The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Joanna Penn
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Writing Craft and Creative Business

  1. DEC 15

    The Relaxed Author Writing Tips With Joanna Penn and Mark Leslie Lefebvre

    How can you be more relaxed about your writing process? What are some specific ways to take the pressure off your art and help you enjoy the creative journey? With Joanna Penn and Mark Leslie Lefebvre. In the intro, Spotify 2025 audiobook trends; Audible + BookTok; NonFiction Authors Guide to SubStack; OpenAI and Disney agreement on Sora; India AI licensing; Business for Authors January webinars; Mark and Jo over the years Mark Leslie LeFebvre is the author of horror and paranormal fiction, as well as nonfiction books for authors. He's also an editor, professional speaker, and the Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital. Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, and memoir as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. Mark and Jo co-wrote The Relaxed Author in 2021. You can listen to us talk about the process here. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Why the ‘relaxed' author Write what you love Write at your own pace Write in a series (if you want to) Schedule time to fill the creative well and for rest and relaxation Improve your writing process — but only if it fits with your lifestyle You can find The Relaxed Author: Take the Pressure Off Your Art and Enjoy the Creative Journey on CreativePennBooks.com as well as on your favorite online store or audiobook platform, or order in your library or bookstore. You can find Mark Leslie Lefebvre and his books and podcast at Stark Reflections.ca Why the ‘relaxed' author? Joanna: The definition of relaxed is “free from tension and anxiety,” from the Latin laxus, meaning loose, and to be honest, I am not a relaxed or laid-back person in the broader sense.  Back in my teens, my nickname at school was Highly Stressed. I’m a Type A personality, driven by deadlines and achieving goals. I love to work and I burned out multiple times in my previous career as an IT consultant.  If we go away on a trip, I pack the schedule with back-to-back cultural things like museums and art galleries to help my book research. Or we go on adventure holidays with a clear goal, like cycling down the South-West coast of India. I can’t even go for a long walk without training for another ultra-marathon! So I am not a relaxed person — but I am a relaxed author. If I wanted to spend most of my time doing something that made me miserable, I would go back to my old day job in consulting. I was paid well and worked fewer hours overall. But I measure my life by what I create, and if I am not working on a creative project, I am not able to truly relax in my downtime. There are always more things I want to learn and write about, always more stories to be told and knowledge to share. I don’t want to kill my writing life by over-stressing or burning out as an author. I write what I love and follow my Muse into projects that feel right. I know how to publish and market books well enough to reach readers and make some money. I have many different income streams through my books, podcast and website.  Of course, I still have my creative and business challenges as well as mindset issues, just like any writer. That never goes away. But after a decade as a full-time author entrepreneur, I have a mature creative business and I’ve relaxed into the way I do things.  I love to write, but I also want a full and happy, healthy life. I’m still learning and improving as the industry shifts — and I change, too. I still have ambitious creative and financial goals, but I am going about them in a more relaxed way and in this book, I’ll share some of my experiences and tips in the hope that you can discover your relaxed path, too. Mark: One of the most fundamental things you can do in your writing life is look at how you want to spend your time. I think back to the concept of: ‘You're often a reflection of the people you spend the most time with.’ Therefore, typically, your best friend, or perhaps your partner, is often a person you love spending time with. Because there’s something inherently special about spending time with this person who resonates in a meaningful way, and you feel more yourself because you're with them. In many ways, writing, or the path that you are on as a writer, is almost like being on a journey with an invisible partner. You are you. But you are also the writer you. And there’s the two of you traveling down the road of life together. And so that same question arises. What kind of writer-self do you want to spend all your time with? Do you want to spend all your time with a partner that is constantly stressed out or constantly trying to reach deadlines based on somebody else's prescription of what success is?  Or would you rather spend time with a partner who pauses to take a contemplative look at your own life, your own comfort, your own passion and the things that you are willing to commit to? Someone who allows that all to happen in a way that feels natural and comfortable to you. I’m a fan of the latter, of course, because then you can focus on the things you're passionate about and the things you're hopeful about rather than the things you're fearful about and those that bring anxiety and stress into your life. To me, that’s part of being a relaxed author. That underlying acceptance before you start to plan things out. If the writing life is a marathon, not a sprint, then pacing, not rushing, may be the key. We have both seen burnout in the author community. People who have pushed themselves too hard and just couldn’t keep up with the impossible pace they set for themselves. At times, indie authors would wear that stress, that anxiety, that rush to produce more and more, as a badge of honor. It’s fine to be proud of the hard work that you do. It’s fine to be proud of pushing yourself to always do better, and be better. But when you push too far — beyond your limits — you can ultimately do yourself more harm than good. Everyone has their own unique pace—something that they are comfortable with—and one key is to experiment until you find that pace, and you can settle in for the long run. There’s no looking over your shoulder at the other writers. There’s no panicking about the ones outpacing you. You’re in this with yourself. And, of course, with those readers who are anticipating those clearly communicated milestones of your releases.  I think that what we both want for authors is to see them reaching those milestones at their own paces, in their own comfort, delighting in the fact their readers are there cheering them on. Because we’ll be silently cheering them along as well, knowing that they’ve set a pace, making relaxed author lifestyle choices, that will benefit them in the long run. “I’m glad you're writing this book. I know I'm not the only author who wants peace, moments of joy, and to enjoy the journey. Indie publishing is a luxury that I remember not having, I don't want to lose my sense of gratitude.” —Anonymous author from our survey Write what you love Joanna: The pandemic has taught us that life really is short. Memento mori — remember, you will die.  What is the point of spending precious time writing books you don’t want to write?  If we only have a limited amount of time and only have a limited number of books that we can write in a lifetime, then we need to choose to write the books that we love. If I wanted a job doing something I don’t enjoy, then I would have remained in my stressful old career as an IT consultant — when I certainly wasn’t relaxed! Taking that further, if you try to write things you don't love, then you're going to have to read what you don't love as well, which will take more time. I love writing thrillers because that’s what I love to read. Back when I was miserable in my day job, I would go to the bookstore at lunchtime and buy thrillers. I would read them on the train to and from work and during the lunch break. Anything for a few minutes of escape. That’s the same feeling I try to give my readers now. I know the genre inside and out. If I had to write something else, I would have to read and learn that other genre and spend time doing things I don't love. In fact, I don't even know how you can read things you don't enjoy. I only give books a few pages and if they don’t resonate, I stop reading. Life really is too short.  You also need to run your own race and travel your own journey. If you try to write in a genre you are not immersed in, you will always be looking sideways at what other authors are doing, and that can cause comparisonitis — when you compare yourself to others, most often in an unfavorable way. Definitely not relaxing! Writing something you love has many intrinsic rewards other than sales. Writing is a career for many of us, but it's a passion first, and you don't want to feel like you've wasted your time on words you don’t care about. “Write what you know” is terrible advice for a long-term career as at some point, you will run out of what you know. It should be “write what you want to learn about.” When I want to learn about a topic, I write a book on it because that feeds my curiosity and I love book research, it’s how I enjoy spending my time, especially when I travel, which is also part of how I relax.  If you write what you love and make it part of your lifestyle, you will be a far more relaxed author. Mark: It’s common that writers are drawn into storytelling from some combination of passion, curiosity, and unr

