# Leaving Social Media, Writing Iconic Characters, and Building Trust With Claire Taylor

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** The Creative Penn
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGlK4I_6UE0
- **Дата:** 12.01.2026
- **Длительность:** 1:07:00
- **Просмотры:** 1,106
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/18226

## Описание

How can you build iconic characters that your readers want to keep coming back to? How can you be the kind of creator that readers trust, even without social media? With Claire Taylor

In the intro, Dan Brown talks writing and publishing [Tetragrammaton (https://www.tetragrammaton.com/content/dan-brown) ]; 
Design Rules That Make or Break a Book [Self-Publishing Advice (https://selfpublishingadvice.org/podcast-design-rules/) ]; 
Amazon’s DRM change [Kindlepreneur (https://kindlepreneur.com/amazon-drm-epub-downloads/) ]; Show me the money [Rachael Herron (http://www.howdoyouwrite.net/episodes/542) ]; AI bible translation [Wycliffe (https://wycliffe.net/2025/06/20/the-impact-of-ai-on-bible-translation-opportunities-and-challenges/) , Pope Leo tweet (https://x.com/Pontifex/status/1986776900811837915?s=20) ]. Plus, Business for Authors 24 Jan webinar (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/business-for-authors-turn-your-writing-into-a-thriving-creative-business-tickets-1976009109439?aff=oddtdtcrea

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration, and information on writing, craft, and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at the creativepen. com. And that's pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 845 of the podcast and it is Friday the 9th of January 2026 as I record this at the time of year when you keep writing the wrong year on things. I don't know about you I keep doing that. Anyway, in today's show I'm talking to Cla Taylor about leaving social media, writing iconic characters, and building trust. So that's coming up in the interview section. in writing and publishing. And first today on craft, an interview with Dan Brown on Rick Rubin's Tetra Grammaton podcast. Now, even if you don't read Dan Brown's thrillers like I do, he is one of the bestselling authors in the world since the Da Vinci Code. So, it's worth a listen. So, a few interesting things. They talk about how even massive bestsellers can start with failure. Dan Brown's first three novels, Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons, and Deception Point were commercial failures. And he talks a bit about the publishing industry where the difference between a flop and a hit is often internal politics. And he said that Angels and Demons failed partly because the editor who acquired it was fired, leaving the book with no internal champion or marketing budget. And I've heard this happen to so many authors. I didn't know it had happened to Dan Brown, but there you go. And then the Da Vinci Code succeeded because the new publisher put substantial financial resources behind it. And then of course when it was released, when the Da Vinci Code came out, the book came out, the Vatican told people not to read it. And the churches talked about calling it lies and everything getting banned by the Vatican. It's the best publicity. And I believe since then, they just don't comment on controversial books because obviously it just attracts more attention. Now, I was also shocked in the interview because he says, "I don't read fiction. I read all the time, but I only read non-fiction. I like to learn. And I feel like the fiction I want to read is fiction that informs me about the real world. " And when you're a creative person, all you have to guide yourself is your taste. You write the novel you want to read. You mix the song you want to hear. I write the kind of novel I want to read, which I found hilarious because he doesn't read novels. Now, I actually found this a bit devastating because I've always said to people, "Well, you can't write fiction if you don't read fiction. " I just can't imagine not reading fiction. I read fiction pretty much every day. We do watch some TV together, me and Jonathan, my husband, and then we head for bed as such. But I will always read, you know, 30 minutes, an hour sometimes every night, some kind of fiction. That's just what I do as part of my relaxing in the evening. And so yeah, I just this was kind of stunning to me. But yeah, having read all of Dan Brown's books, I actually think you can tell this because they are packed with information. And the story is sometimes feels like it's constructed around the information he wants you to know. Now, I love learning, so this actually suits me, but it makes more sense sort of examining his books. So I think I'm going to have to eat my words and say, I guess you don't have to read fiction to write fiction. I just don't understand why you wouldn't. Also, Dan Brown's health regime says, "I really believe there's a connection between mind and body. I work hard to stay in shape. I've got an antique hourglass on my desk and every hour I stop and do push-ups or sit-ups or stretching just to keep the blood moving because I will often write six, seven, or eight hours a day. And you just need to know your heart rate can almost stop if you're at your desk the whole time. So yes, I totally agree with that and a reminder to do some exercise. I'm right now I'm standing up. I have a stand sit desk and when I'm edit I'm editing at the moment, editing Bones of the Deep and I often walk down to my local cafe. I do a lot I do most of my writing in my home office, but I do all my editing at a local cafe. And so by the time I walk down and do some and then walk back, it's a few kilometers. Although today, as I'm recording this, we've got a storm here in the UK. So, I'm getting ready to bundle up in my super warm, super waterproof stuff and my backpack with a backpack cover with my manuscript in cuz I print it out and I edit in uh by hand. But yeah, really is awful weather right now. Anyway, check

