Episode 76: Obsession, Rejection, and Pleasure with Melissa Cassera
Podcast
Episode 76: Obsession, Rejection, and Pleasure with Melissa Cassera
“You have to accept that failure and rejection is a part of all of anything: Business, career, relationships or whatever in your life. And when we start looking at it like, “hey I need to fail this many times because there's so many beautiful lessons in failing but also, I need to fail in order to succeed because it's the only way to know what's not working.” — Melissa Cassera
I can’t wait for you to LISTEN to this podcast with Melissa Cassera. Put your headphones on and listen now!
Melissa Cassera is a Professional Screenwriter and Award-Winning Publicity & Content Strategist with a 15+ year track record of helping businesses create an Obsessed® fan base for their work.
Melissa goes deep into what BTS of a screenwriter looks like, including rejection. She also teaches us about, “pleasure breaks.” If you want to create your own practice, get her 30 day workbook here
“What do I find pleasurable that isn't in relation to my work? …Be playful about it, try and test some different things. And then once you know what you like… schedule what I call, “pleasure breaks” into your day every day, these are 15 minute sometimes longer.” — Melissa Cassera
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Journal Prompts:
1. What activities do you find pleasurable? Hint: Some of mine are drinking hot tea, meditating, pulling tarot cards, drinking cacao and riding my Peloton bike.
2. Schedule in time to create pleasure breaks in your day. Need ideas? Grab Melissa’s workbook!
3. Do you need support? A friend or accountability buddy send them a text or call them.
I am excited to hear your thoughts! Listen on ITUNES + Spotify Please tag us @chefcarlacontreras + @melissa.cassera on Instagram so we can continue the conversation with you. Use the hashtag #showupfullypodcast
Eat Well,
xo Chef Carla
PS: Want to learn about becoming a Health Coach? Listen to this episode here
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Wherever you are listening, please rate, review + subscribe to Show Up Fully. Send the podcast to your friends, post in your stories on Instagram & tag me @chefcarlacontreras and use the hashtag #showupfully
About Melissa Cassera:
Melissa Cassera is a Professional Screenwriter and Award-Winning Publicity & Content Strategist with a 15+ year track record of helping businesses create an Obsessed® fan base for their work.
Her screenwriting credits include The Obsession Thrillogy, Lifetime Network’s first trilogy of movies, and other films for the network including Nightmare Neighborhood Moms, Mommy’s Little Star, Her Stolen Past, and Girl Followed.
As a Publicity & Content Strategist, Melissa loves fusing screenwriting techniques with modern marketing strategies to create binge-worthy brands & business plans.
Her advice and work have been featured in Variety, Fast Company, Forbes, and she was named one of the nation’s Top Personal Branding Experts by The Huffington Post.
For updates on Melissa's latest films, writing projects, classes, workshops, and other fun stuff, visit MelissaCassera.com
Find + Work With Melissa:
IG: @melissa.cassera
Website: www.melissacassera.com
Full Transcript:
00:00.00
Carla
Hey is chef Carla welcome to show up fully. This is a podcast where I share what it's like to show up for your real life if you don't know me I'm a food stylists photographer and health coach. You can find me. It's @chefcarlacontreras on Instagram and more information in today's show notes I am. So excited for today's guest her name is Melissa Cassera we met on ig ages ago and I feel like you were holding this sign this is will you workshop with me and I ended up working with you Melissa and took your PR course and it literally changed my life, we can touch on that but I can't wait for you to tell us who you are and how you serve the world because you were such an incredible human.
00:48.70
Melissa
So thank you what an intro you're making my whole day. So a little bit about me I'm Melissa Cassera I'm a professional screenwriter and a publicity strategist.
00:53.33
Carla
Hold focus. You're welcome.
01:06.63
Melissa
And I love helping people to create obsessed fan bases for their work and I do a lot of that by ah, merging together. What I know as a screenwriter with what I know as a fifteen plus year like. Edging on 20 marketing and publicity strategists and just helping entrepreneurs feel and show up like a totally binge worthy exciting Netflix drama.