  2. DEC 8

    Two Different Approaches To Selling Books Direct With Sacha Black And Joanna Penn

    What does it really take to build a multi-six-figure author business with no advertising? Is running your own warehouse really necessary for direct sales success — or is there a simpler path using print-on-demand that works just as well? In this conversation, Sacha Black and I compare our very different approaches to selling direct, from print on demand to pallets of books, and explore why the right model depends entirely on who you are and what your goals are for your author business. In the intro, Memoir Examples and interviews [Reedsy, The Creative Penn memoir tips]; Written Word Media annual indie author survey results; Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition; Business for Authors webinars; Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant; Camino Portuguese Coastal on My Camino Podcast; Creating while Caring Community with Donn King; The Buried and the Drowned by J.F. Penn Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it’s delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Sacha Black is the author of YA and non-fiction for authors and previously hosted The Rebel Author Podcast. As Ruby Roe, she is a multi-six-figure author of sapphic romantasy. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Two models for selling direct: print on demand vs running your own warehouse. Plus, check out Sacha's solo Rebel Author episode about the details of the warehouse. Cashflow management Kickstarter lessons: pre-launch followers, fulfillment time, and realistic timelines How Sacha built a multi-six-figure business through TikTok with zero ad spend Matching your business model to your personality and skill set Building resilience: staff salaries, SOPs, and planning for when things change You can find Ruby at RubyRoe.co.uk and on TikTok @rubyroeauthor and on Instagram @sachablackauthor Transcript of the interview Joanna: Sacha Black is the author of YA and nonfiction for authors, and previously hosted the Rebel Author podcast. As Ruby Roe, she is a multi-six-figure author of sapphic romance. So welcome back to the show, Sacha. Sacha: Hello. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. Now, just for context, for everybody listening, Sacha has a solo episode on her Rebel Author podcast, last week as we record this, which goes into specific lessons around the warehouse in more detail, including financials. So we are going to come at this from a slightly different angle in our discussion today, which is really about two different ways of doing selling direct. I want us to start though, Sacha, in case people don't know your background, in case they've missed out. Can you just give us a quick recap of your indie author journey, because you haven't just come out of nowhere and jumped into this business and done incredibly well? Sacha's Indie Author Journey Sacha: No, I really haven't. Okay. So 2013, I started writing. So 12 years ago I started writing with the intention to publish, because I was writing before, but not with the intention. 2017 I first self-published and then two years after that, in 2019, I quit the day job. But let me be clear, it wasn't because I was rolling in self-published royalties or commissions or whatever you want to call them. I was barely scraping by. And so those are what I like to call my hustle years because I mean, I still hustle, but it was a different kind. It was grind and hustle. So I did a lot of freelance work. I did a lot of VA work for other authors. I did speaking, I was podcasting, teaching courses, and so on and so forth. 2022, in the summer, I made a realisation that I'd created another job for myself rather than a business that I wanted to grow and thrive in and was loving life and all of that stuff. And so I took a huge risk and I slowed down everything, and I do mean everything. I slowed down the speaking, I slowed down the courses, I slowed down the nonfiction, and — I poured everything into writing what became the first Ruby Roe book. I published that in February 2023. In August/September 2023, I stopped all freelance work. And to be clear, at that point, I also wasn't entirely sure if I was going to be able to pay my bills with Ruby, but I could see that she had the potential there and I was making enough to scrape by. And there's nothing if not a little bit of pressure to make you work hard. So that is when I stopped the freelance. And then in November 2023, so two months later, I started TikTok in earnest. And then a month after that, December the eighth, I went viral. And then what's relevant to this is that two days after that, on December the 10th, I had whipped up my minimum viable Shopify, and that went live. Then roll on, I did more of the same, published more Ruby Roe books. I made a big change to my Shopify. So at that point it was still print on demand Shopify, and then February 2025, I took control and took the reins and rented a warehouse and started fulfilling distribution myself. The Ten-Year Overnight Success Joanna: So great. So really good for people to realise that 2013, you started writing with the intention, like, seriously, I want this to be what I do. And it was 2019 when you quit the day job, but really it was 2023 when you actually started making decent money, right? Sacha: Almost like we all need 10 years. Joanna: Yeah. I mean, it definitely takes time. So I wanted just to set that scene there. And also that you did at least a year of print on demand Shopify before getting your own warehouse. Sacha: Yeah, maybe 14 months. Joanna: Yeah, 14 months. Okay. So we are going to revisit some of these, but I also just want as context, what was your day job so people know? Sacha: So I was a project manager in a local government, quite corporate, quite conservative place. And I played the villain. It was great. I would helicopter into departments and fix them up and look at processes that were failing and restructure things and bring in new software and bits and bobs like that. The Importance of Business Skills Joanna: Yeah. So I think that's important too, because your job was fixing things and looking at processes, and I feel like that is a lot of what you've done and we'll revisit that. Sacha: How did I not realise that?! Joanna: I thought you did know that. No. Well, oh my goodness. And let's just put my business background in context. I'm sure most people have heard it before, but I was an IT consultant for about 13 years, but much of my job was going into businesses and doing process mapping and then doing software to fix that. And also I worked, I'm not an accountant, but I worked in financial accounting departments. So I think this is really important context for people to realise that learning the craft is one thing, but learning business is a completely different game, right? Sacha: Oh, it is. I have learnt — it's wild because I always feel like there's no way you can learn more than in your first year of publishing because everything is brand new. But I genuinely feel like this past 18 months I have learnt as much, if not more, because of the business, because of money, because of all of the other legal regulation type changes in the last 18 months. It's just been exhausting in terms of learning. It's great, but also it is a lot to learn. There is just so much to business. Joanna's Attempts to Talk Sacha Out of the Warehouse Joanna: So that's one thing. Now, I also want to say for context, when you decided to start a warehouse, how much effort did I put into trying to persuade you not to do this? Sacha: Oh my goodness, me. I mean a lot. There were probably two dinners, several coffees, a Zoom. It was like, don't do it. Don't do it. You got me halfway there. So for everybody listening, I went big and I was like, oh, I'm going to buy shipping containers and convert them and put them on a plot of land and all of this stuff. And Joanna very sensibly turned around and was like, hmm, why don't you rent somewhere that you can bail out of if it doesn't work? And I was like, oh yeah, that does sound like a good idea. Joanna: Try it, try it before you really commit. Okay. So let's just again take a step back because the whole point of doing this discussion for me is because you are doing really well and it is amazing what you are doing and what some other people are doing with warehouses. But I also sell direct and in the same way as you used to, which is I use Bookfunnel for ebooks and audiobooks and I use BookVault for print on demand books, and people can also use Lulu. That's another option for people. So you don't have to do direct sales in the way that you've done it. And part of the reason to do this episode was to show people that there are gradations of selling direct. Why Sell Direct? Joanna: But I wanted to go back to the basics around this. Why might people consider selling direct, even in a really simple way, for example, just ebooks from their website, or what might be reasons to sell direct rather than just sending everything to Amazon or other stores? Sacha: I think, well, first of all, it depends on what you want as a business model. For me, I have a similar background to you in that I was very vulnerable when I was in corporate because of redundancies, and so that bred a bit of control freakness inside me. An