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

out Dan Brown on the Tetra Grammaton podcast and lots of other interesting interviews on there. And of course, if you enjoy Dan Brown's books, you might enjoy my arcane thrillers, which do have some interesting information behind them, but I believe are still mostly fiction or stories. You can also read them as standalone. So, yes, that is Tetro Grammaton. On publishing, self-publishing advice has an episode which you can also read about book design. It's called design rules that make or break a book with Matty Drimple and Sam Pierce. And since one of the trends in 2026 is more beautiful books, yes, let's all make more beautiful things in the world, it is definitely worth checking out. And some of the tips include prioritizing readability as an emotional experience, helping readers sort of instinctively judge a book. You know, you get a feeling about the quality of the book from physical product. And even if readers don't understand typography or design, there is a feeling that you get from good design on the external book, but also the internal. So font size. This is one of my pet hates and I've been feeling it a lot with the degree I'm doing, the masters I'm doing because I'm reading a lot of academic works and boy oh boy, some of them have just done tiny font size in books with tiny margins and hardly any white space, extremely hard to read. So, please let your text breathe a bit more. Don't have too small a font size or margin size. That's just old school academic and yeah, not good for readers. In terms of fonts, readers and algorithms expect specific design cues for different genres. So, if it is a curly, beautiful, flowing font, it's probably romance. It might be historical. And there's more sort of angular futuristic styles for science fiction. Non-fiction usually is more business-like, that kind of thing. So if you try and do that differently, so put a historic font on a technothriller, it's just not going to work because people instinctively know what fonts mean, even if they don't really understand why they feel that way. Also, use stylesheets, particularly for non-fiction, I think, to en ensure consistency around chapter headings, subheadings, bullet points, all of this. Like there's so much around the professionalism of a print book. You can be a proud indie author and still want to have a book that is as good or better quality than traditional publishing. And of course, adopt a publishers's mindset. As authors, of course, we're writing for ourselves, but publishing is for the reader. Every design decision should be made in the interest of the reader's experience. And also, I would just add on that. Yes, it is also for you. I love love having my hardback, beautiful foiled, sprayed edges, hardback books. And one of the reasons that I may try and just do my entire backlist in beautiful hardbacks is for my own personal sort of pride, but also people do like buying those. So I think we can blend our own choices with what readers want. But we are lucky. I think we're really lucky at this point to have companies like Book Vault doing this real custom, bespoke, beautiful books. And I think there'll be more of these companies arriving and we can just do really cool, beautiful things. So, let's do that. That is the self-publishing with Ally podcast or self-publishing advice. org. Links in the show notes as ever. Then on Amazon's DRM change, which you have probably had an email about if you are publishing on Amazon KDP, Kindle Prneur has an extensive article. So, please check that out because it's very extensive. I mean, I personally I've never used DRM, which is digital rights management. It's like a checkbox. It basically locks up the format. Some people think having it on somehow stops piracy, but pirates will be pirates and I focus on real readers. So, I've never used it on any platform. So, Amazon's change doesn't bother me at all, but I know it bothers some people. So, check out the Kindlepreneur article around Amazon DRM and the downloads there. from the article. Starting January the 20th, 2026, Amazon will allow verified purchasers to download EPUB and PDF files for certain Kindle books. This applies only to DRM free books published through KDP. Amazon isn't removing DRM and authors aren't losing control over their titles. But for authors who publish without DRM like me, this update introduces a decision point. One that weighs reader convenience against the easier redistribution that comes with downloadable files. Yes. So this may make piracy easier, but to be fair, everything I've ever done has been pirated. Like people just do this stuff.

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

I just don't think that any kind of digital lock works. So, my preference is to focus on the readers who truly want to support me, the readers who are happy to pay for their borrows or use the library or buy books in all formats. Like, I choose to focus on the positive side of buyers and customers and readers and fans and all that rather than worrying about the negative side. So yeah, that's my opinion, but you will have your opinion. So yes, before the 20th of January, go decide what you want to do and make those changes if you want to change them. And link to the Kindlepreneur article in the notes. Then also still on author business things, Rachel Heron shares her annual Show Me the Money episode, which is an honest look at how a year as a full-time author entrepreneur does. Now, like me, Rachel has fiction and non-fiction parts to her business and also teachers. And the bulk of her income did come from teaching and coaching, all writing related. But this is so important because even if you have lots of books and lots of experience, some years book income is down. It is not always up and to the right. Rachel even says, "I have been doing this gig for 20 years, and I still have to set myself minimum viable goals. ignore the critic's editorial voice. I can't fight with it. I will lose. I have to ignore it and do the work. And yes, so I'm at 20 years as well with Rachel. So yeah, I get it. Long-term authors have an inner voice criticizing. So in terms of her books, Rachel was very pleased to essentially have generated passive income from her backlist. I don't think it's passive income because Rachel podcasts every week and that always brings people in somehow. but she earned over $16,000 US from self-published books despite giving them no support, no interest, and no ad spend at all. So, she described this as the backlist chugging Merrily along. And compared to traditional publishing books, which only made her $1,400 because she didn't sell a book to traditional publishing last year. And I wanted to mention this because it's so important to consider. Traditional publishing is completely different in terms of how the money comes. you'll get a bigger payment hopefully and then you may never get any more payments or it might be split into three and then you might not get royalties or you might get tiny royalties in the future but it there's usually some more spikes and then it might disappear whereas indie is less of a big spike but more consistency over time because you have the control of that you can always do some promotion so I think that's really interesting to consider if you are someone who does both indie and traditional publishing is how differently things are in terms of the cash flow. In terms of a mistake, Rachel admits she took a financial hit by removing a knitting romance series out of KU. She was intending to sell the books directly on Shopify, but she did not get the Shopify store done or drive traffic to it. So, she lost the income without replacing it with direct sales. So, I would say the very clear choice here is if you're going to do that, remember to set things up somewhere else. you don't need to turn off the KU stuff until you're ready to turn on the new stream of income. So, I'm not sure what she's going to do with that this year, but if you do want to build up Shopify there, build it all and then like at the last minute turn it off. That's what I would do. I also love that Rachel fesses up. She says, "I was just faffing around, not picking a goal, not setting a deadline. I had a lovely year, but I don't know where it went and I don't have much to show for it. " She does, though. She's done really, really well. But she says, "It feels like I ate a big cherry cake for 2025. " That's what I have got to show for it. Now, sometimes you need a big cherry cake of a year, and Rachel is delightful to listen to and clearly just had a good time and still made amazing money for a cherry cake of the year. I definitely feel like I need a cherry cake of a year at some point, but not this year. At least I'm not planning it to be. So, I think it's really good to recognize when you focused on other things and had a cherry cake of a year. I think that might become a new phrase. So then you can accept lower income versus if you've really pushed super if Rachel had pushed hard hard hard hard all year and still felt like she didn't get the money back that's when you need to really think about okay so what am I wasting my time and money on these are all the things we have to consider about what works what doesn't in our lives and our author businesses lots of other interesting things in that episode so head on over to Ink in your veins podcast and have a listen to Rachel that's ink in your veins — on AI things. I mentioned lots on AI last week, but a listener sent me a press release from Wickliffe who

