Hey there, writer,

We've reached the end of April! Is it just me, or is this year flying by?

It's the last Wednesday of the month, which means it's time for a Meet the Author interview! I'm excited to introduce you to Mike Brennan, author of Make Fun a Habit (and many more books)! You know I'm all about writing habits, and Mike and I have had awesome conversations about creativity, consistency, and community.

Mike Brennan, author of Make Fun a Habit: The Creative PLAYbook for Making Life and Work Fun Again, isn't your typical Creative Consultant and Communicator; he's a passionate advocate for reigniting the lost art of fun and creativity.
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Mike's expertise goes beyond the pages of his book. He's helped renowned clients like Heineken and Chase Bank infuse creativity, innovation, and fun into their work. His art graces prestigious spaces like the Ronald McDonald House and the I.D.E.A. Museum in Mesa, Arizona.
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What sets Mike apart is his commitment to helping individuals and organizations harness the transformative power of creativity. With a unique Daily Creative Habit process honed over a decade, he empowers people to seamlessly integrate innovation into their routines, making life and work more vibrant and fulfilling. Through his words, art, actions, and unwavering dedication to the cause, Mike inspires us all to make fun not just a habit but a way of life.

You can learn more about Mike at his website!

Tell me about your creative journey and how it led to you writing and illustrating books!

Growing up, you have that sense of inspiration, or there's something that interests you, and you follow your curiosity. Like many creative people, I struggled with it—kind of flirting with my creativity. That sense of, I'm doing stuff, but I’m not really doing it consistently, and there's no real flow of where this is going; it's just like, sit down and do something, then it's over.

When I ended up walking away from my art completely for a ten-year span and then coming back to it, I knew that I needed to do more than just flirt. It was tied to my health, you know, especially my mental health. Early on, I was asking, “How can I get back into my creativity? If I can, what does that look like?” It was 15 minutes a day, it was giving myself small projects. The overarching project, in the beginning, was doing a 365-day art-making journey and seeing where that led. That terrified me because I hadn’t shown up for the last ten years. So that's where 15 minutes a day came in, breaking it down.

Because of my graphic design background and always having some kind of project or deadline, I automatically think in those terms. I thought, well, what if I gave myself small projects? Seven days of drawing pets; let’s see what happens with that. Everything's an experiment. If I liked those seven days, I could do more. If I didn't, I could change the channel and try 14 days of flowers, 30 days of faces, and so on. All of that kept leading to small projects and experimenting to see what I liked and didn't like in terms of visual art, finding my style, finding my voice, all those kinds of things.

My very first book, Dear Snow, One Man's Angry Rant Against Winter, came about because of a series of tweets. I was angry about snow; I hate shoveling; I just shoveled, and here comes the snowplow, all that stuff. Someone said, “Hey, why don’t you turn it into a book?” and I thought, “That's the stupidest idea ever—who would buy a book of angry tweets?”

But I took that idea and asked, okay, what would this look like as a book? I decided to develop this narrative around it; I'm the hero of the story, of course. Mad Mike, because I'm always mad about the snow. There’s an evil enemy who's a snowman, and capers ensue. All of that came about because I had these tweets, and I knew I was going to do this in a 30-day stretch as one of my projects. This was an experiment. I took those tweets and illustrated them, added some stuff, and ended up not only creating the book but also figuring out how to use Amazon KDP.

I gave myself a project and some parameters, and I wrote to the challenge. That was when I realized I could do books. Like, this is a skill set that I've learned, and I figured out the technical part of it. Having design in my background really helps, too.

As I evolved, I started leaning toward other creative expressions, and one of those expressions was written form. In my early days, when I struggled with my visual art, I told myself I wasn't a “real artist” because I couldn't do photorealism or perfect proportions. I had this false benchmark of what a “real artist” was, and I had the same thing when it came to writing.

I was like, I could never be a “real author,” because I'm horrible at spelling or I have grammar issues. People come alongside you and go, “You know there are tools for that now, right?” A lot of the arguments I had internally started to get stripped away. I realized I do have something to say, I do have a voice that I can express in written form, not just visual form.

Writing became another tool for communication, and now I say I am a communicator. Sometimes, I communicate through visual art. Sometimes, it's through written form. Sometimes, it's through audio—speaking, podcasts, and so on. There's an experience or a message I want to share, and I want to communicate it to other people so they can experience it, too.

How many books have you written?