    1h 19m

  3. DEC 1

    Writing Free: Romance Author Jennifer Probst On A Long-Term Author Career

    Why do some romance authors build decades-long careers while others vanish after one breakout book? What really separates a throwaway pen name and rapid release strategy from a legacy brand and a body of work you’re proud of? How can you diversify with trad, indie, non-fiction, and Kickstarter without burning out—or selling out your creative freedom? With Jennifer Probst. In the intro, digital ebook signing [BookFunnel]; how to check terms and conditions; Business for Authors 2026 webinars; Music industry and AI music [BBC; The New Publishing Standard]; The Golden Age of Weird. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Jennifer Probst is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over 60 books across different kinds of romance as well as non-fiction for writers. Her latest book is Write Free. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How Jennifer started writing at age 12, fell in love with romance, and persisted through decades of rejection A breakout success — and what happened when it moved to a traditional publisher Traditional vs indie publishing, diversification, and building a long-term, legacy-focused writing career Rapid-release pen names vs slow-burn author brands, and why Jennifer chooses quality and longevity Inspirational non-fiction for writers (Write Naked, Write True, Write Free) Using Kickstarter for special editions, re-releases, courses, and what she’s learned from both successes and mistakes – plus what “writing free” really means in practice How can you ‘write free'? You can find Jennifer at JenniferProbst.com. Transcript of interview with Jennifer Probst Jo: Jennifer Probst is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over 60 books across different kinds of romance as well as non-fiction for writers. Her latest book is Write Free. So welcome, Jennifer. Jennifer: Thanks so much, Joanna. I am kind of fangirling. I'm really excited to be on The Creative Penn podcast. It's kind of a bucket list. Jo: Aw, that's exciting. I reached out to you after your recent Kickstarter, and we are going to come back to that in a minute. First up, take us back in time. Tell us a bit more about how you got into writing and publishing. Jennifer: This one is easy for me. I am one of those rarities. I think that I knew when I was seven that I was going to write. I just didn't know what I was going to write. At 12 years old, and now this will kind of date me in dinosaur era here, there was no internet, no information on how to be a writer, no connections out there. The only game in town was Writer’s Digest. I would go to my library and pore over Writer’s Digest to learn how to be a writer. At 12 years old, all I knew was, “Oh, if I want to be a famous writer, I have to write a book.” So I literally sat down at 12 and wrote my first young adult romance. Of course, I was the star, as we all are when we're young, and I have not stopped since. I always knew, since my dad came home from a library with a box of romance novels and got in trouble with my mum and said, basically, “She's reading everything anyway, just let her read these,” I was gone. From that moment on, I knew that my entire life was going to be about that. So for me, it wasn't the writing. I have written non-stop since I was 12 years old. For me, it was more about making this a career where I can make money, because I think there was a good 30 years where I wrote without a penny to my name. So it was more of a different journey for me. It was more about trying to find my way in the writing world, where everybody said it should be just a hobby, and I believed that it should be something more. Jo: I was literally just going back in my head there to the library I used to go to on my way home from school. Similar, probably early teens, maybe age 14. Going to that section and… I think it was Shirley Conran. Was that Lace? Yes, Lace books. That's literally how we all learned about sex back in the day. Jennifer: All from books. You didn't need parents, you didn't need friends. Amazing. Jo: Oh, those were the days. That must have been the eighties, right? Jennifer: It was the eighties. Yes. Seventies, eighties, but mostly right around in the eighties. Oh, it was so… Jo: I got lost about then because I was reminiscing. I was also the same one in the library, and people didn't really see what you were reading in the corner of the library. So I think that's quite funny. Tell us how you got into being an indie. Jennifer: What had happened is I had this manuscript and it had been shopped around New York for agents and for a bunch of publishers. I kept getting the same exact thing: “I love your voice.” I mean, Joanna, when you talk about papering your wall with rejections, I lived that. The only thing I can say is that when I got my first rejection, I looked at it as a rite of passage that created me as a writer, rather than taking the perspective that it meant I failed. To me, perspective is a really big thing in this career, how you look at things. So that really helped me. But after you get like 75 of them, you're like, “I don't know how much longer I can take of this.” What happened is, it was an interesting story, because I had gone to an RWA conference and I had shopped this everywhere, this book that I just kept coming back to. I kept saying, “I feel like this book could be big.” There was an indie publisher there. They had just started out, it was an indie publisher called Entangled. A lot of my friends were like, “What about Entangled? Why don't you try more digital things or more indie publishers coming up rather than the big traditional ones?” Lo and behold, I sent it out. They loved the book. They decided, in February of 2012, to launch it. It was their big debut. They were kind of competing with Harlequin, but it was going to be a new digital line. It was this new cutting-edge thing. The book went crazy. It went viral. The book was called The Marriage Bargain, and it put me on the map. All of a sudden I was inundated with agents, and the traditional publishers came knocking and they wanted to buy the series. It was everywhere. Then it hit USA Today, and then it spent 26 weeks on The New York Times. Everybody was like, “Wow, you're this overnight sensation.” And I'm like, “Not really!” That was kind of my leeway into everything. We ended up selling that series to Simon & Schuster because that was the smart move for then, because it kind of blew up and an indie publisher at that time knew it was a lot to take on. From then on, my goal was always to do both: to have a traditional contract, to work with indie publishers, and to do my own self-pub. I felt, even back then, the more diversified I am, the more control I have. If one bucket goes bad, I have two other buckets. Jo: Yes, I mean, I always say multiple streams of income. It's so surprising to me that people think that whatever it is that hits big is going to continue. So you obviously experienced there a massive high point, but it doesn't continue. You had all those weeks that were amazing, but then it drops off, right? Jennifer: Oh my goodness, yes. Great story about what happened. So 26 weeks on The New York Times, and it was selling like hotcakes. Then Simon & Schuster took it over and they bumped the price to their usual ebook price, which was, what, $12.99 or something? So it's going from $2.99. The day that they did it, I slid off all the bestseller lists. They were gone, and I lost a lot of control too. With indies, you have a little bit more control. But again, that kind of funnels me into a completely different kind of setup. Traditional is very different from indie. What you touched on, I think, is the biggest thing in the industry right now. When things are hot, it feels like forever. I learned a valuable lesson: it doesn't continue. It just doesn't. Maybe someone like Danielle Steel or some of the other big ones never had to pivot, but I feel like in romance it's very fluid. You have genres hitting big, you have niches hitting big, authors hitting big. Yes, I see some of them stay. I see Emily Henry still staying—maybe that will never pause—but I think for the majority, they find themselves saying, “Okay, that's done now. What's next?” It can either hit or not hit. Does that make sense to you? Do you feel the same? Jo: Yes, and I guess it's not just about the book. It's more about the tactic. You mentioned genres, and they do switch a lot in romance, a lot faster than other genres. In terms of how we do marketing… Now, as we record this, TikTok is still a thing, and we can see maybe generative AI search coming on the horizon and agentic buying. A decade ago it might have been different, more Facebook ads or whatever. Then before that it might have been something else. So there's always things changing along the way. Jennifer: Yes, there definitely is. It is a very oversaturated market. They talk about, I don't know, 2010 to 2016 maybe, as the gold rush, because that was where you could make a lot of money as an indie. Then we saw the total fallout of so many different things. I feel like I've gone through so many ups and downs in the industry. I do love it because the longer you're around, the more you learn how to pivot

