Bonus Author Episode-Unleashing Creativity: A Guide to Distraction-Free Writing and the Power of Storytelling with Rochelle Melander

Ever felt the itch to pick up a pen or open a fresh document and pour your heart onto the page? This episode's conversation with Rochelle Melander will not only scratch that itch but offer a soothing balm for those struggling to find their creative flow amidst a world abuzz with distraction. We journey with Rochelle from her second-grade writing roots to her life as a coach and author, unpacking how simple practices like journaling and embracing Julia Cameron's morning pages can kickstart the writing process. For adults and children alike, especially those navigating the whirlpools of attention issues, Rochelle's insights stand as a lighthouse guiding us toward distraction-free time and the clarity that nature can bestow.

The art of storytelling wields a beautiful power to foster empathy in young minds, a truth I've witnessed firsthand during my school visits and through projects like the "I Have a Dream" books. Rochelle and I share a belief in the profound impact of listening to and telling stories, recognizing that each stroke of a pen, each line of a drawing, even each ingredient in a recipe, can be a conduit for creativity and healing. Whether you're a budding author, a parent wanting to guide your child, or simply someone seeking to engage with the therapeutic potency of storytelling, this episode brims with wisdom and actionable advice that Rochelle Melander expertly lays out for you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to the SJ Child Show, where a little bit of knowledge can turn fear into understanding. Enjoy the show. Hi and thanks for joining the SJ Child Show today. I'm really honored and pleased to have a fellow author and we're going to be having a really great discussion. The messages and intentions we put in front of children, adults, you know it has so much power and we're trying to make the change and be the change in the world and this is such a great, great place and medium to do that. So please welcome Rochelle Melander, and I'm so happy to have you here today. Thanks for being a part of the show, thanks for having me. It's really great to be able to you know, kind of see where your ideas came from and and find out about your journey. So tell us a little bit about yourself and introduce yourself and what you're doing here today.

Speaker 2: 1:21

So I've been a writer since second grade and you went into so wrote, went into my first career in a helping profession and it wasn't the right helping profession. So I ended up getting retrained as a coach, where I felt like I could work with a lot of nonprofit leaders and various folks. And as I started working as a life coach, a lot of people and I was writing books. People started asking me well, how do you do that? And as I started then working as a book coach, I came across more and more people that were struggling to do the thing that writers have to do, which is to focus, to like just sit down, overcome distractions and write. And so they had this burning desire to create something, but they were really struggling.

Speaker 2: 2:13

So and the other you know, the other part of my job is that because I write some books for children, I've been teaching writing at schools and in libraries since 2005, 2006. And so I have noticed over the years, as technology has grown and as the stress levels of children has grown, that the ability to pay attention and focus has really decreased, both with adults and kids. And so during the pandemic, my pandemic project was to get certified as an ADHD coach. So I did my training and really learned a lot. I do not have ADHD, but I have a daughter who has some attention issues and a son who's on the spectrum, and I work so much with people who struggle and I've noticed in the last year that my ability to consistently pay attention has decreased as I read more online. Yeah, and that's a thing.

Speaker 2: 3:20

So it's a proven thing. So that's that's where I'm coming from. My goal is to help people who want to be able to write find a way to do that, whether they're students or professionals, or they want to be writers.

Speaker 1: 3:40

Yeah, and it's so interesting that you said you started in second grade, cause I remember the same thing, being so young and being so interested in writing, and you know, someday I'll do this, someday I'll do that. And it's not until you get to be an adult that you chase after those dreams sometimes, isn't that the truth? Yes, excuse me, but it's so nice that we can. We can change and pivot and um follow our dreams and it sounds like they've led you down a lot of different paths and you get, you pick up a lot of experiences along the way with that. What are some maybe beginning tips that you might give to somebody interested in beginning to start to write?

Speaker 2: 4:28

So, you know, I would just say start with a journal. If you want to write, write. You don't have to do anything special to do it. And I, I love the whole idea of morning pages by Julia Cameron to, just you know, write three messy pages every day about whatever, no matter what. Choose a journal size that fits with what three pages feels comfortable to you. So if I love it when people do it in one of those old spiral notebooks, because you can write as big as you want, they're not precious, you can throw them away afterwards.

