Over the past year, alongside my work with writers and artists, I’ve spent a lot of time coaching creative executives. Film, television, theatre, dance, advertising, animation. Different sectors, different business models — it’s a fascinating and eclectic mix, yet the coaching and mentoring conversations share similar themes. Creative founders often start a company from their own creative spark, carrying sole responsibility for creative output. This leads to a set of primary

🌼 Balancing creativity with administrative responsibility I spent thirty years of my creative career running arts and creative companies, I’m now an executive and creative coach working with artists and leaders. Two of my executive clients recently came to me with the same challenge – a frustration at trying to balance creative work with their duties as senior executives running venues. Both felt they had to almost split themselves in two, having two different personalities

Writers - here is a different approach to structure. It's a way of writing into the energy of the work and avoiding endless post-it-notes...

Hot air balloon rising through the stor Right now, I’m well and truly stuck with a story. 😝 I’m three quarters of the way through a first draft. It really feels uncomfortable. It isn’t working. I’m not finding it. I know the ending I want. But I haven’t earned that ending in any way. I’m writing towards the ending, but it feels very weak. The story has begun in a very different way than I expected, and I’m wondering if my beginning heads towards the ending at all. If it does

🌼 Understanding the Writer’s Flow State Do you think consciously about getting into a flow state, or does it just happen for you? I talk to a lot of writers about their process and many of them claim not to know what their process is. They talk about being in flow as a sort of mystical experience that sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t. Experienced writers can access the flow state intentionally and with purpose. So I thought it would be useful to set out how it’s done.

If you're wondering what writer coaching is or what it does, here's your answer. Pippa Gough introduces Phil Hayes and Tom Harvey...

...it WILL make you a happy writer!

Coaching helped the client find clarity and discover flow again.

I’m curious about the language clients use, words can seem so simple but can cover a huge range of complexity. Often images, symbols and metaphors are clearer ways into meaning. So today my client’s goal, as a writer, was to ‘Get it down’. Seems simple. But each word needs clarifying and interrogating. The ‘IT’ is the story, so we work on defining the essence of the novel. Writer’s often think and talk at a high complexity level, because a novel contains many worlds. So our

A friend talked to me about my coaching and we realised that my neuro-diversity provides me with the ability to hyperfocus in coaching sessions. This means I can enter into an intensity of listening and congruity that offers powerful attention to what is being expressed by the client in words, actions, expressions, tone and movement. Being ‘heard’ with this depth stimulates profound thinking and clarity. It means I am alert to the rich language and metaphorical world expresse

Story Coaching is a one-one, confidential, bespoke service aimed at helping a writer to develop their story, and their writing ability.

I wondered, if the meaning of a story is locked tight in the subconscious, then could coaching help surface it?