    1h 3m

  4. NOV 24

    Writing The Future, And Being More Human In An Age of AI With Jamie Metzl

    How can you write science-based fiction without info-dumping your research? How can you use AI tools in a creative way, while still focusing on a human-first approach? Why is adapting to the fast pace of change so difficult and how can we make the most of this time? Jamie Metzl talks about Superconvergence and more. In the intro, How to avoid author scams [Written Word Media]; Spotify vs Audible audiobook strategy [The New Publishing Standard]; Thoughts on Author Nation and why constraints are important in your author life [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Alchemical History And Beautiful Architecture: Prague with Lisa M Lilly on my Books and Travel Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist, professional speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of sci-fi thrillers and futurist nonfiction books, including the revised and updated edition of Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes How personal history shaped Jamie's fiction writing Writing science-based fiction without info-dumping The super convergence of three revolutions (genetics, biotech, AI) and why we need to understand them holistically Using fiction to explore the human side of genetic engineering, life extension, and robotics Collaborating with GPT-5 as a named co-author How to be a first-rate human rather than a second-rate machine You can find Jamie at JamieMetzl.com. Transcript of interview with Jamie Metzl Jo: Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist, professional speaker, entrepreneur, and the author of sci-fi thrillers and futurist nonfiction books, including the revised and updated edition of Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World. So welcome, Jamie. Jamie: Thank you so much, Jo. Very happy to be here with you. Jo: There is so much we could talk about, but let's start with you telling us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. From History PhD to First Novel Jamie: Well, I think like a lot of writers, I didn't know I was a writer. I was just a kid who loved writing. Actually, just last week I was going through a bunch of boxes from my parents' house and I found my autobiography, which I wrote when I was nine years old. So I've been writing my whole life and loving it. It was always something that was very important to me. When I finished my DPhil, my PhD at Oxford, and my dissertation came out, it just got scooped up by Macmillan in like two minutes. And I thought, “God, that was easy.” That got me started thinking about writing books. I wanted to write a novel based on the same historical period – my PhD was in Southeast Asian history – and I wanted to write a historical novel set in the same period as my dissertation, because I felt like the dissertation had missed the human element of the story I was telling, which was related to the Cambodian genocide and its aftermath. So I wrote what became my first novel, and I thought, “Wow, now I'm a writer.” I thought, “All right, I've already published one book. I'm gonna get this other book out into the world.” And then I ran into the brick wall of: it's really hard to be a writer. It's almost easier to write something than to get it published. I had to learn a ton, and it took nine years from when I started writing that first novel, The Depths of the Sea, to when it finally came out. But it was such a positive experience, especially to have something so personal to me as that story. I'd lived in Cambodia for two years, I’d worked on the Thai-Cambodian border, and I'm the child of a Holocaust survivor. So there was a whole lot that was very emotional for me. That set a pattern for the rest of my life as a writer, at least where, in my nonfiction books, I'm thinking about whatever the issues are that are most important to me. Whether it was that historical book, which was my first book, or Hacking Darwin on the future of human genetic engineering, which was my last book, or Superconvergence, which, as you mentioned in the intro, is my current book. But in every one of those stories, the human element is so deep and so profound. You can get at some of that in nonfiction, but I've also loved exploring those issues in deeper ways in my fiction. So in my more recent novels, Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata, I've looked at the human side of the story of genetic engineering and human life extension. And now my agent has just submitted my new novel, Virtuoso, about the intersection of AI, robotics, and classical music. With all of this, who knows what's the real difference between fiction and nonfiction? We're all humans trying to figure things out on many different levels. Shifting from History to Future Tech Jo: I knew that you were a polymath, someone who's interested in so many things, but the music angle with robotics and AI is fascinating. I do just want to ask you, because I was also at Oxford – what college were you at? Jamie: I was in St. Antony's. Jo: I was at Mansfield, so we were in that slightly smaller, less famous college group, if people don't know. Jamie: You know, but we're small but proud. Jo: Exactly. That's fantastic. You mentioned that you were on the historical side of things at the beginning and now you've moved into technology and also science, because this book Superconvergence has a lot of science. So how did you go from history and the past into science and the future? Biology and Seeing the Future Coming Jamie: It's a great question. I'll start at the end and then back up. A few years ago I was speaking at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is one of the big scientific labs here in the United States. I was a guest of the director and I was speaking to their 300 top scientists. I said to them, “I'm here to speak with you about the future of biology at the invitation of your director, and I'm really excited. But if you hear something wrong, please raise your hand and let me know, because I'm entirely self-taught. The last biology course I took was in 11th grade of high school in Kansas City.” Of course I wouldn't say that if I didn't have a lot of confidence in my process. But in many ways I'm self-taught in the sciences. As you know, Jo, and as all of your listeners know, the foundation of everything is curiosity and then a disciplined process for learning. Even our greatest super-specialists in the world now – whatever their background – the world is changing so fast that if anyone says, “Oh, I have a PhD in physics/chemistry/biology from 30 years ago,” the exact topic they learned 30 years ago is less significant than their process for continuous learning. More specifically, in the 1990s I was working on the National Security Council for President Clinton, which is the president’s foreign policy staff. My then boss and now close friend, Richard Clarke – who became famous as the guy who had tragically predicted 9/11 – used to say that the key to efficacy in Washington and in life is to try to solve problems that other people can't see. For me, almost 30 years ago, I felt to my bones that this intersection of what we now call AI and the nascent genetics revolution and the nascent biotechnology revolution was going to have profound implications for humanity. So I just started obsessively educating myself. When I was ready, I started writing obscure national security articles. Those got a decent amount of attention, so I was invited to testify before the United States Congress. I was speaking out a lot, saying, “Hey, this is a really important story. A lot of people are missing it. Here are the things we should be thinking about for the future.” I wasn't getting the kind of traction that I wanted. I mentioned before that my first book had been this dry Oxford PhD dissertation, and that had led to my first novel. So I thought, why don't I try the same approach again – writing novels to tell this story about the genetics, biotech, and what later became known popularly as the AI revolution? That led to my two near-term sci-fi novels, Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata. On my book tours for those novels, when I explained the underlying science to people in my way, as someone who taught myself, I could see in their eyes that they were recognizing not just that something big was happening, but that they could understand it and feel like they were part of that story. That's what led me to write Hacking Darwin, as I mentioned. That book really unlocked a lot of things. I had essentially predicted the CRISPR babies that were born in China before it happened – down to the specific gene I thought would be targeted, which in fact was the case. After that book was published, Dr. Tedros, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, invited me to join the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, which I did. It was a really great experience and got me thinking a lot about the upside of this revolution and the downside. The Birth of Superconvergence Jamie: I get a lot of wonderful invitations to speak, and I have two basic rules for speaking: Never use notes. Never ever. Never stand behind a podium. Never ever. Because of that, when I speak, my talks tend to migrate. I’d be speaking with peo

