We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Claire L. Fishback. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Claire L. below.
Claire, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?
This is the story of how a single phrase became the cornerstone of my dream business.
September 2017, my friend and USA Today bestselling author, LS Hawker, and I were at the Colorado Gold Writers Conference hosted by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. Tess Gerritsen was the keynote for banquet night that year. At the end of her amazing speech she said, “You can, too.” I turned to LS and whispered, “You can, TOUCAN!”
Enter the Toucan20. The Toucan20 is a simple technique I devised to help me focus during my writing time. Set a time, write, stop when the timer goes off. It started as an accountability technique. LS and our mutual friend Laura Main would challenge each other to write for 20 minutes every day.
I even drew some fun toucan graphics for us to send to each other over text message, alerting each other when we’d finished a session—or didn’t.
I started telling people about this simple concept. I believe it was my twin sister who told me to write the book, but it could have been my husband (it was probably both). Once I started drafting it, I got an itch. A super exciting itch. The wheels of my mind started to spin.
Questions flew around my mind: How could I take what I knew about my own writing process and turn it into something bigger? What else could I teach that tied into this Toucan thing? How can I expand it beyond just books?
I did a lot of research. I bought a lot of courses. I spent a lot of time thinking and planning.
I ended up with a trilogy of “Toucan Books” that tie together the journey a writer takes when they decide they want to write a book, or get an idea to write a book. The first book, You Can, Toucan! Do More in Less Time, will be out in February. That was the starting point. I’d figured out a way to expand a small idea into one that could potentially be much much bigger.
Then, one day in the summer of 2021, I was traversing the twisty roads into Evergreen taking my pittie mix, Kira, to daycare. I always listen to podcasts on that drive. At this time, I was hooked on Sacha Black’s Rebel Author podcast. She had Jennie Nash (of Author Accelerator) on talking about book coaching. Jennie laid out all the skills one needs in order to become a book coach. I listened raptly, nodding along, smiling, ideas forming. I checked every box for every skill she mentioned. I’d never really heard of book coaching before. I was instantly excited. My mind whirred to life again. As soon as I got home, I looked up book coaching.
Mind. Blown. That’s when the entire Toucan ecosystem took flight in my mind.
But it all hinged on getting the first book completed and out the door. I had to start building the brand and getting the name out there into the world. I truly believe the rest will follow. And so far it has.
I’ve been so excited, often overwhelmed, and overjoyed to have figured out this plan. I’ve been a writer since I was six, and though I have four books out, I really believe You Can, Toucan! is what will take me to that place in which I can say, “Bye, Felicia,” to corporate America and be my own boss.
I have never allowed myself to think it might not succeed.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m Claire L. Fishback, author, book coach, project manager, amazing wife, dog mom, and your future guide to doing more in less time, starting with You Can, Toucan! Is more than books, courses and services. It’s a lifestyle! At least, that’s how I want my clients and students to see it.
What does it mean to be a Toucan?
It means you finish the novel you started. It means you know how to fight against your internal struggles throughout the process. It means you know how to manage yourself, your time, and your book from the initial spark of an idea all the way through to seeing it published on all the book sites out there (not just Amazon), without ever giving up or giving in. Time, negative-self-talk, and poor project management can all derail forward progress, or even halt the act of starting.
But it doesn’t end there. A real Toucan will do this over and over again. Building confidence in their abilities.
The You Can, Toucan! ecosystem is currently in progress. The first book will be out at the end of February. The first course will launch in April. While I’m not currently accepting clients for 1:1 coaching (only because I’m too busy right now getting the Toucan enterprise up and running), I hope to open back up before the end of 2022. If you’re interested, you can go to YouCanToucan.com/services and get on my waitlist!
Teel us more about your creative career. How did you get to where you are today?
One of the things I think people don’t understand about being a creative “solo-preneur” and having a creative business is how alone we usually are. We have to wear every single hat in our business and lead every department. CEO, CFO, Marketing & Advertising, Finance, Project Management, Research & Development, Website Development, Public Relations, not to mention being the worker bee creating brilliance day after day!
We often don’t have someone other than other creatives to bounce ideas off of or help us make strategic decisions. There are a million podcasts out there we could listen to, books we could read, blogs we could subscribe to, but those things don’t even begin to give us what we probably need.
Which, to me, is someone else who thinks my baby is as beautiful as I think it is! No one else understands the amount of work and effort it takes to run this ship, let alone keep it afloat.
I don’t have a solution for this yet, but I’m hoping in the future to have a group membership as part of my Toucan offerings. After all, the best part about attending conferences (aside from coming up with an idea that grows into an enterprise) is being around like-minded people. Being surrounded by your tribe.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a writer is the writing. I talk about this a little bit in my upcoming book. If the act of doing is rewarding it will show in the end product. If you love it, it’ll show. If you drag yourself by the back of your pants to your desk every day, if it’s not fun, it’s time to let that idea rest and try something else.
For a writer, it could be writing in a different genre, working on a pet project, writing something just for the heck of it, writing something completely different from what you usually write. Making it fun again.
As a book coach the most rewarding aspect is watching my client’s eyes light up when I say, “What if…” and give them a nudge. I don’t give them an entire idea. Just a little prod to get their brain going. When they have that aha! moment, and their eyes widen, and they came to it on their own because of the nudge, that’s the best, most rewarding part.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://youcantoucan.com, https://clairelfishback.com
- Instagram: @clairelfishback
- Facebook: @clairelfishback
- Other: Waitlist for services: https://youcantoucan.com/services