you’re about to write

• What dopamine actually does in the brain — and how social media uses it

• How constant scrolling trains shallow attention (and why writing needs depth)

• The hidden cost of “just a few minutes” on your phone

• How much writing time you could reclaim by stepping away from social media

• A powerful mindset shift to help you move from consumption back into creation

• A bold listener challenge to help you reset your attention and writing habits

I also share my own experience of checking my Screen Time, realising how much time I was losing to scrolling, and the practical changes I made — including deleting social media apps — that gave me back hours of focused creative time.

And because this episode is releasing on Christmas Eve, we also reflect on the value of stillness, presence, and creating space — not just for writing, but for what truly matters.

I challenge you to try a social media detox — even temporarily.

Delete one app. Delete them all. Or take a 24-hour break.

Then notice what shifts.

If you do this, I’d love to hear from you — send me a message or comment and let me know what changed for you.

This episode includes a short guided meditation designed to help you interrupt the urge to scroll, anchor your attention, and re-immerse yourself in your writing — choosing creation over consumption.

The episodes releasing next week are all about helping you start the new year in the strongest possible position.

We’ll be talking about goals — why they haven’t worked before, what’s been missing, and how to use your modalitiesand personality traits to build momentum and finally move forward with your book.

If writing has been on your heart for a long time, you won’t want to miss what’s coming next.

If you’re feeling called to break through your blocks and finally finish your book, I currently have a few spots open for 1:1 coaching.

👉 Learn more at maddisonmichaels.com/coaching

Until next time — Protect your attention. Trust your creativity. And let’s write the darn book, together. ✨

Writing Personality Types: Why Writers Struggle Differently (and How to Work With It)

Have you ever followed writing advice that everyone swears by — only to find it didn’t work for you?

That doesn’t mean you lack discipline, motivation, or talent. It means the advice wasn’t designed for how you’re wired.

In this episode of Write the Darn Book, Maddison explores the four writing personality types and explains why different writers experience writer’s block, procrastination, and self-doubt in very different ways.

You’ll learn how personality influences the way you write, how you respond under pressure, and what actually supports your creative flow — so you can stop forcing yourself into systems that don’t fit, and start writing with more ease and self-trust.

While this episode is shared through a writer’s lens, these insights apply far beyond the page — into your work, your creativity, your relationships, and the way you understand the characters you bring to life on the page.

✍️ What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why writing advice doesn’t work for everyone
• How personality shapes the way writers experience blocks and resistance
• The four writing personality types (Dove, Owl, Peacock, Eagle)
• How each personality type tends to struggle — and why those struggles make sense
• How to work with your dominant personality instead of fighting it
• A simple, practical way to support your writing this week
• Why understanding yourself leads to more confidence and consistency

🐦 The Four Writing Personality Types (DOPE Framework)

In this episode, Maddison introduces the Bird Personality framework, remembered using the acronym DOPE:

• Dove — the heart-led, connection-driven writer
• Owl — the analytical, detail-focused writer
• Peacock — the expressive, energy-driven writer
• Eagle — the driven, results-focused writer

Each personality brings unique strengths to writing — and unique challenges when under pressure.

Understanding your dominant type helps you respond to resistance with clarity and compassion, rather than self-criticism.

🌿 Episode Integration: How to Use This in Your Writing

Most writers have one dominant writing personality — the one that shows up most consistently across their writing life.

In this episode, Maddison invites you to:

• identify your dominant personality
• support your writing through that lens this week
• stay flexible if a different personality energy feels more present on a given day

This gentle, personality-led approach helps reduce overwhelm, quiet self-doubt, and restore creative trust.

📝 Take the Free Writing Personality Quiz

If you’d like to discover which writing personality you lean toward most, Maddison has created a free Bird Personality Quiz.

👉 Take the quiz here: maddisonmichaels.com/quiz

It’s a powerful starting point for understanding how you’re wired to write — and how to support your creativity with more ease and confidence.

🌱 Coming Up Next

In the next episode, Maddison explores a topic that impacts every writer — social media — and shares a gentle social media detox designed to help you reclaim your attention, energy, and creative flow.