    1h 2m

  5. NOV 17

    Lessons Learned From Author Nation 2025 With Joanna Penn

    In early November 2025, I attended and spoke at Author Nation in Las Vegas. It was a fantastic conference for authors at all levels, and in this episode, I share my lessons learned and tips from reflecting on the event. In the intro, scam emails and what to watch out for; Spotify launches Recaps, and how I currently self-publish audiobooks; Successful Self-Publishing 4th Edition free audiobook; My audiobooks on YouTube The Creative Penn / Fiction/memoir audiobooks on JFPennAuthor; 22 ways to grow your author email list [BookBub]; Author Nation with the Wish I’d Known Then Podcast; and Your Author Business Plan on special. Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business, sponsors today's show. Whether it’s delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, and memoir as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. Double down on being human and the importance of connection in person (if possible) Constraints breed creativity What do you need for a long-term sustainable career as an author? How do you want your author business to run? What are your contingency plans for when things don’t go as planned? Money management tips — books and resources here How do you know when to work with a company as part of your author business? How to assess vendors and services. Thoughts from others You can find Author Nation at AuthorNation.live. You can find my books on writing craft and author business in all formats at CreativePennBooks.com, or on your favourite online store, or request at your local bookstore or library. Jo Penn walking the strip, by the luxor; with Mark lefebvre, johnny B. truant & dan wood (d2d), and with sacha black and orna ross, las vegas, nov 2025 Lessons Learned from Author Nation 2025 In early November 2025, I attended Author Nation in Las Vegas along with around 1500 other authors, and lots of vendors. There were about 80 different sessions over four days and a Reader Nation signing and book sales event. The sessions were on different tracks so you could go to basic craft and self-publishing things, or more advanced sessions on author business and mindset. I spoke several times, once as part of a panel on long-term career strategies, once in my own solo session on collaboration with AI, all the things you can use AI for that are not writing, and once in a private meet up for my Patrons.  Congratulations to the Author Nation team for delivering such a fantastic conference! I know how hard everyone worked and it went super well from what I could see. If you’re interested in learning more, just go to https://www.authornation.live/ Here are some of my thoughts from the 2025 conference, but of course, remember, I am a writing conference veteran and have been an author entrepreneur for a long time, so my takeaways will be different to someone who is at a different place in their career.   (1) Double down on being human, and the importance of connection in person (if possible) To be clear, I know this isn’t possible for everyone, because of time or money or health reasons, or caring responsibilities, as Donn’s recent interview illustrated. But if you can, it’s always worth going to conferences in person.  If you attend, organise well in advance. Schedule meetings early, but also leave room for serendipity. Make the most of meeting people at your level; build your network. There were people I hadn’t seen for years at Author Nation, so much elbow bumping, human connection — and LOTS of coffee.While I attended a few sessions, most of my time was back-to-back meetings and chats with other authors and vendors, and we had a great Patreon meet-up with over 100 people.Author conferences are a great way to build relationships, and if you start with people at your level now, over time, you will all grow and change, and people will become successful in different ways, or disappear sometimes. The longer you are in this business, and the more you join in and help others, the more people you get to know and social karma kicks in. Some of those relationships naturally turn into business opportunities, and other author friends will be your support crew over the inevitable challenging years ahead.So if you feel like you don’t have any author friends, or know enough people at your level, then consider booking an in-person conference for 2026. It could be a genre conference, or a broader overall conference like Author Nation, but get away from your screen and do some peopling! As hard as it is, it’s worth it. (2) Constraints breed creativity Drew Davies did the opening keynote, and if you want to be a keynote speaker and get paid the big bucks, then it was a masterclass in professional speaking. I’ve done a lot of speaker training and it was inspiring to watch Drew’s presentation and consider how he used multimedia, how he engaged with different mediums, how he made people laugh, and brought emotion in, as well as deliver a message.If you’re ever in sessions or at events and you want to learn on a different level, consider the person and their skill — or lack of it — instead of the content. You can learn a lot from watching or listening to the person delivering, and how they speak or teach or react to the room.Drew’s content was great too, and he spoke on the Cube of Constraints which can be the catalyst for supercharging your creativity. He had an actual cube too, which he built into a sculpture later, part of his multi-faceted teaching style.In a world of unlimited possibilities, it’s hard to stick to one choice, and especially if you listen to author podcasts like this one, or go to conferences where you ingest a ton of sessions like Author Nation, you will have hundreds of ideas, and you can have popcorn brain with things firing off everywhere.But if you don’t settle into one thing and focus, you might not achieve much, so Drew recommended deliberately constraining your work in 4 ways.  (a) Eliminate the unnecessary What can you stop doing in order to pursue the new thing? If you start something new, kill two things. Kill the easy one, then kill the hard one.When I was writing my first book and trying to exit my day job to become a full-time author, I gave up TV and this was before smartphones and social media, so that wasn’t even a distraction. Giving up TV in the evenings gave me the time I needed to build a new direction. You have to make the time somehow.   (b) Define the outcome What single result defines success? For example, with my first novel, Pentecost, which became Stone of Fire, the goal was to publish it on Amazon by my birthday. I ended up falling short by about a month, but a birthday-related goal is always a good one as it’s so memorable and clear.  (c) Limit your options What unreasonable limitations can you apply to your project? Give it a time limit, and a creative limit. That creative limit is a good one, for example, if you constrain the genre or the number of POV characters in your book, it will make it easier to achieve your goal. (d) Raise the stakes What specifically will happen if you fail? This is a tough one, as it’s so personal. For me, I like achieving goals, and so failing a goal is a big enough stake for me. Some people talk about signing a cheque to a charity they hate or something and sending it off if they fail, but that doesn't motivate me. Whatever floats your boat, but decide what the stakes are. As we know with writing fiction, high stakes are important to keep things moving!  Drew also talked about turning constraints you already have, like time and budget, into positives. This kind of reframing can help you embrace your situation. For example, if you only have 30 minutes per day to write while commuting, well, so be it. Try dictating or typing on your phone, and I know several authors who have written many books during a work commute. Or busy mums who dictate while doing chores. Or again, coming back to Donn’s interview, if you’re a carer, raging against it may not help as much as adapting and changing your creative goals and being more relaxed about time. I’ve embraced my constraints recently as I’m doing this Masters in Death, Religion, and Culture. It’s full-time, so I am doing at least 20 hours a week of study and online lectures and reading on some really interesting topics. I’m writing essays, so I don’t have time or the headspace to write books, too. I’m currently working on three essays — one on natural burial, one on the ethics of using dead bodies to inspire commercial fiction, and one on the depiction of hell in an area of art history. I am clearly collecting ideas for when I am ready to write fiction again, but the constraint of study is focusing my mind on the bare minimum I need to do to keep my author business running and the money coming in. My Books and Travel Podcast is going on hiatus again soon, and I’m going to do fewer interviews here in 2026.  What constraints do you have, and how can you reframe them? Or how can you add constraints rather than giving yourself unlimited possibilities?  (3) What do you need for a long-term sustainable career?  Becca Syme did a talk on sustainability for a long-term career, which tied into the theme of Author Nation, which was ‘Build your best life through writing.’ Becca was on the show recently – Loki is in charge – and she is always worth listening to as she will defin