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00]

published Bibles amongst other things. Now remember that although I'm not a Christian, I have a masters in theology and I'm currently studying for another masters in death, religion, and culture. So I'm pretty much immersed in all things religion. Much of my fiction writing in particular has a lot of elements of that and yeah I have a deep interest in religion particularly Christianity and also AI. So this hits on all levels. The article is the impact of AI on Bible translation opportunities and challenges. It's a really wellthoughtout essay from a translator and linguist who's also been working with AI for many years and specializes in Bible translation. and of course is a Christian. It goes into the details of how the technology works and then the author says when AI handles simple repetitive drafting decisions, translation efficiency increases substantially. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that humans should retain final authority over highle decisions, particularly those involving exugesis and theological nuance. As AI capabilities rapidly advance, we must resist the misconception that AI can independently complete Bible translation, the essential characteristic of Bible translation is its spiritual dimension, a process guided by the Holy Spirit through prayer. We must vigilantly preserve the spiritual aspect amid technological advancement. It ends, by carefully balancing technological innovation with human expertise and spiritual sensitivity, Bible translation can harness AI's powerful capabilities while maintaining translation fidelity. Now, whatever you believe, I love the idea of balancing AI usage with real humanity. Whether that is a creative spark or a spiritual element or if you think it's the Holy Spirit, whatever that is, of course, I'm a big user of AI tools, but I am absolutely not a one-click output person. I think we have to keep these elements of the things that are truly human. And so I wanted to mention that because I loved this embracing of technology but also the balance of spirituality. And I also I was going to share this last year but I didn't at the time cuz I just thought it didn't really fit. But I think it fits now because in 2025 Pope Leo went viral for a tweet on X. Now you might have your feelings about X but it is absolutely the platform for people who use AI tools. lots shared and the at Pontifax handle which is Pope Leo's or presumably his team is extremely active on X and so this is at Pontifax and his tweet that went viral is as follows. Technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. It carries an ethical and spiritual weight. For every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The church therefore calls all builders of AI to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life. I actually printed this in my photo album for the year. I do a photo album and I just did it for 2025. And I often print out tweets or quotes or things that I have been affected by. And again, I love this because it blends both. It blends. It calls for builders of AI to develop systems. So it is embracing technology, but also obviously technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. So creativity through technology is also encouraged. But it carries an ethical and spiritual weight with every design choice expressing a vision of humanity. So again, I love both of these things and whatever you think, whatever you come from, what spiritual tradition, religious tradition, I hope you find that interesting, the sort of encouragement towards technological innovation, the use of these tools, but also weighing everything with this uh spiritual side, whatever you might call that, the spark of humanity, the spark of creativity. But yeah, I love that. Made me think, that's for sure. I'll link to that tweet and the Wickliffe article in the show notes. Then in personal news, I have been finalizing my webinar deck for business for authors. And I wanted to mention this because I have been preparing it over Christmas. I've been doing all this stuff. And literally this week, I threw it all out and started again. This is so what happened. So I'm a intuitive discovery writer as

### Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00) [20:00]

long-term listeners will know. I so what happens is I tend to overcreate or I will sort of do this and I had this huge chaotic deck with so much I wanted to say and then what happens is at some point and I'm mulling it over and thinking about it winnowing it down trying different angles and then at some point and this happens with my books as well there's this breakthrough moment where everything crystallizes and I kind of settle on one thing that encompasses the whole situation the whole book the whole deck or whatever So thankfully that happened earlier this week and I rejigged the whole deck based on essentially a process flow diagram that uh I was a business consultant before I was a full-time author entrepreneur. So process flow diagrams were my life and when I did this process flow diagram everything fell into place. So I'm really happy with the webinar now and which is good because as this goes out the first webinar will have happened and I'm recording this the day before but by the time this goes out the first webinar happened you can still join me Saturday 24th of January is the next business for authors webinar. So if you want to transform your author business in 2026 come and join me live. You can get the replay if you buy a ticket and the slides and other material. So, the links are at the creativepen. com/live live. Patrons get 25% discount. So, check the Patreon before you book. I've also been working on Bones of the Deep. And in fact, as soon as I finish recording this, I'm heading back down to the cafe to do some more editing. It is also quite chaotic and readers of my fiction will not be surprised to know there is a storm. Of course, there's a storm. It set out on the ocean between Fiji and Vanuati, a route I sailed in 1999. And so there was no storm, but my fiction always has a storm of some kind. So the characters are in flux. It is a thriller. It is so much fun. I'm really enjoying it. I have a bit of a hard deadline because my luckily the academic year starts quite late. So I've got a couple more weeks before I be deep into the masters, but I need to get it to Kristen, my editor, then. It's so much fun. Sort of half editing, half brainstorming and writing. My first edit is the real hardcore structural redesign. So, my handwritten notes all over my pages and arrows going insert this here, do this, do that. So, it's really fun. And if you want to know more, check out the Kickstarter landing page at jfpen. com/bones. that will be going out in April at the moment, I think. Yeah. It's so funny, isn't it? How you have to think these months and months ahead, right? Thank you for all your emails and comments and photos this week. Lots of people commenting on my insights for the years ahead. Vicky St. Clair on YouTube said, "Excellent and useful. You make it so much easier to keep a breast of rapidly moving changes. " Thank you. I appreciate that. And Albert said, "This is the most informative and thoughtprovoking essay I have read so far. " And I loved getting that because I always obviously that my show notes are essentially for the solo episodes. I do I write everything first and then I narrate what I've written. And of course, if you're listening, you do get the sort of extra bits and bobs that I put in as I read, but there's always a transcript of the main section of the show on the show notes. So, nice to know people still reading as well as listening. And Saskia also said, "I've just listened, but I'm going to have to go over the written transcript because there was so much I want to pull out. Definitely helpful in getting my strategy together for 2026. " Brilliant. You can leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com or on the YouTube channel. You can email me, send me pictures of where you're listening or your thoughts or comments or your favorite cemetery, crypt or churchyard. Joanna@thecreativepen. com. I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, who I use for my ebook and audiobook delivery to readers, for my Kickstarters, for my Shopify store, and also for my free ebooks. So would you rather spend your time writing or tech supporting your readers who want to get your books and audio books onto their devices? That is now a solved problem. You write the books. Bookfunnel handles delivering them to readers. And I just uh jump in here. If you haven't been around a long time, you won't really know how big a deal this used to be. Essentially, we just used to spend so much time in customer support. And Bookfunnel did solve this problem. So whether you're offering a free short story or exclusive content to grow your

### Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00) [25:00]

list or selling ebooks and audiobooks direct, BookFunnel makes it simple. Your readers get their book instantly. You get happy readers, grow your subscriber list, and no one has to troubleshoot broken links or help Aunt Carol get her books onto her new e-reader or phone. That's the other thing. So many different kinds of phones and all of this. Thousands of authors use BookFunnel to deliver books because it works. No tech headaches, no lost subscribers, no can you resend that link. It definitely takes away the customer support headache. Ready to grow your list the easy way? Start at bookfunnel. com/thecreativepen. That's bookfunnel. com/thecreativepen. So, this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription, and [clears throat] editing. But my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community at patreon. com/thecreative pen. Thanks to the 23 new patrons who've joined in the last week. And thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing craft, author, business tutorials on AI. This week, I shared my prompt and some of the responses on how to use AI in the intuitive discovery writing process. Some people seem to think you need to be like a robot to work with these AI tools, but you don't. You can be chaotic like me and enjoy sparking off another brain, even if it's digital. So, I shared that this week. Patrons also get 25% discount for the business for authors webinar and my other webinars as I do them. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So, if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon. com. po n. com/thecreativepen. Right, let's get into the interview. Cla Taylor is a humor and mystery author, the owner of FFS Media, and a certified enagram coach. She teaches authors to write stronger stories and build sustainable careers at liberatedwriter. com. And her latest book is Write Iconic Characters: Unlocking the Core Motivations that fuel unforgettable stories. So, welcome back to the show, Cla. — Thank you so much for having me back. I'm excited to be here. — No, it's great to have you back on the show now. It was March 2024 when you were last on the show. So, almost two years as this goes out. So, give us a bit of an update. How has your writing craft and your author business changed in that time? — Well, one of the things I've been focusing on with my own like fiction craft is deconstructing rules of how a story should be. That's just been a sort of hobby focus of mine. Like all the story structure books aren't law, right? That's why there's so many of them. They're all kinds of suggestions, frameworks. They're trying to quantify humans innate ability to understand a story. So, I'm trying to remember more that I already know what a story is. And all I have to do as an author is to keep the reader's attention from start to finish and leave them the way I hope to leave them. So, as far as craft, that's kind of been my focus. And then with author business, I've made some big shifts. I left social media earlier this year and I've been looking more toward just one-on-one coaching, networking. I did this craftbased Kickstarter. So, I've been f I had been focusing a lot on career and now I'm sort of creating more content around using the anagram for writing craft. So, there's been a lot of transition since 2024 for me. — Well, I think it's so important. And obviously we're going to get into your book in more detail, but I do think it's important for people to hear about our pivots cuz I haven't spoken to you for a while, but I started a master's degree uh a few months back. So I'm doing like a full-time masters alongside everything else. And so I've kind of put down book writing and I'm doing essay writing and academic writing. It's like this is quite different. And it sounds like what you're doing is different too. But one thing I know will have perked up people's ears is the I left social media. Tell us a bit more about that. — Yeah, I mean this was a move that I could kind of feel coming for a while. Like I just I didn't like what it did to my attention and even when I wasn't on it there was almost like a hangover of being on it where my attention just did not feel as sharp and focused as it used to be back before. or social media became what it was or what it is. And I was just asking the questions of what is lost if I leave, what is gained if I leave? And really looking at what is social media doing for me today? Because I think sometimes we will hold on to what it was doing for us and try to keep getting

### Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00) [30:00]