💛 Want Deeper Support?

If this episode resonated and you’re ready for deeper support to break through your blocks and finally write the book you’re meant to write, Maddison currently has a few spots available for 1:1 coaching.

👉 Learn more at: maddisonmichaels.com/coaching

After receiving so many beautiful messages from listeners sharing how much they’ve been loving the guided meditations — and how they’re weaving them into their daily writing routines — I wanted to create this little bonus gift for you.

This short Creative Flow guided meditation is here so you can drop straight into the practice, without having to scroll to the end of Episode 2.

In just seven minutes, you’ll be gently guided out of your busy mind and back into creative safety, flow, and connection with your story — releasing tension, quieting self-doubt, and opening yourself to let the words move through you with more ease.

Whether you use this before a writing session, during a break in your day, or as part of your daily ritual, this meditation is designed to help you return to the page feeling grounded, supported, and creatively aligned.

Settle in somewhere comfortable… take a breath… and let’s drop into creative flow together. ✨

If this meditation resonated with you and you’re ready for more personalised guidance to break through blocks, reconnect with your creativity, and finally finish your book, I currently have a few spots open for 1:1 coaching.

You can learn more and reach out at maddisonmichaels.com/coaching — I’d love to support you.

Why Writer's Block Feels Different for Every Writer - and How Understanding Your Inner World Can Change Everything!

Have you ever noticed that writer's block doesn't feel the same for every writer?

For some, it shows up as fog - like the images just won't come.

For others, it sounds like loud self-doubt or an inner critic that won't switch off.

And for many, it's felt deeply in the body as heaviness, resistance, or emotional overwhelm.

In Episode 2, we explored how writer's block can sometimes be a sign that the story itself has drifted off course.

But in Episode 3, we shift inward - into the inner world of the writer.

Because when the block isn't about the direction of the story, it's often about the way your mind and nervous system naturally process creativity.

In this episode, I introduce you to modalities - the four primary ways the brain experiences imagination, emotion, intuition, and meaning - and explain why understanding your modality can completely change how you experience writer's block.

Rather than forcing yourself to write like someone else, this episode will help you learn how to work with your natural processing style, so resistance softens and writing begins to feel safer, clearer, and more aligned.

🌟 In this episode, we explore:

• Why writer's block feels different for every writer
• The difference between story misalignment and inner-world resistance
• What modalities are and why they matter for writers
• The four primary modalities:

Visual

Auditory

Kinaesthetic

Auditory Digital

• How each modality experiences doubt, fear, and resistance
• Practical, modality-aligned ways to respond when you feel stuck
• Why writer's block isn't a flaw - it's information
• How affirmations help rewire the subconscious mind and build creative safety

🎉 Bonus Integration: Modality-Based Affirmations

Instead of a guided meditation, this episode includes modality-specific affirmations designed to support your subconscious mind, calm resistance, and help you feel safer as you write.

You'll learn how to:

• Choose the affirmation that best fits your modality (or resonates most deeply)
• Use repetition - especially morning and night - to strengthen new neural pathways
• Integrate affirmations into daily life so support continues beyond the writing session

❤️ Discover Your Modality

If you're not sure which modality is your dominant one, you can take my free quiz here:

https:// maddisonmichaels.com/quiz

💕 Gentle Homework from This Episode

• Take the modality quiz
• Notice how writer's block shows up for you this week
• Respond to resistance in the language your mind understands, rather than forcing yourself forward

🌟 Coming Up Next

In the next episode, we continue this inner-world work by exploring writing personality types - how different writers approach creativity, structure, consistency, and process, and why certain advice works beautifully for some writers and feels impossible for others.

😍 A Loving Reminder

Writer's block isn't a sign that you're failing.

It's information - filtered through your inner world.

When you honour how you are wired, writing becomes a relationship again… not a battle.

👇 Ready for Deeper Support?

If today's episode resonated with you and stirred up something inside you… and you're ready for deeper support to break through your blocks and finally write the book you're meant to write… I currently have a few spots left for 1:1 coaching.

If you feel called to explore having me as your writing coach, head to maddisonmichaels.com/coaching and reach out - we'll chat and see whether we're a fit for each other.