01:37.86
Carla
I Love that I love that and I love that your your title is obsessed because it just like it just really it resonates and it makes me excited like every time I see your newsletter and like oh my gosh. What is she up to now like is.
01:43.15
Melissa
Thanks.
01:55.85
Carla
It's just it's incredible to watch your journey unfold over these last few years.
01:59.56
Melissa
So thank you, It's been a journey. Ah.
02:03.81
Carla
A hundred percent I want to ask you about your last meal.
02:08.72
Melissa
And okay, so um, this is funny because normally I do always have breakfast but this morning got slightly out of Control. So I will skip what happened this morning because at this point it's just four espressos which by the way Is. Coffee doesn't keep me awake like I think I destroyed my body when I was younger by drinking like pots of Coffee. So now in my forty s I'm like I could just drink it and it does nothing except for taste. Really Delicious. So My last meal was dinner last night and I made a delicious homemade pizza with. Ah, white pizza with sauteed spinach on top and it was Incredible. It was so good.
02:51.12
Carla
That sounds delicious that sounds delicious. They love it. Melissa I would love to ask you about showing up this podcast is going called show up fully and it's called show up fully for a reason.
02:54.46
Melissa
You so good.
03:08.12
Carla
Because I feel like we're told in business we're told in spirituality wellness like all these different places to show up and specifically for your business pr like we need to show up in front of audiences in front of people in front of print in front of Tv in front of like all these different. Pieces but no one actually tells us how to show up and like what it means to show up except in York like I'll put side note except in your Pr course where I really learned what it meant.
03:38.84
Melissa
I.
03:42.24
Carla
To show up in publications and pitch myself and all that. So like side note but like I would love to know how you define showing up and how you show up in your life in your business. Your relationships all the things.
03:56.51
Melissa
So yeah, so I mean I probably have a bit of a layered answer here. So first and foremost I think showing up is so individualistic. Um. I'm not a fan of having like 1 templated way that we all need to show up in the world and what we need to do and act and be and et cetera etc. Um, because we're all like individuals right? and unique humans. So it. I always like to lead with obsession really which may sound a little wild but um I think that you need to get in touch with and and it's also for everyone listening you probably already know but you may just not be pulling it to the forefront as much as you'd like but you need to get in touch with. What you are obsessed with and about right? like what lights you up I call it heats you up what what has gives you that like fire in your belly. What can you not stop talking about to the point where your spouse your friends your family like your colleagues are like oh my gosh Carla. Shut up right? It's like you just keep going on and on and on and on about it so that is a good indicator that whatever that thing is you are obsessed with and so that is what you want to lead and bring forth That's what you want to pour into your life into your work etc right? So that it feels really pleasurable and it also feels really natural. To show up so you're not like trying to siphon yourself into something a message a cause whatever it is a business a relationship, whatever that like personally doesn't feel aligned for you. So that's kind of the first step is figuring out what that is and I know that's not exactly easy. But it is inside of you and it's allowing it to bubble to the surface and then the second piece of that is you know, putting yourself out there without expectation of what that's going to look like and what that's going to bring back now I understand as business owners or. Career orientied professionals. We would like to put our message out and would like it to get less lots of comments like shares sign up sales et cetera right? That's the goal of course it is but you don't want to hinge. Um, so much on like each thing you say or each thing you put out there each opportunity you go after because then it's going to just end in disappointment if like 1 thing doesn't work out right? So you never want to like put pin an expectation to that. So I always say.