squeezing out more and more of what it was. But it has changed so much. you know, there's almost no places where there's sufficient organic reach — and it's all paytoplay and you can see that paytoplay going up in price and I just I looked at the numbers for my business. My Kickstarter was a great place to look because they track so much traffic sources and I was like, "Okay, that's how much I'm getting from social media when I advertise and promote my projects. Can I let that go to get my attention back and to make my life feel more settled? And I decided, yeah, I can. — Yeah. There's some things money can't buy. So, well, that is the thing. Sometimes it's not about the money, but in terms of I like your question, what is lost and what is gained? You said that it's only paytoplay and there's no organic reach. I think there is what some people don't pay to play but they are able to play the game of whatever. So Tik Tok for example you might not have to pay money yet but you do have to play their game. pay with your time — rather than money. So I don't I agree with you. I don't think there's anywhere that you can literally just like post something and it actually hits the people who follow you. — Right. Exactly. And I mean, yeah, Tik Tok currently, if you really play the game, sometimes you'll be picked, right? Um, but that pick me energy is not really my jam. And also, you know, we can see the trend, right? This won't last. It's organic for now. You can play the game for now, but Tik Tok would be crazy not to change it so that they make more money off that. So, eventually everything becomes paytoplay. And I think so just Tik Tok is fun but for me it's addictive and I took it off my phone years ago cuz I just I would do the infinite scroll on Tik Tok. There's so much candy there and then I would wake up the next morning just with my mood not where I wanted it to be, energy low. I just really saw a correlation. And so yeah, I was like I'm not the person to pay to play or to play the game here. And I'm not even convinced that the paytoplay on certain social media networks is even legit anymore. So, cuz I'm like, well, who's holding them accountable for tracking all of this? But you can kind of see the correlation your sales. And anyway, it just wasn't for me. And my life is I feel so much better on a daily basis off of it. So, that's definitely something I have not regretted even for a second. — Yeah. Well, and I'm sorry to keep on about this, but I think this is great because this is going out in January 2026 and there will be lots of people who are examining social media. It's like one of those things that everyone examines, right? Every year pretty much. The other thing just on that, so I think I mean you're a very self-aware person and you spend a lot of time thinking about these things and stopping and thinking is such a an important part of it. But the big question then is, and I know one of the reasons people don't want to come off social media is they're afraid that they don't know how else to market. So, how else how are you marketing if you're not using social media? — So, I have over time, so I didn't just leave social media overnight. I've been adjusting, transitioning, preparing my business and that sort of thing mentally, emotionally for probably a year. And so I still market to my list and I have started a Substack that I think fits more of how my brain works. So I guess Substack may be considered social media by some people. It's got the new feed. Yeah. But it's much more like blogging and it's like a blogging where you can get discovered — and so I've been doing that. Also, you get to have access to all of the emails of your subscribers which is important to me to not be building on something that I can't take with me. And so I've been doing more long form stuff and that seems to keep my core audience because I have plenty of people subscribed. I have people who continue to come back and see me and work with me and tell their friends and word of mouth has always been how my business best markets — and so just because it's hard to describe the benefits sometimes to people of what I do. And so for me that I'm doing that and then I'm transitioning my book selling to more local — because — in person — in person and local and networking and just telling more people that I'm an author and working with my lists, my existing email lists. — Yeah. And I think at the end of the day it does come back to the email list, right? Um and I think this is actually one of the benefits of selling direct if people are using Shopify or PayHip or whatever or locally or whatever. if you cuz you can build your email list. Like every person you funnel into sort of selling that way, you get their data whereas all the years of kind of all the

### Segment 8 (35:00 - 40:00) [35:00]

things we did to get people to go to Amazon and we didn't get their emails and stuff. So yeah, it's so interesting where we are in the author business. Okay, so we'll come back to some of these things, but let's get into the book and what you do. So obviously what underpins the book is the enagram. So just remind us what the enog is and why you incorporate it into so much of your work and why you find it resonates so much. Yeah, the enog is a framework that describes patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that tend to arise from these nine different core motivations. So these core motivations are made up of a fear desire pair. So for instance, there's the fear of lacking worth and the desire to be worthy. That would be one pair and that's the type three core motivation. So if you're a type three, sometimes called the achiever, that would be your core motivation. So what we fear and desire above kind of all the other fears and desires, that determines where attention goes and attention is something that authors benefit greatly from understanding. We have to keep people's attention. So we want to understand our own attention and how to cultivate our own attention because what our attention goes to builds our understanding of ourselves in the world. So being intentional about that, but also paying attention to what your characters pay attention to and what your readers are paying attention to is hugely beneficial and can really give you a leg up. So that's why I focus on the enagram. I find it very useful at that core level. You can build a lot of other things on top of it with your characters. You can build their backgrounds, their personal histories, little quirks, uh, whatever you want to do from that foundation of the enagram. And why I like the enagram more than, you know, why I use it more than other frameworks like MBTI or the big five. It not only shows us how our fears are confining us, that's really what it's charting for us, but it also shows us a path toward liberation from those fears. So, that's really where the enagram shines. It's the growth and freedom from the confines of our own personality and it offers that to anyone who really wants to study it and discover it. And so, a lot of the authors I work with are like, I'm just so sick of my own stuff. And it's like, [gasps] — yeah, we all kind of get sick of the same thing over and over again. I mean, we all can kind of get sick of our personality. And so the anagram is a really good tool for figuring out what's going on. How do we try something new? Sometimes we can't even see that there are other new options because we have our particular lens. So that's why I like to play around with it. That's why I find it so useful. — Well, that I mean that's a really interesting It sounds like you have a lot of mature authors. And when I say mature, I mean as in they have a lot of books, for example, because there are obviously different problems at different stages of the author career as such. And the problem you outlined there, which is I'm getting sick of my stuff. — Sounds like a mature author kind of issue, but I guess what are some of the other issues you see in the community that are quite common amongst indie authors? Yeah, I think one that comes up a lot, especially early on in the career, is am I doing this right? That's a big question. People are like, I don't know if I'm doing this right. I I'm going to screw up and this person told me this was the way to do things, but there's it just I don't think I can do it this way. Am I doomed? Right? That's kind of the fear. And so a lot of what I get to help people do is see that no, that's there's not a right way to do this. There's a way that's going to feel more aligned to you. And there are millions of ways to approach this because we're all just kind of constructing it. I mean, you were there in the early days. We're all just making this up. — Yeah. Exactly. There was a time like when ebooks were PDFs and there wasn't even a Kindle and there was no iPhone. — Right. And so that kind of spirit of hey, we're all making it up. Some of us have come up with frameworks that work for us and we will tell other people about it or here's a process, try this process, but that doesn't mean that it's the process, right? So really helping people understand what motivates them enough, those core motivations. So you can kind of see like where you're going to bump into advice that's just not right for you and how you can start to make decisions that are appropriate for your attention, your life, your desire in this role as author. And so that's early on. That's a lot of what we do. But a lot of authors who started off a while ago, have a bunch of books, will just hit a point where they're like, "I've changed so much since I started writing. I need to figure out how to adjust my career for it. "

### Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00) [40:00]