Speaker 2: 5:04

You know, I think if you start with a really fancy journal, you might feel anxious about even putting words in it. So I would say you know, just start writing three, three pages a day, start writing about some of your ideas and then at the end of a few weeks, go back and underline things that you might want to pursue further. And that's when you can kind of like, maybe some day after your three pages you can say oh look, I've got these lists of things I want to write more about. So let me write about the first time I rode a bike or whatever it is that's important to you.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Yeah, and storytelling. It's so interesting how you can teach so much and learn so much in, you know, in the same kind of space, and it's it's people really value what they can learn from reading.

Speaker 2: 5:57

Yeah, absolutely, and that's how I think. That's how a lot of a lot well, a lot of us learn empathy is by listening to the stories of others and what others have gone through and how they've overcome things. We read these stories and then we we feel like, wow, what they've gone through is so amazing, and that's how we learn to be empathetic towards another person. So that's really important and I always tell kids you know, even if you're not really comfortable telling your story, we really need you to listen, Cause that's a valuable part of the storytelling experience.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Yeah, it's so interesting to teach. You need to teach all of those parts, especially as a teacher going into schools, right, and you know people take that for granted as far as a story goes, like the listening portion of that. I really love that you brought that up.

Speaker 2: 6:52

Yeah, I just think, you know, I think that as a writer, that's that's the challenge is we always want our, our stories to get into the hands of readers or listeners, and if we're just reading to our critique partners or friends or whatever, that's still so valuable because they're listening is such a gift. And with the kids I taught this morning and I and I had, I have each of the children if they want to read their golden sentence and their favorite sentence, and so as they read, other kids were chitter chattering and I said listen, you're listening to them is your way of respecting them and their work. And they got that and they were able to do that and it's such a beautiful thing to watch that relationship develop.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Absolutely. It must be why I like podcasting so much too. I can really just take the step back to just really listen, and I find you know this is two years going for me now but I've really found that in the very beginning, you know there's all these ideas and, oh, you have to read from a script or you have to have this list of questions that you have to ask someone, and it's just like nope, you have to find what's best for you and how you are going to make the connection with the other person. It's all about making that conversation feel comfortable and authentic. And me reading off of a sheet, looking this direction and, you know, sounding like a robot. That was never the case for me, and so I love that.

Speaker 1: 8:21

We can just kind of forge our own ways, and I always like to remind listeners that journaling although writing is very important and practice and everything journaling can be done in so many ways. You can now voice text or you can, you know, draw pictures. If you have a child, that's very inspirational and drawing, you know, let them channel that energy through that too. I think that when we really give perspective and kind of step back and allow the individual to show us where they feel best in expressing themselves. That's when we can really see the magic happen.

Speaker 2: 9:03

I so agree.

Speaker 2: 9:05

I'm a big fan of, kind of all kinds of journaling, because any way of expressing yourself is going to help you heal, and so, whether using words, or you're cutting pictures out of the magazine and making collages, when I've worked with classrooms of autistic children, you know often we're having them draw, you know, draw an outline around their hand and color it in and write just simple sentences about how they can help others and they feel so good about putting together something that represents their life and then to be able to have that as a souvenir, as something they can treasure.

Speaker 2: 9:48

As this is a time in my life. So I encourage parents to, you know, just have journaling supplies available so that kids can just encounter them and, same with you as a grownup, have your journal out so that you can encounter it and write. I mean, I would love, as a writing coach, I'd love if everybody, like, had a day, a time each day where they wrote, but that's not possible always, and so if you just make it easy and convenient for you to write, that's that can be really helpful.

Speaker 1: 10:25

Yeah, definitely no, I love that. You know somebody said earlier today about expressing themselves through cooking a meal and how it made them so joyful to be able to express themselves that way.