06:37.93
Melissa
The best thing is to just keep showing up keep sending out your ships right? And as you're you're sending out your ships like a few of them are going to come back right? and you just got to keep doing and sending and sending and sending. Um, and there should be joy in the sending. There should be joy in the showing up again if you're doing it from a place of obsession. This should feel very natural and authentic. So that when things do naturally come back because you're putting the work in It's not going to feel like such a. Vlog like ah finally I finally got to say I finally got an opportunity. It's like no I feel really excited that I get to wake up every day and talk about this and share this and reach out to the media reach out to people and ask them. You know make the ask. Um, all of that feels joyous so that once something does click and come back right? It's like that's the cherry on the Sunday right? and you actually find joy in the process and then I would say the third part of that my layered answer is um, really. Revising your relationship to rejection and failure. Um, you miss if this is not a quote I came up with but it's like you miss 100 % of the shots that you don't take and so. You have to accept that failure and rejection is a part of all of this of anything of business of career of relationships of whatever in your life and when we start looking at it as like hey I need to fail this many times because there's so many beautiful lessons in failing but also. Need to fail in order to succeed because I have it's the only way to know what's not working. It's the only way to learn those things. Um then it becomes much easier to show up versus I think that there is like a blanketed fear for a lot of people who haven't practiced that rejection muscle. Like if you were for example I grew up in entertainment. So I was an actor when I was young and my whole life was rejection. It was just like a bunch of people telling me no for various reasons. So by the time I became an adult. I was naturally good at sales and marketing and things because I'm like well whatever, another no, you're just moving on. It's a formula. It's equation right? It's all part of the process. It's no big deal and you learn from those those nos but unfortunately most of us don't have that type of um.
09:07.20
Melissa
You know education as we're growing up so we kind of need to learn it as adults and there needs to be grace for that of course because it's It's new to us but just accepting that it is a natural part of the process that we're failing upward that that it's all a beautiful part of the journey. Will really really help you to show up and not have that fear behind like well what if what? what if they say no well what if they what if they cancel me what if this happens right? It's all of these kind of unfounded fears. But when we accept it then it becomes like I said a beautiful part of the process. So.
09:42.41
Carla
I love that I've never heard of it like a muscle and I feel like this is such an important lesson I kind of want to highlight it that that failure like and we've we've. We've like chatted back and forth an email like I have sent out a million pitches I have pitched to be on Tv shows actually and I have not talked about this publicly but I will talk about it publicly with you right now I had two Tv shows that. Literally I had signed like like contract and things were going and all these things were moving forward and then they said I'm sorry we're going in a differenter direction and it I was devastated and then I was like okay. What's the lesson here. What's the lesson. What's the what's the opportunity here and I feel like when I put myself in that space of like what's the lesson. What's the opportunity. What can I do next it shifts things and I wonder because you write for tv like how does that. Can I ask how that works like how are you pitching those or are they suggesting okay because I don't know I don't know how it works so I would love to know a little bit Could you just tell people. Um, what you do in terms of writing for tv and like what is that process like and what is.
11:01.35
Melissa
Yes, oh gosh. No yeah.
11:18.25
Carla
Rejection process like because I would love to know like what does it look like when you are pitching and what does success look like.
11:25.58
Melissa
So yeah, well, ah, there's a lot of rejection in screenwriting and at all different um layers right? So like you could be. Contracted. You could get all the way through you could be paid out on various things and your work can never end up on screen rates. So there's kind of like various layers of rejection. So my niche in screenwriting as I write Tv movies I have a deal with lifetime which does mostly thrillers which is my genre. So I can speak to the way that works and it's different for different genres and different opportunities. But I'll I'll just tell you my personal experience so with them. Um the way that it works is I will come up with like about. Maybe 20 to twenty five pitches these are not easy to come up with It's not like you give them 1 line and say here's my idea they're fully formed. You have to essentially the way they work is you have to give like what the entire movie would look like that doesn't mean writing out the entire movie but it means hitting. Various beats so they can understand you know what the beginning middle and end look like it looks like is there you know does the story track are there red herrings we write thrillers so you have to like misdirect the audience right? So they think the enemy is 1 thing and not the other one person and not the other. So. I will come up with like a batch of those um, the first round goes past a number of executive producers and they will usually slash it down to about 3 and then we work for a couple of months developing those 3 with like basically it's like poking holes in every sentence. Right? like this that does this make sense is this track then once we've polished those together we take them. We personally have two different. Ah 1 is a network which is lifetime and the other one is a distributor which is foreign which can go to multiple networks all over the world. So we have to get feedback from both of those um and sometimes that feedback is just a straight. No pass. That's normal or if you're lucky you will get a yes from both or there's definitely the stage where one might say yes and 1 might say no and then then it becomes. Ah, bit of a court battle no court involved. But um, but it's it's you know, then it becomes in negotiation. So that's essentially the process and then again as you're working through the process from.