Writer’s block doesn’t mean you’re broken — and it doesn’t mean you’re failing as a writer.

In this episode of Write the Darn Book, Maddison Michaels gently unpacks the real reasons writer’s block shows up — and why, more often than not, it’s a sign that something inside you (or within the story itself) needs attention.

Drawing from her own lived experience as a multi-published author, along with mindset coaching and intuitive story work, Maddison reframes writer’s block as communication rather than resistance.

You’ll learn why forcing your way through a block often makes it worse — and how creating a sense of safety, listening to your intuition, and checking for story misalignment can help the words begin to flow again.

At the heart of this episode is a simple, repeatable coaching framework — the PAUSE Method — designed to help you move through writer’s block with clarity, compassion, and trust.

✨ In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why writer’s block is a normal and meaningful part of the writing process
• How fear, pressure, and lack of safety can shut down creativity
• Why writer’s block is sometimes your story saying, “This path isn’t right”
• How to recognise when a scene or story direction is out of alignment
• A step-by-step coaching method to respond to writer’s block without forcing
• How to return to flow by listening instead of pushing
• Why writing one imperfect sentence can be enough to restart momentum

🔑 The PAUSE Method for Writer’s Block

When writer’s block appears, use this gentle process:

• P — Pause and normalise

Remind yourself this is a normal part of the writing journey.

• A — Ask what the block is communicating

Get curious instead of critical.

• U — Understand the story signal

Revisit the scene before the block and listen for misalignment.

• S — Soothe your body and create a sense of safety

Pressure shuts creativity down; safety opens it up.

• E — Enter the page with curiosity, not force

Allow the story to reveal what comes next.

📝 Your gentle homework from this episode:

The next time you feel stuck:

1. Write PAUSE at the top of your page
2. Walk yourself through each step
3. Go back to the scene before the block
4. Ask what the story is asking for
5. Write one exploratory sentence

That’s it. No pressure. Just listening.

🌿 Coming up next…

In Episode 3, Maddison explores modalities — how different brains process creativity — and how understanding your natural way of thinking can change the way you write, plan, and move through resistance.

💕 Want deeper support?

If today’s episode resonated with you and stirred something inside you… and you’re ready for deeper support to break through your blocks and finally write the book you’re meant to write…

I currently have a few spots left for 1:1 coaching.

If you feel called to explore having me as your writing coach, head to maddisonmichaels.com/coaching and reach out — we’ll chat and see whether we’re a fit for each other.

Hello my writing friend!

Do you feel called to write a book… but keep getting stuck when you try? Do writer’s block, self-doubt, or overwhelm make you wonder if you’ll ever finish?

In this very first episode of Write the Darn Book, I’m sharing my personal writing journey — from taking seven years to finish my first novel, to building a successful publishing career, and then hitting a creative wall so high I couldn’t write at all… and the mindset shifts that changed everything.

I talk about why writing struggles are often a sign of misalignment rather than failure, why identity comes before consistency, and how learning to trust yourself again can unlock creative flow.

This episode sets the foundation for the entire podcast and closes with a gentle guided visualisation to help you reconnect with your writing identity and creativity.

I truly hope this episode helps guide you, reassure you, and remind you that you’re not alone on your writing journey. I’m so excited to be walking this path with you — and to support you as you reconnect with your creativity and your story.

Take care xox

Maddison

✨ Coaching Invitation If, as you listen, you feel called for deeper support and would like to explore having me as your writing coach, you can learn more or reach out at https://maddisonmichaels.com.

🎧 Follow the podcast and join me in Episode 2, where we dive deeper into writer’s block and how to move through it with clarity and compassion.

In this trailer, Author and Life Coach, Maddison Michaels shares the heart behind Write the Darn Book and the breakthrough that transformed her from creatively blocked to writing 120K words in six weeks. If you’re ready to overcome writer’s block and write with flow, this podcast is for you!

🌟 Make sure you hit follow so can binge listen and never miss an episode. And if you’re feeling called for deeper support to achieve your writing goals, Maddison currently las limited 1:1 coaching spots left - reach out at www.maddisonmichaels.com