Speaker 1: 10:38

And I thought, oh my gosh, that's fantastic. It's fantastic that we can see the beauty in finding joy in something you do and making that the practice. You know and I know we are definitely talking about writing and reading and I veered off a little bit but I think that it's so beautiful to be able to learn these things and think, oh my gosh, that's a great ideas, to kind of involving, you know, evolving that within your plan. Um, if you like to cook, or you know, if you like to design clothes, set time aside to go put some outfits together, whatever makes you feel good. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that's fantastic. Tell us about when you go to a school, what that might look like in that process.

Speaker 2: 11:26

So it's. It's different depending on the on the class and the age of the kids. Lately, my new book is called mightier than the sword and it's about people who use writing to change the world. New book is called Mightier Than the Sword and it's about people who use writing to change the world. So lately I've been doing a process with the kids. I have a dream books and they're tiny little books that you make out of a sheet, folding a sheet of paper to make a little book that's just eight pages, and then we work through a process.

Speaker 2: 11:52

So we get together in a room I tell them some stories from the book about some of the people who have used writing to change the world, and I'm always careful to talk about both people who changed the world as grownups and people who did this kind of writing as kids, like Balala Yousafzai, you know, started writing a blog about children in Pakistan not being allowed to go to school when she was just 11 years old. So and I talk about a little girl named Rosie who wrote a letter to the Pope about immigration reform when she was five. So I tell those stories, but then I also tell the stories about people who eventually wrote to change the world. But they really struggled, as kids like Charles Darwin always snuck out of school and you know was would sneak out of school and go home into his home chemistry lab and make laughing gas, you know. So there were a lot. There are lots of kids who really who really had difficulty writing when they were younger and then grew up to write.

Speaker 2: 12:55

So I tell those stories and then we talk about well, what are you concerned about? What, if you could change anything in the world, what would it be? And what's interesting is the list is usually pretty long and very deep. You know these are kids who are concerned about climate change and racism and child abuse and all the different things that are scary to them that they see in the news. And so then we take that list and talk about, like, well, how can we narrow this down to things that you could actually do something about? You know so if they're concerned about racism, we talk about well, how can you be more welcoming to people of other races in your life? You know, if they're talking about a lot of them are concerned with all the anger in the world. So we talked about you know how to be calm or how to be kind. So once they get their topic, then they write six ways to be kind, six ways to be calm, and once they have their project written and it's usually a two-week process so I come one week, we come up with the ideas, we write their rough drafts. The next week I come, they make their books and they write down what they've written before and they illustrate them.

Speaker 2: 14:16

And the children really learn a lot about kind, of what it's like to take a project from idea to to a finished product and then how to have some grit during that process, because it's hard. You know, the teachers don't always turn out like they want. Maybe they misspell a word. As a teacher and I am not big on giving them a new sheet of paper every time they make a mistake I'm like let's work with it. Let's you know one?

Speaker 2: 14:46

Today we were writing poems about animals and one person had colored her owl and did not like the eye and I was like well, what can you do to make it something you like? Like what could you add to it? You know this, this is your art. You know like, what could you add to it? You know this, this is your art. You know how can you make that? I stand out. And so she found a way, and I love that, because that grit is something that all kids need to do figuring out how to get past that difficult thing. So, and then at the very end, we do the thing I talked about a little earlier, which is we have any student who wants to read either a page of their book or a sentence I call it the golden sentence. You know, it's something that they really feel proud of. And then the children who are shy and don't want to read it, they get to be listeners and everybody clicks their fingers, like you do in a poetry slam honor to honor their, their co authors that's so powerful for kids.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Um, for my own personal experience with that, this book behind me just happens to be the book my daughter illustrated at the age of eight and we published, during the process of me publishing, some of my books and I.

Speaker 1: 16:04

It was so exciting to include her in that journey and, like you said, they really see the struggles and understand the grit of what it's like to have to make edits, to have to reformat, to have to do all of the things that are the real life of writing and wanting to put your book out into the world, but the empowerment and the excitement you know, now she's preteen, so it's a little bit like hush hush you know, don't tell anyone.