    1h 20m

  6. NOV 10

    Why Structure Matters More Than You Think. Writing Memoir With Wendy Dale

    Why do so many memoir manuscripts fail to engage readers, even when the writer has lived through extraordinary experiences? What's the hidden code that separates a chronological account of events from a compelling memoir that readers can't put down? How do you know when you're ready to write about trauma, and where's the ethical line between truth and storytelling? With Wendy Dale In the intro, Amazon Kindle Translate, and the Writing Storybundle. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Wendy Dale is a memoir author and teacher, as well as a screenwriter. Today we are talking about The Memoir Engineering System: Make Your First Draft Your Final Draft. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Why memoir is about connected events, not chronological storytelling—and how to transform random experiences into compelling plot The difference between scenes and transitions, and why structure matters in every sentence of your book How to write about trauma and family without crossing ethical lines or damaging relationships Why character arc is actually the easiest part of memoir writing (and what's really difficult) The truth about dialogue, memory, and where to draw the line on fabrication — plus reflections on The Salt Path controversy Whether you can make money from memoir and why marketing matters as much as writing You can find Wendy at GeniusMemoirWriting.com. Transcript of interview with Wendy Dale Joanna: Wendy Dale is a memoir author and teacher, as well as a screenwriter. Today we are talking about The Memoir Engineering System: Make Your First Draft Your Final Draft. So welcome to the show, Wendy. Wendy: Thank you so much for inviting me, Joanna. It's exciting to talk about this topic. Joanna: First up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Wendy: I think I grew up loving books and I always wanted to be a writer when I was a little girl. I really dreamed of being a writer. My mother said, “No, it's just way too hard. So few people have success. Why don't you become an actress?” So I actually moved to Los Angeles when I was 17 to become an actress. I really did not like the film industry at all from an acting perspective. I was studying acting at UCLA and decided I was really going to be a writer. That was when I changed and really felt like I'd found my calling. That was always what I'd wanted to do. So I tried writing a novel at 19 that didn't go so well. But when I was 23 I started working on a memoir. From there, I have worked in writing in all different aspects, but really my first love will always be books. Now having made that decision, I haven't always done the kind of writing that I would always want to do, right? So sometimes I've done ad copywriting, which actually I did rather love. I've done screenwriting, I've done all kinds of writing, not always my first choice of the type of writing I was doing. For the most part, I have made it work though. So being flexible, you can't always get exactly what you want. I didn't say I'm going to only earn my living publishing books. I don't know if that would've been possible, but I have, for the most part, managed to earn my living as a writer. Joanna: How did you get into memoir specifically? Wendy: So I started trying to write this novel at 19, and it was very difficult and I didn't know what I was doing. I thought, well, it would be so much easier to write about my life. Are you laughing, Joanna? Joanna: Yes, sure. Writing a memoir, right? Wendy: So another misguided idea. I thought, oh, memoir would be easy because you don't even have to come up with the plot. You just write down what you lived through. Lots of misconceptions in everything I just said, but that was how I started writing a memoir. Around this time my parents also made this decision that they were going to retire in their forties and take their life savings and move to a developing country. They sold everything. I mean, they really just fled the United States and moved to Honduras with the idea of retiring early. So I went to visit them and I was like, well, this could be something to write about. So that actually wound up being the first chapter of my memoir. Joanna: And you were telling me before you live in Peru, right? Wendy: I do, yes. I've lived in Peru for almost six years now. Joanna: Oh, right. So, why do that? I mean, a lot of people want to travel. What is it that brought you to Peru? Wendy: I lived in Peru when I was a child and really, it sounds kind of strange, but I think deep down I've always had this identity of feeling Peruvian, right? You look at me and Peruvians don't think I am Peruvian, but really, my first memories as a child were growing up in Peru. Coming back here has been really incredible. So I feel very much at home. I've actually lived by this point, almost half my life in Latin America. Not just Peru—Bolivia, other Latin American countries. So, yes, I've lived half my life in the United States, the other half in Latin America. So I really do feel at home here, partly because my first memories were growing up in Peru. Joanna: Well, I think this might segue into why writing memoir is not just “this is what happened,” because I feel like, as you mentioned, one of the misconceptions is almost that it's just an autobiography. Like, this happened, this happened, this happened. As you said there, for example, the fact that you spent half your life in Latin America, half in the USA, to me is immediately like a potential hook into stories about your life that aren't necessarily in order. Talk a bit about that issue of it's not just “this happened, this happened” and how to think about memoir. Wendy: Oh, I'm going to take a deep sigh here because I just think back to writing this memoir and all of the misconceptions I had. Now, I love prose. I just love prose. I love putting words on the page. I think words are so beautiful. Sometimes I just want to eat them. I'm a prose writer. I don't like structure, I don't like plot, and I didn't even realize the importance of plot until I thought I had finished this memoir. So first chapter starts in Honduras. The last chapter ends in Bolivia because by this point my parents had moved to Bolivia, and all the chapters in between are all these different countries that I went to on my own. I'd finished the book, or so I thought, and I started sending it out to agents and really wasn't getting the response I had hoped for. Then finally I got an agent who called me up, and that was really good news, and she said, “You're a really good prose writer.” I was like, yes, I love writing prose. And she says, “But you know nothing about structure.” And I honestly—are you laughing? Joanna: Yes. Wendy: Right, and I remember the words that went through my head. I was like, what is this structure thing she's talking about? I'd never heard the word. So obviously I knew nothing about structure, and that was kind of the beginning of what I guess would become my life's work—really comprehending memoir structure. So that was a long time ago. That was the beginning of the process, but I didn't even understand that plot plays such a huge role in memoir. I just thought you wrote about your life, and I think that is what a lot of people don't understand, right? It's really easy to confuse the memories of your life with thinking that it's plot, and it just isn't. So one thing I tell my clients is you are not writing a chronicle of what you've lived through. You are taking true stories from your life and turning them into art. This is an art form for other people to enjoy. It's true, but you are creating art. It's very different than chronicling your life. It took me a long time to learn that. Joanna: Yes. Let's come back to this word “art,” but first of all, I want us to tackle structure because, okay, I also learned this the hard way. When I wrote my travel memoir, Pilgrimage, I had like over a hundred thousand words of writing, and I just couldn't figure out how the structure of the book could work until I found another book that helped me figure out the structure. Like, there are lots of different types of memoir structures and mine I found a sort of model and then I was like, oh, okay, this is how it works. Talk us through how we can potentially structure a memoir. Even if we're someone like me who might be a discovery writer first, or like you by the sound of it. Wendy: Oh, well, absolutely. So I hate structure, right? And that's why I became an expert in it—in order to make it a lot easier for me to understand. So I am not a planner, right? In fact, there's a line in my memoir about there are two different kinds of travelers. There are planners and there are fun people, right? So I've never been a planner in any aspect of my life. So the fact that I would become this expert in structure is kind of ironic. Let me go back to this idea of structure. So I think when people talk about structure, their first thought is three acts. Or are you doing a dual timeline? How is the big picture? How is your book going to play out? When I use the word structure, I am referring to how structure plays itself out in every sentence of your book. I mean, it's such a critical part of your story. So there's global structure, which is really refe