— Yeah. Well, tell us more about that because I think that's you and me. — Yeah. — How do we deal with that? — Well, crying helps. Um, but — that is true. But I do think though I mean uh personal to me personal brand as in people are still here. I know some people listening who've been listening since the podcast started in 2009 and I've always been me and even though I've done tons of different things and changed along the way, I'm still at heart. I'm me. And so I'm glad that I built a personal brand around me rather than around a genre or around something else. I don't know. How about you? Yeah, I mean I feel the same and I just can't stick with something that doesn't feel right for me. It just I will start to rebel and so I really never like I but there's also like that good girl in me that wants to do things the way they're supposed to be done and keep everyone happy, you know? So I have to kind of keep an eye on her because she'll just default to, okay, this is the way it should be done. And so I think as we advance through our career, positioning around what motivates us and what we love and allowing ourselves to understand that it's okay to change even though it's painful to change. It's destructive to not change over time. We end up forfeiting a lot of things that — that really make life worth living if we don't allow ourselves to change and we end up in this tiny box. So a lot of the times people will say like, "Oh, the enagram is very restrictive. It's only nine types. You know, you're going to put me in a box. " And it's like, "No, these are the boxes we've put ourselves in. " And then we figure out how to get out of the box. So as we start to see the box that we have put ourselves in of our personality, what we were like, "That's me. That's not me. " We then realize how much movement we have, how many options we have while still being ourselves. — So many options. Well, we this kind of brings us into your book because obviously part of the sort of personal brand thing is being real and having different facets to us and all of that and your book is write iconic characters and presumably these are characters that people want to read more about and it uses the enagram to construct these better characters. So, first up, what is your definition of an iconic character as opposed to just any old character? And how can we use the anagram to construct it? — Yeah. So, an iconic character in my imagination is one that really sticks with us after we've finished the story, right? And it's it becomes almost a way a reference point for us that maybe we're like, "Oh, that person's kind of like this character, right? It can be our friends, our enemies, someone we meet on the bus, whoever it is reminds us of this character. " So it really gets lodged in our psyche and it an iconic character is true to some sort of fundamental part of the human condition even if they're not strictly human. So all the alien romance people don't worry. Um but you know they take on a life of their own. Sometimes with an iconic character, we may hear them talking to us right after outside of the book because we just have tapped into that essential part of them and they really they become almost a archetype but this thing that we go back to over and over again in our minds. So as the writer and as the reader — and then so how can we use the enog to construct an iconic character and I I'm saying this as a discovery writer who struggles to construct anything it before it's more like I write stuff and then something emerges but then I have definitely not had a hit series with an iconic character so I'm willing to try your way. — Yeah. So, it works for whatever your process is, right? If you're a discovery writer, start with the spark of the idea in your head, right? If there's a character that is just kind of that glimmer of a character, maybe you know a few things about them, just keep writing and then at some point you're going to recognize, okay, I think it's time to go a little bit deeper in understanding this character and create a sort of cohesive thread to pull through. And that's where the enog can really start to be useful. So you can put on your armchair psychologist hat and then you can ask which of the nine core fears seems like it might be driving those parts of their personality that you already see emerging. So thankfully we intuitively recognize the nine types. So when we start gathering bits for a new character we tend to pull from essentially the same constellation of personality even if we don't recognize that's what we're doing. So, for

### Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00) [45:00]

instance, you may be like, "This character is bold and adventurous, and that's all you know to start out with. " That's fine, right? You're but you're probably not going to also add, "And they're incredibly shy," right? Because bold and adventurous and incredibly shy don't really go together and we know that kind of instinctively. So, okay, they're bold and adventurous and you write that to a certain point and then you get to a place where you're like, I don't really know them deeply. Then you can go back to those nine core fears and start to eliminate some of them pretty quickly. So I have like the descriptions of each of them. You can read the character descriptions. You can read about the motivations and start to kind of attach. Okay, well it's definitely not these five types. I can rule those out. If they're bold and adventurous, maybe the core fear is that they're afraid of deprivation, being trapped in deprivation and pain, right? Or they're afraid of being harmed and controlled. So those correspond to type seven, the enthusiast and type eight, the challenger, respectively. And so you can say, okay, maybe they're a seven or an eight, right? And then from that, if you can kind of pin down where their type is, then you can read more about it. You can get ideas, you can understand at the next big decision point, if they're say a type seven, which is the enthusiast, what's going to motivate them? Well, they're going to do whatever keeps them from being trapped in pain and deprivation. And they're going to be seeking satisfaction in some way because that's the core desire that goes with that core fear. So now you're like, "Okay, how do I get them to get on the spaceship and leave Earth? " Well, you could offer them some adventure, right? Cuz they're bold and adventurous. You could have I have a character who's a seven and she gets on a spaceship and takes off because her boyfriend just proposed and the idea of being trapped in marriage. She's like, "Nope, I'm going to whatever's on the spaceship. I'm out of here. " So, you can play around with that once you identify a type and you can go as deep with that type as you want. Or you can just stay just with the core fear and use that. There's no better or worse. It's whatever you feel comfortable with and whatever you need in the story. — So, you do have in the book, you do have all the yenogram types and you do go into them all. I you do have one example which is Wednesday Adams and I thought maybe you could talk a bit more about her as an example. She's one of my favorites and either people listening have seen the series or they have probably have something in their mind around Wednesday Adams in terms of the old school Adams family. But maybe you could talk about that example. — Yeah, definitely. I will say doing these deep dives was some of the more fun research for this book. I was like, "Okay. " I told John, my husband, I was like, "Okay, don't bother me. I need to sit and binge watch Wednesday. " — Yeah. Again. — Yeah. With my notebook this time. Yeah. So, yeah, Wednesday was one where the internet was like, "Oh, she's maybe this, maybe that. " And as soon as I started watching, I was like, "Oh, this is a type eight. This is the challenger. " One of the first things we hear from her mouth is that she considers emotions to be weakness, right? And so immediately you can cross out a bunch of types from that. And when we're looking at like weak and strong, we tend to be looking towards eight. So because the eight is tends to sort things in terms of weak and strong because they're concerned about being harmed or controlled and so they need to be strong and powerful. So that kind of gave me a hint in that direction. And then when we look at like the inciting incident. So the inciting incident is a great place to look for what triggers this character because this is it needs to be triggering enough to launch the story the rest of the story. So the inciting incident for this series is Wednesday finds her little brother Pugsley. He's stuffed in a locker and she says, "Who did this? " And cuz she her belief is I'm the only one that gets to bully you. And so that's no one I get to bully you. And this is a very stereotypical type eight thing, right? The eight can sometimes the unhealthy eight can sort of dip into being a little bit of a bully, right? Because we're looking at power and power dynamics. But the eight also says these are my people. I protect them. If you're one of the eight's people, you are under their protection, right? And so it it's protection slashcontrol, right, that we're seeing. So she goes and then she, you know, spoiler throws that bag of piranhas into the pool to attack, right? So that was like, okay, this is probably an eight, right? And then she's has control rested from her when she's sent to this school, right? She's sent to the new school. And so that's going to be a big trigger for an eight um to not have autonomy, not have control. and we see that she acts out pretty immediately — um and is trying to push people away

