Name: Annie Grace

Claim to Fame: At 26, Annie was the youngest Vice President of a multinational company. By 35, she was a global marketing executive responsible for marketing across 28 countries by day, drinking two bottles of wine by night. She left her executive role and set out to control her alcohol temptations. Her research on psychology and neuroscience led not only to her sobriety, but also the writing of her first book, This Naked Life.

Where to Find Her: on Amazon, Twitter, and her website

Let’s start with the basics: What time of day do you start writing? Is it easier for you to write early in the morning? Late at night?

I really enjoy writing at night, but since my brain doesn’t really ever turn off, I jot down ideas in my notes app at any time of day (or night). I don’t actually have a fixed or consistent writing schedule.

When a book comes it is fast and furious. Basically, I write during all hours of the day and night for a month or so, literally all the time. I bring my laptop in the car and write in the passenger seat when my husband is driving and in bed at night. I don’t go anywhere without my laptop. It is all consuming and there is no balance.

But then I go through months where I don’t write all that much (besides jotting down ideas). During these times I switch gears to consuming information and end up reading an insane amount. I read 60-75 books a year on average.

How many words a day do you produce, or try to produce? How much of that ever sees the light of day?

When I am writing I can easily write 2,000 – 5,000 words a day. I’ve written 10,000 words in a single day before. But again, I will then have months of writing almost nothing.

How much of a day for you is spent in research versus writing, or are you doing both at the same time?

These are separate for me. If I had to guess I would say that 70% of a year is spent researching and 30% is spent writing. I highlight, take notes, dog ear books, copy and paste sources and then have it all ready for when the writing starts.

How do you think about the audience you’re writing for? Is there one in your head, or are you basically writing for yourself?

I think about the audience a lot. In fact, I often just think about one person, someone I know who is struggling, someone who I want to reach out to and provide some hope. Sometimes, that person will change, but I focus on writing to a single person.

Your book This Naked Mind is all about reprogramming your unconscious mind to think differently about alcohol in order to make it unappealing. What made you decide to write the book?

My own journey. I was drinking far more than I ever set out to and it was affecting my life. Yet, when I tried to cut back, I didn’t find it easy. I developed a theory that while I consciously wanted to drink less, my far more powerful unconscious mind had not received the memo. I set out on a journey of research to change my unconscious beliefs, habits and conditioning around alcohol. Simply in order for myself to regain control. The result was This Naked Mind. As soon as I found my own freedom, I knew others would benefit from the research I had done, so I put my rough journals (basically my first draft – it was messy!) out for free download online and had more than 20,000 downloads in 2 weeks. People started sending me amazing letters of gratitude and I knew I needed to make it into the book it is today.

Throughout the book, you systematically debunk common myths about alcohol. What do you think is the biggest misconception people tend to have about drinking?

That it is a necessary part of a good life. I know I believed that, but interestingly I didn’t believe that to be true before I ever drank. And people who have never drank don’t believe it. It made me start to wonder if that was in fact true, or if there was something else going on inside my brain.

It seems like a lot of well-known authors were or are drinkers. Do you think writers have a proclivity to drink because of the nature of the profession? Or is the association between writing and drinking just another excuse to pick up the bottle?

Such a great question! I honestly have no idea. I think that writing and drinking is romanticized and has been throughout history, but it is so hard to say where this came from.

I certainly always dreamed of being a writer and imagined that I would write novels with a glass of wine in my hand. It’s truly ironic that the book I did write is about alcohol addiction.

In addition to being a published author, you are also an accomplished marketer. Do you ever have a hard time separating the marketing side of your brain from the writing side, or do you find they compliment each other?

They truly complement each other. Marketing is about the mind, our habits, our thoughts and our behavior. My book is a different angle of the exact same topic. Marketing is also a persuasive argument for or against something. My book is equally a persuasive argument – in this case against alcohol.

What are you working on these days? Do you have any aspirations to write another book?

My second book, The Alcohol Experiment, is coming out December 31st of this year. It is a 30-day challenge book – less of a commitment than This Naked Mind. I am very excited about it.