    54 min

  7. NOV 3

    Creating While Caring With Donn King

    What happens when your creative dreams collide with the demands of caregiving? How do you keep writing when you're caring for someone full-time? Can you still be a creative person when traditional productivity advice simply doesn't work? With Donn King. In the intro, Agatha Christie meets Mr Men [BBC]; Podcast guesting and co-writing [Stark Reflections]; thoughts on pushing your comfort zone; Disrupt Everything and Win – James Patterson. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Donn King is a nonfiction author, college professor, pastor, speaker, and podcast host at The Alignment Show. His latest book is Creating While Caring: Practical Tips to Keep Creating While Caring for a Loved One. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Why traditional writing advice (block time, dedicated space, write daily) doesn't work for caregivers and what to do instead How emotional fatigue whispers “why bother?” and the philosophy that helps push through when writing seems pointless Practical tools and techniques for capturing ideas in stolen moments—from hospital chapels to 7-second voice recordings The painful truth about letting go of deadlines, perfect book launches, and achieving your full potential while caregiving The transition after 22 years: moving Hannah to full-time care and reclaiming creative time while managing complex emotions You can find Donn at DonnKing.com or TheAlignmentShow.com. Transcript of interview with Donn King Joanna: Donn King is a nonfiction author, college professor, pastor, speaker, and podcast host at The Alignment Show, which I've been on twice, which was fantastic. His latest book is Creating While Caring: Practical Tips to Keep Creating While Caring for a Loved One. So welcome to the show, Donn. Donn: Thank you very much, Joanna. It's an honor to be on with you. Joanna: I'm excited to talk about this. Now, first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing. Donn: Well, the short version is that I've always been a writer. People aren't seeing me, but I turned 70 this year. My first story, I think I wrote when I was about 12 years old. I remember writing a science fiction story and I got the characters in such a situation I couldn't figure out what to do with them, and so I wrote, “and then the spaceship blew up. The end.” Not an auspicious start. Then in eighth grade I started working at a newspaper, and in the early years, most of it was newspapers. So that's where I developed, I guess you would say, some discipline. You know, you can't wait on the muse. You've got a three o'clock deadline every day. I did that for a few years. I worked in radio for a few years. I helped to launch one of the first electronic magazines. A lot of people know America Online. I was working with a parallel service that was known as Genie. They published a member's magazine, and I wound up as associate editor for that. We launched electronically as well as in print. Let's see, what else. In the old days I co-authored a textbook. I still have to say traditional publishing, I think of them as third party publishers, but you know, the old fashioned way of doing things. So three books there, one of which is still in print, I think. Then in those early days of blogging and electronic magazines, I wrote freelance for some business magazines, some local publications. It was almost always short form except for that textbook. Then I worked in advertising. I worked for Walmart stores and helped to launch the first five Sam's Wholesale Clubs. So that was with copywriting and such. Then in the most recent years, I have scratched that writing itch quite a bit through blogging and academic writing, helping other people to write. As I mentioned in the current book, I did hit a space of about 10 years there when it was like the well went dry. I think this is worthwhile mentioning for folks out there—there's a difference between writer's block and what I was experiencing. It was just that there was nothing there and I really thought my writing days had ended. Then a friend pushed me to write what became the first book in The Spark Life Chronicles, which is a business parable. It was like the floodgates had opened again after 10 years. What I realized was—I think this is the important part to say for maybe others—I thought that I wasn't writing because I was depressed. It turned out I was depressed because I wasn't writing. Now, I don't mean to suggest that all you have to do to get over depression is to write. I think it more has to do with respecting your core values and what's important to you. Writing has always been so important to me in so many ways that when I wasn't doing that, it wasn't feeding my soul. So that's what led to the depression. So I hope that's helpful. Maybe for somebody out there, they kind of go together, depression and not being able to do anything. But the making yourself take those steps can very well be the first step towards coming out of the depression. I found that to be the case with writing. Joanna: Yes, and I think you're right. I mean, there are seasons of our life. Let's talk about a big season of your life, which is the caregiving. So why write this book about caregiving? And just tell us more about your experience and why this matters to you? Donn: Okay, so a real quick context. Our daughter, who is now 22, she has a very rare chromosomal disorder. It's trisomy 14, mosaic partial. And any medical folks out there are going to be saying, I never heard of that. The one study we could find about it said there were 15 to 20 like her known in the world at any given time. Probably more in third world countries, maybe where they don't have genetic testing available, but it's just very rare. The way it manifests with her is, I guess we would say extreme cerebral palsy. She does not even close her epiglottis when she swallows, for instance. So we were older parents when she came along and I had figured I could change diapers for a couple of years. Well, I've been changing diapers for 22 years, which kind of changed things. So that's where the caregiving came in. Now the why write this book? Honestly, I had been writing—I mentioned the Spark Life Chronicles. I've got two books out in that series, and a third one that was about two thirds of the way through. Then you came on my podcast, and thank you. You're an excellent guest, unsurprisingly. I think it was after we had turned off the recording, we were just talking about my situation and you said, well, that sounds like something that would be useful to talk about on the creative end. In the United States alone, there are 50 million caregivers, unpaid caregivers. Now, I don't know what it is in the rest of the world, but with that many, there must be people who are in a similar situation to me in the sense that they already had some success as a writer or a painter, a sculptor, musician, whatever creative field it might be, and then they suddenly find themselves in this caregiving role. So, yes, that sounds great, we should have a conversation about that. It wasn't until we got off of our conversation that I thought, if we're going to be talking about this on The Creative Penn, and I think there are people out there who need this, I should write a book about it. As you know very well, Joanna, we have tried to schedule this thing like three times because of the caregiving situation. It just points out to me that yes, there is a need for this. So this book kind of jumped the queue. It pushed itself ahead of the other book that I was working on. So now my challenge is to get back into that book. Joanna: Well, I think you've underplayed Hannah's situation and your situation. You mentioned changing diapers there, but I mean, it was pretty hardcore caring all the time, right? This wasn't she would just get on with things during the day. Just tell us a bit more about that, because there are all kinds of spectrums of caregiving. Obviously for some people it might be parents with dementia, for some people it's children like for you or a partner. So just tell us how much of your time were you spending caregiving. Donn: Yes, that's a good way to put it in context. For her first four years of life, we did not have nursing care for her because on paper I made too much money. You know, don't get me started on the system. Joanna: Oh, we all have problems with the system for sure, but I think caregiving is a particularly difficult one for sure. Donn: Oh, yes. When she was four years old, she wound up in the hospital for 58 straight days. The technicality there is that meant the hospital became her legal residence and therefore our income didn't figure into it anymore, and she got the nursing care. Again, to give some quick context, she was hospitalized in her first four years 27 times. Then once we got a nursing agency to help us at home, from age four until age 22, she was hospitalized about another 10 times. So it really slowed down and the average stay was much shorter. So that nursing care was tremendously helpful. I don't know how it is elsewhere in this country, and especially in the state of Tennessee where I live, there is a nursing shortage. So even though she qualified for 168 hours a week—that's 24/7—seldom have we had full coverage. So most recently I wound up taking care

    1h 2m

  8. OCT 27

    Loki Is In Charge. How Authors Can Thrive In A Time Of Transition With Becca Syme