### Segment 11 (50:00 - 55:00) [50:00]

establish dominance. The first thing she does, you know, or one of the first things she does is challenge the popular girl to a fencing match. And so that's that sort of dominance that we see of the eight where they're like, "Okay, I'm going to go in and figure out where I am in this power structure and try and get in a position of power pretty immediately. " So that's how the story starts and I do have a lot more analysis in the book. So at one point she's attacked by this mysterious thing. She is narrowly saved from this monster and then her reaction is I would have rather saved myself. [clears throat] And so that's you know those moments of that really strong independence of the eight. The eight does not like to be saved by anyone else because it's like no I wanted to be strong enough to do that. And so yeah and her story [snorts] arc is also that of an eight very much learning to go from the sort of walled off I can do it myself which kind of look like the self-sufficiency that the five does. She's a little bit in that isolation but she has to be in a position of power in all moments. She has to be in control of herself, which is more of that eight. And so she has to learn to rely a little bit more on other people if she wants to protect the people that she cares about, which is what the eight really cares about. Protecting the innocent is a big priority of the eight. Okay. So let's say we've identified our main character and our protagonist. We've done that. One of the important things, of course, in any book is conflict. So can we use the enagram to kind of work out what would be the best other character or characters that would give us more conflict? — Mhm. Yeah. So the character dynamics are complex and there are certain types that really all types are going to have commonalities and conflict between them and so that works really well. But depending on how much conflict you need, there are certain types that are going to be better or worse for it. So, let's say you have a character who's an eight. Well, if that's your protagonist, an eight, they're going to be creating conflict everywhere because it doesn't matter to them. Like they you ask an eight, do you like conflict? They're going to be like I mean, sometimes it's not, you know, but to everyone else, they're going to be like, wow, this person really comes in like a wrecking ball. And so the eight tends to just go for what they want. They don't see the point in waiting for it. They want it. They're going to go get it. And it makes them feel strong to be able to go do that and powerful. So there's it's easier to create conflict like external and really internal conflict with an eight and other types. But that being said, the kind of the nature of the conflict is going to be different depending on who you pair them with. So for instance, let's say you have this type eight and you pair them with a type one which is the reformer and their core fear is being bad or corrupt. And so the reformer is really that person who wants to have integrity. The moralist sometimes they can get a little preachy. They can be a zealot, right? If they're a little bit more unhealthy on that side of things. And so the one and the eight are going to have a unique conflict because the one is going to say, "Well, let's do what's right. " And the eight is going to say, "Let's do what gets me what I want and in the position of power I want. " And so you can see how they may get along, especially in taking on injustice. Ones and eights will team up on that. If they see the thing as an injustice, if they both see the same thing as an injustice, they will both take it on together. And then there may reach a point in this allyship where the choice is available to either do the thing that is right, maybe self-sacrificing or moral versus the thing that will get retribution or put you in the power up position. And that's where you're going to have that conflict between the one and the eight. So you can grab any two types and they'll have a unique conflict. And I'm actually working on a project on Kickstarter for that — that's all about character dynamics. So yeah, write iconic relationships is the next project. So — Oh, cuz um I was wondering cuz I did like a day thing with color palette and interior design type stuff, which is that's not usually my thing. So, I was really challenging myself and we did this color wheel and they were talking about how the opposite thing on the color wheel is like the whatever color and blah blah and I was like, well, maybe there's something in any where it's just like a wheel and the thing that's opposite is the thing that goes together and that kind of thing that is that that's not true. — Well, there is a lot of that. So like

### Segment 12 (55:00 - 60:00) [55:00]

the there are a lot of types that are next to each other because it's usually depicted in a circle one through nine and there's these like pretty strong contrasts between types that are next to each other. So you know for instance the eight which we've talked about and the nine which is the peacemaker. Eights and nines look like opposites in certain ways, like very strongly because the nine is conflict avoidant and the eight tends to be like, well, you get what you want through conflict, right? And so there are some like interesting dynamics like that. And then you have the four, which is the individualist, and that's very much the emotional sort of artistic, heart-c centered type. And then you have the five which you're familiar with the investigator that's very head-entered and analytical by and large very thinking based and the four and the five kind of clash against each other right it's the head and the heart battle of so there are some like interesting contrasts that are right next to each other and but each one can kind of create something different so like there are certain types that each type has its own conflict style. This is we're going into the weeds a little bit, but each type has its own conflict style. And so you can play around with that as well. But there's one conflict style, which is the avoidant conflict style, sometimes called positive outlook. And it's just hard to get those types. That's a two, a seven, and a nine, into like a enemies to lovers romance because they don't want to be enemies. So there are some different dynamics that you can play around with, which I can't wait to explore for everyone. Yeah. — Well, that's great. And of course, the enagram is just one of many tools people can use to figure out themselves as well as their characters. So maybe that's something people want to look at this year. And you've got other books that go into this and lots of information. But just coming back to 2026 now because this will go out in January 2026 and people I think there is a real fear of change in the community right now and I wondered if that's something you have seen and also what are your thoughts for authors on how they can navigate the year ahead? — Yes, there has been a lot of fear. I think just the rate of change of things online has felt very rapid. The rate of change in things maybe on a larger scale politically have felt very scary to a lot of people. And so I think it can be helpful to look at your own personal life and really anchor yourself in what hasn't changed and what is universal. And then you can from there you can start to say okay like we can do this right I'm safe I can start to find creative ways to work within this new environment and you can choose to engage with AI opt out of it it's totally your choice and there's not a virtue in either one and I think that's important because sometimes the people who are anti- AI um or it's not that they're just not interested in it they're antagonistic towards it. They can go after the people who like it. And then it can sometimes be antagonistic to people who opt out of it. And I think it's important to just understand that you get to choose what you're comfortable with. And one of the things that I see emerging for authors in 2026, regardless of what tools you're using and how you feel about the tools available is, and I do have a post on Substack about this, but it's trustworthiness. I think there's a big need for that because with the increased number of images and videos that are AI, which a lot of people who've been on the internet for a while can tell are AI and are like, yeah, you know, kind of has that sheen to it that feels AI, but it may not for long. I think those people can kind of tell, but there are a lot of people who can't tell the difference. And so I think there's kind of a mistrust of our own senses on the internet lately and I think it'll increase. So as an author in that environment really focusing on how do I build trust with my readers. So if that doesn't mean you don't use AI but you disclose to a certain extent right there are things like authenticity, honesty, vulnerability, humility, integrity, transparency, reliability. Those are ingredients to this recipe of trustworthiness that we need to look at for ourselves. And so I think that if there's one thing authors can do as far as the hard inner work for 2026 is asking where have I not been trustworthy to my readers and taking that hard painful look and asking how

