Podcast | Mindset
Episode 39| June 21, 2024

How to Grow your Grit w/ Wendelin van Draanen

She Wrote Her Way Through the Darkest Years of Her Life

Wendelin Van Draanen has more than thirty books in print and a novel that became a Warner Brothers film.

It did not start there. An arsonist destroyed her parents’ business. Six months later, her father died.

She would wake in the night and realize the nightmare was her life.

So she started writing, first as revenge, then as therapy, then as a career.

In this episode of the Happy Healthy Hustle Podcast, novelist Wendelin Van Draanen shares how half an hour of writing a day became a novel a year, why it took ten years of rejections to break in, and how she turned her darkest experiences into tools instead of baggage.

She calls it the fire that forges you into a useful tool.

If you are carrying something heavy, this conversation shows how to put it to work.

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“It is the fire that forges us into a useful tool.”

– Wendelin Van Draanen

Fast Skim & Timestamps

0:00 Meet Wendelin: The Novelist Who Almost Wasn’t
1:11 Half an Hour a Day Became a Novel
3:10 The Fire That Changed Everything
5:02 Ten Years of Rejection to Thirty Books
7:01 Grow From the Dark, Then Leave It Behind
8:07 Life Is a Toolbox
12:31 Choosing the Right Life Partner
16:51 How to Find Your Person

Key Takeaways

Persistence is a superpower. Half an hour a day, kept up, becomes a novel a year.
Big projects feel impossible until you break them into daily small steps.
Pain can become purpose. Wendelin wrote her way through grief and rejection.
It took ten years and endless no’s before thirty books. Small steps outlast obstacles.
Treat hard experiences as tools for your toolbox, not baggage to carry.
Choose a life partner who listens and shows up when things are not perfect, and know yourself first.

Three Petite Practice® Questions

1. What big goal could I break into a daily half hour?

2. What hard experience could I turn from baggage into a tool?

3. Where am I chasing quantity of connections over a few high-quality ones?

Transcript Chapters

0:00 Meet Wendelin: The Novelist Who Almost Wasn’t

[00:00:00] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: Welcome back to the Happy Healthy Hustle podcast. Let us introduce our guest, Wendelin. [00:00:10] Wendelin Van Draanen: Thank you, I am excited to be here. I am Wendelin Van Draanen, an international award-winning novelist who has had a couple of her books turned into movies. I feel blessed to have landed here, because I did not start from a good place. [00:00:35] Wendelin Van Draanen: My superpower is persistence and tenacity. Despite the odds, I do not give up. My parents came from the Netherlands with an American dream and a strong work ethic, and that has helped me pursue things that were not easy to accomplish.

1:11 Half an Hour a Day Became a Novel

[00:01:11] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: I created something you will appreciate, called Petite Practices, where tiny consistent habits lead to big results. [00:01:42] Wendelin Van Draanen: I love a list. When I decided to become a writer, I had a full-time job and two little kids. I would get up at five in the morning and carve out half an hour before one of my kids woke up, and work on my novel. A half hour a day, over a year, added up to a novel. If you take a little bit every day on something you are passionate about, within six months you will see substantial improvement.

3:10 The Fire That Changed Everything

[00:03:10] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: This sounds like smooth sailing. Tell me about the hills, or mountains, in your life. [00:03:10] Wendelin Van Draanen: My parents encouraged science, not creative writing, and English was not their first language, so language arts was not my favorite. I got science-based degrees. But along the way, my parents’ business was destroyed by an arsonist. I did not know how to handle the fury that someone could do that to good, hardworking people. I would wake in the night and realize my life was the nightmare. That is why I started writing. Six months after the building was destroyed, my dad died, and it devastated our family. My hardest hurdle was getting through those very dark years, and writing helped me do it.

5:02 Ten Years of Rejection to Thirty Books

[00:05:02] Wendelin Van Draanen: My first writing was therapy, even revenge fantasy about catching the bad guy. I did not know anything about plot or character, but I had been bitten by the writing bug. Eventually we got through the dark years. I became a schoolteacher, saw my teens going through hard things, and started writing books for them. It took me ten years to break into publishing. That is the thing about small steps. You keep taking them despite the obstacles and the people telling you no. After ten years of rejections, I now have over thirty books in print and a life I would not have had otherwise.

7:01 Grow From the Dark, Then Leave It Behind

[00:07:01] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: You turned the challenge into your story, and your story became a book. Would you write about the fire itself? [00:07:31] Wendelin Van Draanen: Not anymore. I want to move past it. The challenge in life is to take our dark times, grow from them, and then leave them behind. It is hard to carry all that baggage. It is better to say, this equipped me with skills I have used for positive things, and then set the baggage down.

8:07 Life Is a Toolbox

[00:08:07] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: I compare our experiences to a suitcase. From the outside people look fine, but open it up and you see what they carry, and often that is where the superpower comes from. [00:08:52] Wendelin Van Draanen: Exactly. My latest novel, The Peach Rebellion, has a poor girl in 1947 with a bicycle tire she has patched many times. People see the tire but do not understand how many times she patched it from the inside. [00:11:38] Wendelin Van Draanen: Your suitcase idea is like a toolbox. Negative experiences, even negative people, equip you with a skill or knowledge you can pull out when you need it. Life is a toolbox, and you want to put every tool you can into it.

12:31 Choosing the Right Life Partner

[00:12:31] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: What or who helped you overcome that challenge? [00:12:40] Wendelin Van Draanen: Writing helped a lot, and I picked a really good guy. He is a writer too, and he listens and helps me through the rough patches. Your life partner is such an important choice. My best-known book, Flipped, was turned into a film by Warner Brothers. I wrote it because my students were crushing on people they did not really know. It is told from two perspectives, and it is about looking beneath the surface of the person you have a crush on. [00:15:02] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: It is the quality of your relationships that matters, not the quantity of your connections.

16:51 How to Find Your Person

[00:16:51] Wendelin Van Draanen: Do not be in a rush. Do things together beyond a coffee date, things that tax you and show the person’s character when things are not perfect. And listen, does the person listen and care about getting you to a better place. And before you look for a partner, know yourself. Figure out who you want to be and what traits you hold dear. I try to impart that hard-won wisdom to my readers without preaching. [00:19:06] Wendelin Van Draanen: You can find me on social media and my website, under my name. [00:19:13] Dr. Christiane Schroeter: Thank you so much, and check out the books and the movie.

Meet My Guest

Wendelin Van Draanen

Award-Winning Novelist

Wendelin Van Draanen is an international award-winning novelist with more than thirty books in print, including Flipped, which became a Warner Brothers feature film, and The Peach Rebellion.

A former schoolteacher, she writes stories that hand hard-won wisdom to young readers without preaching. Learn more at wendelinvandraanen.com.

Meet Your Host

Dr. Christiane Schroeter

TEDx Speaker & Leadership Strategist

I’m Dr. Christiane Schroeter, TEDx speaker, leadership strategist, and host of the Top 1% ranked Happy Healthy Hustle Podcast. I help leaders think clearly, speak with conviction, and take the next step during change.

About Dr. Christiane

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