14:04.30
Melissa
Outline all the way to like finished film. There are multiple rejections along the way there is rejections of characters of different plotlines of the way you want to end the script the way you want to begin the script. Ah, sometimes they want to shut down your whole project in in the middle of it and you do you try? Whatever you can do to make that not happen I've been fortunate that that hasn't happened on any of my films though it did happen on a tv show that I sold many years ago which is quite normal for us. But that's essentially the way that it works and then for you know, newer screenwriters who don't have a deal somewhere or even ones that are seasoned who don't kind of have a regular ongoing thing with a network which is also very common. You are in. You're constantly interviewing for a job That's how it feels like so you are constantly coming up with new ideas pitching them around to multiple producers networks studios depending on the nature of the project and again most of what you pitch out gets rejected. Um, some things get optioned and you get paid out something but then it can get shut down again et cetera et cetera there's so many different ways. It can go so. There's a lot of rejection more so than in most careers. Ah so what they say for writers is you have to have super thick. And because we're constantly being rejected or critiqued. Ah, so.
15:34.95
Carla
I love that and I love that you did a deep dive into your world because I feel like when we see you know movies or Rece series like we have no idea what's behind it and it's kind of like you know I food style professionally in recipe tests. It's like. 1 sees the the behind the scenes of it. So I loved that glimpse into your world I know that you do a lot of different things like you have the online courses you have your writing and you also talk about pleasure I would love to know because when I see this. Especially when I see this in your newsletter it just like lights me up and makes me smile and you talk about coffee and I would love to know a little bit more about your journal too.
16:22.80
Melissa
Okay, so ah, pleasure is like a core tenant a core principle of my business I just feel like if we are not having fun in our business. What's the freaking point and ah like what are we doing especially as entrepreneurs we can.
16:35.15
Carla
Yeah, it's.
16:40.21
Melissa
Choose what we want to do so like to be siphoning yourself into some kind of business that you hate just doesn't make a lot of sense but the other flip of that coin is that if you are not having fun if you are not experiencing pleasure if you don't Love. The way that your business is structured or what you do people on the other end will feel that your clients will feel that even your newsletter subscribers will feel that there's like an energy that pours through your business and so think about that if you are like I'm miserable I Hate what my business is. People pick up on that and like who wants to come to that party Nobody It's like arriving at a sad dinner party where the host like hates all the guests and like is like angrily making the food in the kitchen I mean I feel like we've all been to kind of like parties or.
17:20.50
Carla
No one.
17:35.00
Melissa
Experiences like that and you you just like walk around. Awkwardly you like oh my gosh should we leave like something right? it's so it's exact that's the exact feeling that people get in your business. So I'm a huge proponent of um, not only. Trying to infuse more of what you are obsessed with into your work so that it does feel more pleasurable and there's not this this like hard line between what you do and what you love I think that those should be merged but on the other side. It's like making sure that you are building enough. Pleasure and fun into your day now. This can be a tricky concept because and I and I'm speaking about this from experience I used to be a person who derived a lot of value and worth from my work. Um I had to go to a lot of therapy. To unravel that but I remember leaving corporate when I was in my mid 20 s and I had like a real cushy corporate job and I was always considered like the go to in the department like you're the best that type of thing and I I would get a lot of praise from my the higher ups. And so when I left I remember feeling this deep sadness of like who's going to praise me like what's going on I have to praise myself what is this and it and I really that first year that I was an entrepreneur I honestly hated it I wanted to go back to work I I really was like. Wanted to claw my way back into and almost like was sabotaging things because I'm like it's so much better when you have a boss that can tell you you're doing a good job and then I had to really unravel that and and sit with that and ask myself why I was taking so much worth from like. These other people's validation like why can't I validate myself that's really unhealthy to seek that outside of myself and so again, like I said I had to go through a lot of therapy to work through that. Um, but I notice that there's a lot of. Folks who and like myself who were conflating like pleasure for validation. So it's like you may be working throwing yourself into work 12 to 15 hours a day staring at that laptop not even moving. Not even realizing that you're not moving. Um. But you derive so much validation from those likes from those signups from those right and it's like it's like every little ping is a bing bing, bing baing bing and it's like a dopamine release. But unfortunately that's not particularly healthy, right? because then when things aren't going well in business which business is.