​I believe there are six. There are some that were associated with events, so technically, there are more books out there, but I don't necessarily consider them part of my official catalog. There’s Dear Snow, Dear Human: What Your Dog is Really Thinking—what goes on in their weird minds? There’s a departure in The Art of Yoga, which is a series of yoga art that I did. Again, all these were projects that I did the art for and then said, “Okay, well, what else can I do with this?” The natural next progression was making a book.

The fourth one was written during the pandemic, and it’s pop culture portraits. Infectious Art is what it's called. It’s a series of comical one-spot illustrations with a little quippy phrase. There's an illustration of Darth Vader in there, and he’s he's got his mask, and he's wearing another mask over that. I was trying to find some levity in the midst of the craziness that was going on.

Then there’s the Daily Creative Habit Journal, which is not necessarily a full-on written thing, but that was my first turn into writing the introduction, framing this up, giving questions, and leading someone through a process. Finally, Make Fun a Habit is really the first full-on book I’ve written. There are illustrations, but they’re chapter illustrations and sketches that support the written word.

I'm curious about how you've blended your creative habits into these books. How did you realize you could share your process with other people?

First, it was living it, right? I'm in the midst of this, and going, I need this for myself, I need this daily practice. I leaned into this 365-day art-making journey. I got to year one and said, “I'm not done. Let's keep going.” It’s been year after year after year—I'm in my 12th year this April.

That's kind of amazing. Every day it's been showing up and doing something. That process revealed itself on the journey. I started to identify that what's happening to me can't be just for me; there's something else happening here. I wondered, can I step back and examine it?

As I started to do that, I realized that there was a process. I thought I could capture that and package it in such a way that it's helpful for other people. I can continue to do it myself, practice it, but then also teach this to other people who are struggling. Lots of people say, “I've been away from my craft, I've been away from my creativity for a long time, and I'm trying to get back to it. I'm not really sure how,” or “I want to be more consistent. I'm tired of flirting with my creativity and not really getting any traction.”

The next natural step besides speaking about it seemed to be putting it in a format that can help people take it and run with it on their own. It's a tool. That's where the Daily Creative Habit Journal came from. I was doing a thing called The Five-Minute Journal, a gratitude journal. It’s set up so that it doesn't take a lot of time—you do something in the morning and something at night. It's kind of checking in with yourself, and practicing that awareness.

I really liked what was happening as I was doing that. I thought, “That's a good format for using in the journal!” You get up in the morning, and it's like, what are you going to create today? You’re setting the intention—when are you going to create? Can you be specific about your time block?—and then, at the end of the day, you review. Did you do what you said you were going to do? If not, why? How can you make sure that you're successful tomorrow? What did you learn today? What can you celebrate?

It’s about the process of repeating this for a 90-day stretch, getting into this rhythm, getting into this habit, showing up every day, and doing this thing. It starts to build momentum. The more you see results, and the more you see stuff happening, the more excited you get about it, and the more you want to do it. It was about translating what I'm doing personally into resources that help other people go through this process.

How have you used your own process when writing your books?

I used the process even when it came time to write Make Fun a Habit. Again, it was the thought of “Man, I don't even know where to start with this. This is a lot of pages. This is a lot of ideas in written word form, and I can't lean on my visual art.”

I sat down with a friend, and we outlined what this could look like. I chose a 30-day format because I thought that if someone could read short chapters and get the big idea, then read some questions, they could contextualize it. I’ve given them an exercise to do because I believe in inspiration and application, and I thought that would be a good formula.

Once I had that, I took my daily creative habit of going, “Okay, I know I'm going to show up every day and do something.” I would make sure that I time-blocked for that. A lot of times, it was going out for a walk and writing on my phone. My mind was free, the body was doing its thing and getting some exercise; it was good for me.

I would write, and then I would send a little note to my friend checking in. He knew if he didn't hear from me by a certain time, he’d better check on me. That accountability was great. Applying my own process to the writing of the book was great. It really helped me stay on track and actually do the book in 30 days.

Was there anything you tried during the writing process that didn’t work for you?

There wasn't anything that felt misaligned because I had taken the time on the front end to outline and think about each chapter.

I share a lot of stories—personal experiences, other examples, and case studies that I've seen. A lot of stuff was floating around in my brain somewhere, and I needed to track it down and figure out what that looked like. That part was probably the messiest because you know the things you know and the things you've experienced, but recalling them and connecting them to a larger concept? Sometimes, that’s not quite as readily available, especially the older you get.