Speaker 1: 16:39

I did that, but to me and for her and maybe in the future if she decides to have kids or whatnot generations that's so amazing and what a beautiful gift to be able to have in our family. Yes, I love it and I love that she was, you know, so um at the time, so proud of herself and so enthusiastic to work on something like that. Uh it, it's been really exciting to see the times where the kids want to be involved in the work that you know my husband and I do, and in different ways. It's really fun to include them and see that we're making a difference in a positive way.

Speaker 2: 17:18

Oh, that's awesome. I love stories like that.

Speaker 1: 17:21

Yeah, definitely what. Where can what's up next for you? What are you doing next? Do you have anything coming up or work you're going to be doing next?

Speaker 2: 17:32

So I'm working on a another book for kids um kind of like mightier than the sword. That's going to help young people kind of reflect on their own lives and be advocates for themselves. Because one of the things I've noticed through my teaching is that when young people are asked to write about what they need or write about how they can be calm in an angry moment, they're advocating for themselves and they're developing their own power and self-efficacy. So I really want to get that out and in the hands of kids, because I believe our kids are are in a little bit of a challenging place right now. I'm writing a novel and for young people, so hopefully that will be out in a few years.

Speaker 1: 18:17

Oh, I'd love to check back in with me when that does come out and we can absolutely talk about that again. You know it's, it's so. It's so neat to see the progress that we make through the writing process, through just growing and learning more about our communities and what we can help provide for them. Um, where can we go to find you? Give us all your good social media websites, things like that.

Speaker 2: 18:43

So my website is rightnowcoachcom W-R-I-T-E nowcoachcom, and my Twitter and Instagram handles are both at rightnowcoach, so I'm easy to find and from there there's links to my children's website, and the work I do with kids is also on my Right Now Coach website, so it's an easy to find me. I do a lot of coaching groups and support for people who want to write books, so if that's you, I may be someone that you want to talk to.

Speaker 1: 19:18

I love that and, before we go, tell us maybe one or two tips for our ADHD listeners and people with children, for helping to better focus overall, what are some general tips you might give?

Speaker 2: 19:35

You know, I think one thing is just to have some distraction-free time every week for either creating or reading. So just some time when the telephone and the television and the iPad and the video games and all that stuff is turned off where you go into the woods. One thing we know from research is that the only way to really restore our attention is to go for a walk in nature. And so they did this test with young kids, you know. So they take a test. They lose their focus. They take them on a walk through nature, they take them on a walk through the city. Come back, give them a test, see how they did. The kids who took the walk through nature did much better did. The kids who took the walk through nature did much better.

Speaker 2: 20:23

So having a little bit of that time and then borrowing that idea for when you have to do deep work, so spending when you have to do deep work. So if you have to do homework or you have to write something for work, or you have to focus on something, maybe you know, turn off your phone, turn off the internet, do some time without those distractions, just to give you a little bit of a benefit. Another thing that can help is to fun frame that time, and some people call it temptation bundling. So that's when, if you have something that is really stressful for you to do so for me that would be spreadsheets or any kind of detailed work where I have to, you know, like keep track of more than one thing I you try to bundle it with something that you look forward to, like a nice cup of tea or a cookie or something like that.

Speaker 2: 21:18

Often people will do co-working for those things. So you get together with this person, you get together to your cup of tea, and the rule is you only get that treat if you're doing the work. So you know you bundle the temptation with this thing that you don't like to do and then you start looking forward to it because you're treats with the difficult thing. You start looking forward to it because you're treats with the difficult thing, and that's what I used a lot with students, because students often don't look forward to doing their homework, and so if they can bundle their homework with something fun, like going to a coffee shop or working with a friend, it can be much better.

Speaker 1: 21:58

I love those tips.

Speaker 2: 22:00

Yeah, so hopefully that will help some of the ADHD listeners get focused and get some writing done.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Absolutely. Oh, we all need to. And don't stare at the jellyfish, because that'll just get you mesmerized for days too.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Oh, I'm like right there, I'm like I need to get my own jellyfish.

Speaker 1: 22:18

Just love them. Oh, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for your time and the really great work that you're doing in the world and I hope, like I said, let us know when those other books are ready, and I'd love to have you back on the show to talk about them.

Speaker 2: 22:35

Thanks so much for having me. Good to be here. Have a good day you too.