20:23.79
Melissa
I've been at this over fifteen years now business is a roller coaster. You're not always going to be on a high. It's going. There's going to be dips and slumps no matter how good you are, um and so you have to be prepared for that and if you're deriving all of your pleasure from your work and business. Then there's going to be those downtimes and it's going to feel crushing so it's really important to find pleasure outside of your work if. You're not doing that already and for some of the listeners. You may be doing that and you're doing great and for some others you might be like oh my gosh yikes you know I definitely need to. So find some pleasure outside of what I do so um, so for me, you know that means making a pleasure list. It's like what do I like outside of work and now a days I know what that is back when I didn't that was hard I'm like I don't know what I like like I don't know and I'm like but it's more fun. To like sit and work I don't you know Ah I want to help people. What do you mean? I have to garden to like I have to go to a hike right? and it's like and now it's it's kind of my life feels like it has flipped where it's a lot more pleasure than work because I don't derive my work my worth from my work anymore. So you know in the beginning if this is new to anybody listening I would just kind of sit down and say what do I find fun. What do I find pleasurable that isn't in relation to my work that has nothing to do with my work. What is that and if you don't know what that is. It's okay. Just treat it like kind of a fun experiment say well here's a list of 10 things that maybe I would like or maybe when I was a kid I really liked right when I didn't have these work responsibilities when I didn't have a business and then dabble in those right? So maybe you're like I really used to like to paint when I was a kid great grab a canvas go grab a brush and some paint and slabber that paint on and maybe you're like wow this felt so good and maybe you're like no I don't really like this like leave that in childhood and that's fine, right? So you just have to kind of be playful about it and try and test some different things. And then once you know what you like then make sure that you schedule what I call pleasure breaks into your day every day and these are like 15 minute sometimes longer. It's up to you. Whatever you have time for little bursts of time where you shut off work completely. Please no email no ping dings off off off all of it off and go indulge in whatever your pleasure activity is I don't care if that's laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling and trust me, there was a time when that was my pleasure activity but literally.
23:10.81
Carla
Um, love it. But.
23:12.52
Melissa
My husband and I call go to the floor and it's so it's okay, if that's all you've got right now that's totally fine. You will get other pleasure activities but whatever that is for you. You go and do that and come back and don't skip those breaks. Um, keep them like important doctors appointments and if you need to set reminders on your phone like if you need to set an alarm for those breaks at first that's fine like all of these things are totally fine. It's whatever works for you. There is 0 judgment. It's just about making sure that you are taking those breaks. And you mentioned my workbook earlier so I have something called the obsessed workbook and planner and it's just a thirty day like digital pdf that essentially is showing you how to construct your months in this way where you are like very intentionally. Putting together your work time and your pleasure time so that you are not skipping that pleasure time and that you are deriving more excitement and pleasure from your work.
24:19.66
Carla
And love this I Love this so much and I'm going to try floor time because I heard I have a Peloton and one of the instructors said have you ever laid on a floor and listened to an entire album and I was Like. No, and I feel like this is a sign from the universe like floor time might be By. Ah.
24:45.85
Melissa
It could be Yeah I mean try it Honestly. Oh Peloton's great for pleasure breaks because I have one too and that's my mate like my main pleasure break every day because there's so many ways you can like just hop on for a quick ride or you can do a meditation you can do a stretch.. There's literally no excuse not to like pop on that Peloton and and so if anyone has one of those that's an easy pleasure break.
25:13.00
Carla
It's an easy one and I do I'll put um a link in the show notes I have and it's not an affiliate or anything like that I have a free 60 day pass to the app where you can access like all the things. So if anybody wants that um I will put a note. About your workbook in there too. So if anybody wants to grab that I'll make sure that I put that in the show as well. I want to shift the conversation and ask what do you do when you don't want to show up and maybe maybe you don't have a you know thing but some people and I want to like preface this.
