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

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 841 of the podcast and it is Sunday the 14th of December 2025 as I record this. In today's show I'm sharing some chapters from the relaxed author. Take the pressure off your art and enjoy the creative journey. Written and narrated by me and Mark Leslie Lefave as it feels like that time of year where you should be more relaxed, but it is also more stressful and you might be beating yourself up about not achieving your creative goals this year and thinking about next year and creating a massive to-do list. So these chapters today around relaxed writing are hopefully to help you refocus on what might be more important which is loving your writing and being a more relaxed author. So the full audio book recording narrated by human us is available in all the usual places as well as my store creativepenbooks. com and of course in all the other formats too. So that's coming up in the main section of the show. In writing and publishing things, Spotify shares their 2025 audiobook trends. And unsurprisingly, the biggest trends were spicy romance and romantic, which continues to dominate book culture. — [snorts] — We've also seen a real surge in music memoirs, which I guess you could say is unsurprising for a trend on Spotify, which started out as primarily music platform, with readers loving behindthe-scenes looks at creative lives. Also interesting this year is dystopian anxiety. A spike in interest in classic dystopias like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, but also contemporary fiction and non-fiction like moderation and Empire of AI that explore themes of social unrest, climate change, and emerging technologies. Spotify is blurring the lines between reading and listening, turning books into the same cultural ecosystem as music and podcasts. I think that is a really important point. The lines between as certainly for me as a listener, I'm I will be listening to a podcast and I'll hear an author talking and then I'll go and on the same app I will go and download a sample or I'll follow the audio book or go and listen to a chapter or whatever. So I think it is a really interesting change in what's happened where the line between podcasts and audio products and audio books are kind of mixing. Another interesting thing they said is romantic while historically popular with women, men now account for roughly 15% of listening in steamier subg genres, proving the desire for passion, power, and escape is universal. So, I think that's interesting, too, because sometimes we just assume we know what our audience is and perhaps we don't. So, that's good. For 2026, romanty isn't going anywhere. So, if you write in that genre, you're probably still good. Although, I imagine it's pretty full up. It's not a genre I really read or I certainly don't write. But, although I have read Fourth Wing like everyone, there are some really big titles on the horizon. I think this is Spotify talking. 2026 is shaping up to be another blockbuster year for romantic. Also, the appetite for horror will keep growing and we'll see continued growth in genre blending fiction and climate fiction which tackles environmental and ecological themes in fresh urgent ways. Also, more books exploring AI and technology as readers look for stories to help them make sense of the world we're moving toward. If you are an author publishing on Spotify, you got a wrapped of who is listening to what. And for me, How to Write a Novel is my most popular audio book on Spotify with listeners split between men and women between 40 to 60 years old. To be honest, that is no surprise to me. I feel like what happens often with us is we age, our audience ages with us. So, our target market are often very much like us. So that is no surprise to me. As ever, you can find my audio books on all of the apps and on YouTube and my store creativepenbooks. com and in all the other usual formats. So staying with audiobooks, Audible has announced better integration with BookTalk by partnering with Tik Tok to

help listeners discover top trending books and stories inside the Audible app and web experience. So if you're a subscriber to Audible, you should be able to see this. I guess the collaboration with Tik Tok creates a seamless bridge between what's trending on book talk and what listeners can explore on Audible. A dedicated best of book destination, a curated section within the Audible app and web experience, showcasing trending titles refreshed regularly by the Audible editorial team. Collections are organized by some of Book Talk's most popular genres, thriller, historical fiction, and micro genres like romanty, booktoscreen, and dark academia, creating precise recommendations for listeners. And according to the publishers association, 68% of 16 to 25 year olds say the community has inspired them to explore books they never would have considered otherwise. So obviously 16 to 25 is a big Tik Tok demographic. It is so interesting to see how audio books have changed over the last 20 years. I was thinking about this. You know, people say, "Oh, nothing much changes year to year, but if you look a decade apart or two decades apart, things have really, really changed. " Those of you listening will no doubt remember when a bridged cassette because there's no way you could have had the full books like we have with digital. So pretty much all the books were abridged in some way, as in they were edited down, but you'd get these sort of padded cassette cases from the library. There might have been a few in bookstores, but there were never very many. I mean, when DVDs came along, then things I think got a bit better, but in that DVD era, I didn't listen to audio, but I did as a younger person. I listened to cassettes and stuff, but certainly it was not mass market. There were no mass market audio books and there were just so few of them and they were really aimed at a very particular demographic, not 16 to 25 year olds. So this is just fascinating to me and I think we have to keep this stuff in mind that you don't necessarily know what people want. So back then it may have been that there was just all well there would have been all this untapped market for audio listening and digital and streaming audio has allowed that market to come to life which is very cool. So that is on audible. com's newsroom or obviously links in the show notes to all of this. Then over on the novel marketing podcast an episode about non-fiction. So Thomas Jr. gives a non-fiction author's guide to Substack and the Novel Marketing Podcast is a great show and they often do stuff about non-fiction. So, don't think it's just about novels or marketing to be fair. Thomas says he doesn't recommend Substack for novelists specifically around serializing fiction because it's not really designed for that. But Substack can be a gamecher for non-fiction authors. If you are a subject matter expert, you can attract readers, engage them with your expertise, and convert them into paying subscribers all on Substack for free. They do not charge you until you start making money. So, they only make money when you make money. He also says, "Substack is going through a radical and controversial transition from a blog and email platform into more of a social network. " The episode goes into more detail around comparisons to other platforms. Thomas says, "I still recommend having your own WordPress website in addition to Substack. I do not trust them enough to put all my content only on their platform because you are not paying them. You are still sharecropping on their land, so to speak. " And yes, this is one of my hesitations and one of the big red flags around any platform because if it is free, you are the product. It's like because all these companies have to make money somehow and they can change the game at any time. And I've certainly been long enough to see the rise of platforms and the fall of platforms, many of them. Tumblr would have been one. Medium, I mean, Medium before Substack was the place everyone was like, "Oh, Medium's the place you can build your audience. " And then, of course, that well, I think it's still around, but you don't really hear about it anymore. Tumblr got bought, I think, and WordPress has been around the whole time. I pay for my hosting on WordPress sites, and I also pay Shopify. So you can pay for the platform and then use it however you like or it's a free platform and they get to change the rules basically and get to monetize your content in the way that they want. And in reflecting on why platforms change and why they stop being so popular or useful, it's usually a shift in monetization in some form. So a company that uses free organic reach, I mean think about how Amazon and Facebook you started off with organic reach. you build an audience and you'd be able to reach them. And then that kind of changed over time. You can post on your Facebook page now and just have nobody see it at all. Even if you have thousands of followers, it doesn't work like that. And Amazon, you used to be