Have you self-published all of your books? What's that experience been like?

I've been around several authors who have published in a variety of different formats and places. Early in the process, even before I was thinking about writing books, I had heard a lot of talk about traditional publishing and how some people ended up signing away rights to their intellectual property. When they wanted to go and do a course, or they wanted to do something else with that, they couldn't. The publisher owned the material. If the book didn't really do what they hoped it would do, and it got shelved, now it wasn't being used, and they couldn't use their intellectual property. So that was a risk, as well as the fierce competition.

With the publishing industry, I don't know if that’s an avenue that I necessarily want to explore. If somebody came to me, I'm certainly not going to shut it down. I would entertain something. But I knew that that wasn't the model for me. I know someone who does this hybrid version where you end up fronting a lot of money in the process. They take care of a lot of the services for editing and book design and things of that nature, but it's still on you to do the marketing.

I was entertaining that, but I don't have a lot of capital sitting around to invest in these things. I typically want to create something and get it out there because I’m excited about it. There's a little bit of impatience. With self-publishing, I was like, okay, everything's on me. That’s challenging!

I had to learn how to do the technical pieces—putting together the files, uploading all the whatnot on the back end. Plus, it's not enough to create something and lob it out there and go, “Here it is!” There's the marketing end of it, there's the launch of something, which I continue to learn about and try to tweak. I look to get other people involved in the mix where I can. It's certainly been an education.

I think that's where, again, going back to my process of starting small, scheduling things, and having guidance in the process helps not only with the content creation but also with the creation of the product.

What’s next for you creatively?

I'm doubling down on speaking opportunities, trying to get on as many stages as I can. Not necessarily only in-person events, but virtual events, local things, podcasts. Those are stages, too. I want to reach as many people as possible with something that's changed my life, and I want to see it do that for other people. I'm developing more resources for people, especially in terms of the community aspect.

I've taken time to do a little research, meet with people on some calls, and ask about their experiences and needs. I’m getting some perspective outside of my own for something I'm creating. It's been really insightful. A lot of people feel like they've been part of community programs where it feels like they're supporting it instead of it supporting them. At the end of the day, people want to know, if I'm going to invest in something, is it real? Is it going to move the needle? Is it going to make a difference in me? Am I going to see results? I'm in the midst of identifying what those results and needs are and how to best format that so there's something accessible for people.

What's the number one piece of advice you would offer to a fellow writer?

Just show up. I mean, every day, show up. Have the grace and freedom to say, one day, that might be ten or 15 minutes, which might not seem valuable. Another day, that could be three or four hours. The important thing is showing up and putting the work in. All of that adds up.

If you wait for inspiration, if you wait for huge time blocks, those things are rare. So do the work to show up consistently, and you'll be amazed at what happens.

What is the best book that you've read recently?

We’re early in the year, but this might be one of the ones that I go back and reread and champion. It is called Diary of a CEO (affiliate link*) by Steven Bartlett. I heard him on a podcast talking about this idea. The book is him unfolding these laws of entrepreneurship and business, which I know can sound a little bit stuffy, but it's really not. It has a lot to do with life things. One of the things he talked about on this podcast was this idea that everything is an experiment.

So many times, we think to ourselves, “Man, I have this decision I'm trying to make. Is it A or B?” and we drag our feet for so long that it can be years before we take action. He's like, if you learn to act quicker, you will learn, and you will see results quicker. If you fail, you'll you'll fail faster. You'll have more data to understand how to do things.

He said, most of the time, we think if we go through door B, we can never come back through and go to door A again. Honestly, there are very few things in life that, if you go through door B, you can't come back and then try a different route. I appreciated his perspective on decision-making and his approach to business and life. There's a lot of wisdom in the things that he talks about. Each chapter is insightful but to the point. It’s sharp.

Mike's work offers so much value for creators of all kinds, including writers. Check out the Daily Creative Journal and Make Fun a Habit to reignite your own writing habits!

Until next time, happy writing! Bailey she/her/hers -- ​www.usethewritingdesk.com​ P.S. Are you enjoying Word to the Wise? Buy me a cup of tea to say thanks! ​ It's time to build better writing habits and get more words on the page. Here's how I can help: Sign up for the DIY 30-Day Writing Challenge and write every day for a month! Join me for the Back to School Writing Challenge! Schedule a Writing Strategy Audit, and we'll do a deep dive into your writing practices! Build and sustain a consistent writing practice with Get Unstuck Coaching!

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