25:29.31
Melissa
Thank you? okay.
25:39.11
Melissa
And.
25:48.00
Carla
Some people have defined that there's a difference between not wanting to show up like you know, not feeling it and then like actually physically can't so I would love to know for you? What is not showing up look like.
26:02.61
Melissa
Well I think it's important to note this is something that writers deal with all the time because I think there's a misconception that we are like inspired all the time and that can't be more far from the truth. But. Um, or that we want to write all the time that can't be further from the truth. Ah so I think for me personally it's like I don't need to be inspired to show up. I don't need to be motivated to show up because if I'm waiting to be inspired or motivated nothing's getting done my all my deadlines are getting missed I mean there's no way there are you know week long spans where I'm like I just want to I live in a beautiful state like I can be outside. Anytime and with like every activity possible. There are week long times where I'm like I just want to go paddleboarding like I don't want to do this. This is this is not what I'm in the mood for right? So it's I think it's just unrealistic to expect that we're always going to want to show up because we won't that's just. Humans is just being a human. Um, so I think that we all need to find like whatever survival mechanism works for us to just get us to show up and that is so different for all people and I just want to honor that because I had a conversation with. Um, a neuro divergent friend recently about this and you know what works for me does not work for her because she's neuro divergent right? and and has a very specific. Um. You know set of circumstances that she's working through that I don't have right? So I can't say do this because that's not fair, right? like what works for me as a neurotypical is not. It doesn't work for her. So I try to stay away a little bit from the like do this try you know you could try. It but like I can't give you the answer right? I think that it it just depends on what works for you and your unique individuality. Um, so I can just tell you what works for me, but know that it that I'm not saying it will work for everybody listening. So for me. What tends to work is I need to just sit like be in a I tell myself this is why I tell myself. It's like a mantra I'm like be an adult because I like tough love personally like on the peloton I do Alex if anybody knows Alex tuusant so you'll like know what my vibe is okay.
28:41.42
Carla
Um, ah I will Alex I okay, that's my vibe and it's like it's almost like I'm an Aries so like I feel like it's like this air is like must go Mars energy like but.
28:48.46
Melissa
Ah, yeah, and yeah.
28:54.90
Melissa
Yes, right? So like again, he Alex isn't for everybody right? That's why there's all different instructors on peloton so I need Alex energy like that is me so I so I literally like put my alex cap on and I'm like sit.
29:01.47
Carla
Yes, there's all different instructors.
29:14.17
Melissa
At that effing desk and like put your fingers on the keys because you can do it right? And it's just like that works for me is just like yelling at myself that way and and almost like. Laughing at myself like just having fun with it and being like oh my gosh I'm an adult like sit down and do it like it's like this is you this is your work suzannna. Do it and like stop waiting around for some like fluffy motivation or inspiration to fall out of the sky. It's not gonna happen. Sit there. And that works for me to do that and I will sit there and I will hate it and I will put my fingers on the keys and I will curse and I will be mad and then about 10 to 15 minutes goes by and then I'm in the flow and that's just the way it is sometimes and sometimes I can make it feel a little better by grabbing a coffee by taking myself to a coffee shop I love um by sitting outside versus inside if it's a beautiful day here like I can I can change my environment. Ah, to make things feel more pleasurable and that's fine, but ultimately sometimes nothing in that environment is helping it I'm just being bratty and crossing my arms and saying I don't want to do this I don't I don't want to I want to go to the floor and so. Just have to like lift myself up off that floor and sit in that damn chair just like Alex says right? and you just and and that's the the case for peloton too right? like I I um. I pretty much work out every day and people will say like well oh my god how are you that motivated I'm like I'm not motivated. There are many days where I sit on that bike and I go I hate this I don't feel like doing it. But I'm just gonna sit here and spin my legs in a circle and that's it. That's all I need to do I can do that. I'm an adult right? I'm a big girl I can sit there and spin my legs for 20 minutes it's fine and so if that's all I do and I just spin them and I'm not really trying that's perfectly fine and sometimes that's how work looks I sit there I type. Like a bunch of junk that and like none of it makes it in the final draft and that's okay, right? because I'm sitting down and I'm trying but many times when I sit down and just try I get in the flow and it's fine. So that's that's kind of that about showing up. It's like.