    Why does the publishing industry feel more chaotic than ever, and what can writers do about it? How do you know if you're truly burned out or just creatively empty? When should successful authors start saying no instead of yes to every opportunity? Becca Syme shares her hard-won wisdom about navigating burnout, embracing unpredictability, and knowing what to quit (and what not to quit) in your writing career. In the intro, Frankfurt Book Fair AI and audio [Audible, Publishers Weekly]; Free Reads by BookBub; Halloween book sale; Writing Storybundle; Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it’s delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Becca Syme is an author, coach, and creator of the Better Faster Academy. She is a USA Today bestselling author of small town romance and cozy mystery, and also writes the Dear Writer series of non-fiction books. She's also the host of the QuitCast Podcast. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.  Show Notes Identifying burnout vs. creative blocks. How long symptoms last and checking for biological/life transition causes first. The transition from saying yes to saying no. Learning when you've reached the point where selectivity becomes essential for sustainability “Loki is in charge.” Why publishing is unpredictable and when to stop analyzing what went wrong. Increased chaos or increased visibility. Whether publishing really has more unpredictability now or we're just seeing it more clearly. What to quit doing. Book signings as investments and judging other authors online, plus the dangers of social media dysregulation. What not to quit. Writing itself and maintaining hope for the future, regardless of industry changes. You can find Becca at betterfasteracademy.com/links. Transcript of Interview with Becca Syme Joanna: Becca Syme is an author, coach, and creator of the Better Faster Academy. She is a USA Today bestselling author of small town romance and cozy mystery, and also writes the Dear Writer series of non-fiction books. She's also the host of the QuitCast Podcast. So welcome back to the show, Becca. Becca: Thank you so much for having me again. I love being here. Joanna: You were last on the show in March 2024, so I guess around 18 months now. Give us an update. What has changed in your writing and your author business? Becca: So I've started writing more fiction again. I think the last time I was here I was doing almost zero fiction writing, just because I was so busy. And I went through burnout, which is not going to surprise anyone. I think we've all been there. One of the things I decided as a post-burnout goal was to try to write fiction every day. I don't every single day do it, but I do it often enough that it feels like I'm doing it every day. So I'm happy about that. Joanna: That's interesting because you hear people saying, “Oh, I've got a block around writing fiction” or something. How do people know if they are in burnout versus they are just empty, or perhaps they have other reasons? How do people tell where they are and the reason why they can't write? Becca: How long it lasts is usually the biggest indicator for me. Because if you're empty and you try to fill again, right? Like, let's go reading, let's go watching, and it doesn't come back, then it's more likely to be burnout. Burnout itself, like the kind of extreme burnout that we hear about where you can't get up off the bathroom floor, that kind of thing, will be real evident when you're in what we call “all systems burnout.” Usually a burnout that is a creative burnout or a physical or emotional burnout can have other potential causes. So I would always go looking for things like, “Am I in perimenopause?” I joke with people, “Is it burnout or am I in perimenopause?” because it feels the same. So I always want to check biological first, or if I'm in a life transition, that's often the reason why I'm more blocked. So I want to look outside at environmental first to see if there's a cause. If there is, then I want the cause to get dealt with. But it's usually time. How long is it lasting? Joanna: How long does it last? I think that's so important. It seems like people blame writing before anything else. I had a friend who had a death in the family and was like, “Oh, I just can't write.” And I'm like, “Give it six months.” Grieving is another reason. There are lots of reasons why your whole self might be like, “Now's not the time to write a cozy mystery” or whatever. Becca: I don't think we consider enough how different it is to be a creative person versus other things you might do for work. If I'm grieving, I can probably still show up to my Starbucks job and do a reasonable job of making coffee most of the time, right? So I may not be as affected in my ability to go to the grocery store or my ability to paint houses or something. But all of our work comes from our brain, so anything that impacts our cognition, anything that impacts our processing time. Honestly, if the stakes go up even just a little bit in our real life, there's a likelihood that it's going to impact our creativity to a point where sometimes, “I'm afraid I might lose my job,” then all of a sudden the creativity dries up and goes away. Or “I'm afraid of what might happen if…” and then insert a million things here that can be making me feel afraid. Creativity can just go away because, again, it's Maslow's hierarchy, right? I know it's not 100% one layer at a time all the time, but if your base level foundation is being attacked, if you don't know for sure how you're going to make your mortgage next month, it's going to be real hard to reach creative freedom if you're worried about stuff. Joanna: Thinking about ourselves as whole people rather than like you can just turn on the writing even if everything else is kind of crazy. I've got to ask you, Becca, since you are a coach, you're a very wise person, you've been on this show lots, and you've helped me, helped many people that you coach, and you've talked about avoiding burnout before— How on earth did you end up in burnout? Becca: So some of it is high stakes, right? It's not uncommon for people when they see a lot of success in their business to be overwhelmed by all the things that there are to do, to have a hard time delegating. It's kind of in the phases of a business and the way businesses grow. There's a phase that is like massive growth. Infrastructure causes massive growth. Then if you don't adapt to that easily or quickly by either offloading things off your plate or lowering the financial stakes, a lot of people will get burned out when they have to make all of these decisions about money. Money stresses them out. So you have high stakes, that means the stress goes up, which means it costs me more energy to do things that I would have done previously with less energy. It can kind of sneak up on you if you're not conscious about it all the time. Then, of course, you have to quit stuff. You would think being the quit coach, I would be really great at that, but it's really hard to quit something that has been good or beneficial, even if it is having a high cost. Joanna: I mean, obviously being a coach, you give a lot of yourself to other people. I just can't imagine how hard that is. I mean, one of the reasons I do this podcast is I hope to help people through the show, but it's not the intensity that coaches like yourself do. How did you then manage to adapt and change things so that now you are out of burnout again? Becca: I'm probably doing more similar things to what you've been doing, which is trying to create more what I would call large scale, right? Like doing more podcast episodes. I'm trying to travel less and be really intentional about the places I travel being worth it for my energy and time. Then I'm also doing more volume. So I'm trying to do more books, more posts, more social media time, things that don't cost me one-on-one. For a long time and probably the last time I was here, I was at maybe not the height, but pretty close to the height. I was coaching eight to ten hours a day, every day sometimes. Joanna: Oh my goodness. Becca: Yes, so I was doing super high volume coaching and then also traveling a lot at the same time. I would travel two times a month for conference speaking sometimes, and every single month of the year. I never really had a break from it, but that was again, my own choice. Nobody forced me to do it. So I had to quit saying yes to everything, which was very difficult. Then I had to quit saying yes to all coaching. I had to do things like raise my coaching prices, but then I also have to create the value in other places. So go back to making the QuitCast again, start producing more non-fiction books, doing more high volume courses like small free courses and stuff like that. So I'm doing similar high volume things, but it is a transition for me who's used to being accessible and reachable and able to help people one-on-one a lot. It's been a challenge. Joanna: I get that. I guess for people listening, I mean, there's a point in your career, whatever that is, where you do have to say yes a lot. Then there's a point where you have to start saying no more. How do people figure out when the hell that is? Is it like you say, at the point of overwhelm,

    1h 5m
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