### Segment 13 (60:00 - 65:00) [1:00:00]

you can adjust right where you need to change things or create new practices that increase trustworthiness with readers because I really think that's the thing that's starting to erode and if you can do that Now you can hold on to your readers through whatever comes up. — What's one concrete thing people could do in that direction? — I would say disclosing if you use AI is a start or how you use it specifically. I know that it can lead to drama when you do that, but trustworthiness comes at the cost of courage and honesty. And so I think transparency is another thing that we could use. But also if that's just something you're like absolutely not Claire, you can get lost with that. Authenticity, right? This is letting your messy self be there cuz people do still want some human, right? And so being authentic, being authentically messy, being vulnerable with your audience, you know, if you can't be reliable and put the book out on time, at least share with them what's going on in your life. And staying connected in that way, helps build trust. And so people are like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, I see why you didn't do, you know, that. " But if you're always promising books, you know, oh, it's going to be out on this day. Oh, I had to push it back. If you're always pushing it back, that's going to erode the trustworthiness of your brand with your audience. And so looking at those things and asking, how am I cultivating this and how am I breaking trust is it's hard. And there are ways that I know I look at my business and I'm like, yeah, that's not a very trustworthy thing that I'm doing. I should spend some time getting real with myself and seeing how I can improve that. — Yeah, I mean, always improving, I think, is good. But coming back to the personal brand thing, coming back to being vulnerable and putting ourselves out there, like we've, you and I have both got used to that over years and practiced doing that. And there [clears throat] are people who may never have put their photo online or their voice online or done a video or they might not use their photo on the back of their book or on their website. They might use an avatar. They might use a pen name. they might be afraid of having anything about themselves. And I mean I do that's where I think it is a concern because as much as I love a lot of the AI stuff, I don't like hiding everything behind pen names and not like you say being vulnerable in some way and being human like I say double down on being human. I think it's really important. So, any words of courage for people who feel like, well, I just can't I don't want to put myself out there. — Yeah. I mean, there are legitimate reasons that some people wouldn't want to be visible. And I think that there are safety reasons. There are all kinds of factors there, but I do think that there are a number of authors who simply have not practiced the muscle of vulnerability. and you do it a little bit at a time and it it's not you know it does open you up to some criticism and some people you're just not at a phase for it and that's okay but I do encourage you to step out if you're one of those authors that is hiding this may be just my own sort of personal soap box but I don't think that life is meant to be spent hiding and things may happen but if you're scared. A lot of the times people I work with, they don't want to disclose their pen names because their parents won't approve, right? Those kinds of things. And it's like, okay, well then let's work through that cuz you don't have to do anything that your parents want you to do. Like you're an adult now, right? So if that's the issue, maybe if you're like, they'll cut me out of the will. Well, we can talk about that. But you know, there's a lot of constricting feeling around hiding. And when you invite that in one way, it tends to constrict in other ways. And so I would just say you don't have to put your picture everywhere, but even if you're not comfortable showing your face, communicate who you are and what matters to you through the other ways, through your story, through your email list, through social media, let your authentic self be expressed in some way. Uh because — it's just it it's scary, but the reward is freedom. Absolutely. Well, lots to explore in 2026. So, tell people where can they find you and your books and everything you do online? — liberatedwriter. com is where all of my stuff lives except my fiction, which I don't think people are necessarily interested in my fiction

### Segment 14 (65:00 - 67:00) [1:05:00]

but if you want to go find my fiction, ffs. mdia has that. And then I'm on Substack and I write long pieces on Substack. And so if you want to go subscribe, it's the liberated writer on Substack. — Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Cla. That was great. — Thanks so much for having me. — So, I hope you found the interview with CLA interesting and that it helps you consider what's important for you in the year ahead. Is social media really that important? I think that's a question lots of people ask at this time of year. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com or on the YouTube channel or email me joanna@thecreativepen. com. Also send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery or churchyard. Next Monday, I'll be sharing thoughts on the shadow in traditional and self-publishing as well as the shadow in money and work to get you thinking about things as we move into the year ahead. And remember, if you want to transform your author business in 2026, I have one more January webinar left for business for authors Saturday 24th of January. Details at thecreatpen. com/live or if you're a patron, use the special link as you get that 25% discount. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes at thecreativepen. com/mpodcast. And you can get your free author blueprint at thecreativepen. com/bloopprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and x at the creative pen or on Instagram and Facebook @ jfpen author. Happy writing and I'll see you next time.