31:41.21
Melissa
It's just like you got to do it and you got to find what works for you and and that's different for everybody. Some people really like having timers they like doing the pomodoro techniques. Some people are like I can't do that you know I need um ah some people like to do there's even these apps. Now where you can like find somebody else who's working online and you guys can go live on Zoom like a stranger and you could be like okay, we're going to do this together I hate working with other people like I like Solo I'm super introverted. So like if someone's in the room I'm like no. You got to go I had to be here by myself. But for other people they thrive in a group environment or like thrive having my husband's one of those people he likes having somebody there to bounce ideas off of to do that right? and I'm like go leave leave me be and so it's it's like. Honoring what works for you. That's it. So.
32:36.88
Carla
This is amazing this is amazing and I have to agree and this is just my personal style that I will do I'm like all right fine I'm just gonna cause my sister and I woke like just blow her up on this a little bit and I've talked about her before. Um, she's like oh you have so many dots on your peloton thing and it's like because you get a dot every time you you use the app or use the bike or whatever and I'm like it is not pretty I'm like I commit sometimes I'm like I'm gonna do a 10 minute stretch it's interesting once you do those 10 minutes like I wouldn't just highlight that little piece for people because sometimes when we do that like ten fifteen minutes it's like I'm like oh all, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna do a full on workout now like because sometimes I get in the flow and motivated. So. It's interesting that you express this in parallel with work of like how can we when we don't necessarily feel like doing something commit to sitting down and I write as well I write recipes and I write articles and sometimes. But I do is I'll like copy and paste an old recipe and like start filling so that the page isn't blank I wonder if I'm asking you because you're a writer. Do you ever do that? Like do you ever like throw something in there because you're just like not looking at the blank page.
34:08.23
Melissa
Um I don't but but I could see that's kind of a fun I mean that seems like again, it's like sometimes you just have to figure out what works I tend to what I like is I have this thing that I do for both business projects and.
34:17.71
Carla
Um, yeah.
34:27.70
Melissa
Screenwriting is I make a sizzle file which is basically just like it's like ah your own personal business thesaurus or for scripts it would be like each script has look at theaurus for it. So it's a collect. Words and phrases that feel fun and exciting that you may or may not be swapping out for other words and phrases that you put into like your vomit draft right? Your first draft. Um, so I tend to like when I'm really grumpy I'll just work on my sizzle file because that always feels. Fun to me to find like exciting language or think of exciting language versus like sitting down and hammering out a scene or whatever it is.
35:05.22
Carla
I Love that I Love that. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us I feel like this episode has so many gems and I feel like people are going to take away so much from this I would love to know how we can work with you. How we can find you how we can. You.
35:23.67
Melissa
So yeah, you can jump over the best place to find me is my website which is just my name http://melissacaera.com I know you'll have it in the show notes. Um and I have my cool 30 day getbsessed workbook and planner on there. And even cooler. It's a pay what you want so you can pay $1 you can pay what $20 whatever you want or I do offer a free copy with no questions asked. To anyone that emails. So all you'd have to say is please send free copy. That's it or just send free copy but you do not need to to say why so that is available on the website and yeah, that's the best place to find me and you'll find all the information about my films and all the cool stuff that's going on. So.
36:11.99
Carla
Love it. Thank you so much Melissa I'm so grateful for you. You're welcome and everybody listening I would love if you like this episode to share it with a friend to text message to email to.
36:16.30
Melissa
Thank you for having me.
36:30.75
Carla
You know carrier pigeon whatever you have to do and also if you're on Itunes I would love if you could rate review and subscribe and on Spotify believe it or not There's a 5 star option I would love if you could click that if you want to find me and @chefcarlacontreras on Instagram that's where I appear the most I'm sending you and yours love bye.