able to back in the early days, put up a book and there was some organic reach and now really isn't. So things [snorts] move into paytoplay eventually. Things do not stay free forever. So will Substack have to do that? They have to monetize in some form. And of course they do charge once people start subscribing they take a percentage of the subscription but they may also change the rules in the future. So please do remember that if you're using Substack I've heard a lot of authors recently say oh I'm moving everything over to Substack. So fair enough but if things change then just have a backup plan. All these platforms are also more about discoverability and community and make sure you back up email lists. Make sure you can pivot if a platform fails. Don't rely on one platform for everything. You know, that is always my mantra. Multiple streams of income. Make sure you have backups. Yeah, I think it's probably because I worked in IT for so long, like 13 years, I was an IT consultant. And goodness me, you just know how things change. So, back to the episode on novel marketing. You really need to be creating good content on Substack. Thomas says, "Substack is a poor fit if you are trying to use it as a mailing list. So, don't just move your mailing list over there. If you don't have anything to say, if you just want to stay in touch with readers and you're putting up empty posts with no real content, it will not work well. Just use other email services like Kit or Mailchimp. " Thomas also says, "It doesn't work well for pure promotional emails. You're not supposed to send straightforward promotional content on Substack. You can include a promotion within a contentrich email, but pure promotion is frowned upon. So, the episode has lots of tips, including how to grow a Substack, how to use notes, which is that more social side, SEO, monetization. So, if you are considering Substack as a blogging platform, you can also do audio there in 2026, definitely check out the episode on novel marketing podcast. In AI things this week, OpenAI have released a new model, chat GPT 5. 2, which I've been testing, the thinking model, I'm finding super useful. But the big news is OpenAI's announcement with Disney. So, the Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach landmark agreement to bring beloved characters from across Disney's brands to Sora. As part of this three-year licensing agreement, Sora, which is a video app, AI generated video app, will be able to generate short user-prompted social videos that can be viewed and shared by fans drawing on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters. A selection of these fan inspired Sora short form videos will be available to stream on Disney Plus. Disney and Open AAI affirm a shared commitment to responsible use of AI that protects the safety of users and the rights of creators. So why is this interesting for us? Well, one of the biggest intellectual property companies has done a licensing deal with an AI company to create AI assisted images. Their CEO, Robert Iger, said technological innovation has continually shaped the evolution of entertainment, bringing with it new ways to create and share great stories with the world. The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry. And through this collaboration with Open AI, we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI while respecting and protecting creators and their works. Now, Disney are famously litigious with their IP. So, this licensing deal is interesting. And we've also seen deals in recent weeks and months with music companies and the AI music service. And it's instructive to consider what this might mean for publishing. Now, of course, Disney is a publisher and they have a lot of content from also licensing other people's IP, but this particular deal includes characters like Mickey Mouse, Ariel, Belle, Simba, Frozen characters or other illustrated characters around Thor, Darth Vader, Yoda, Groot, and others. Now, I love Groot. So, I think that's pretty cool. It's an interesting expansion of what IP licensing for AI creativity could mean in 2026. Will we see lots of new ideas spinning out outside of Disney? So, if they're going to bring in some of those videos from Sora, maybe they'll be like, "Okay, this is a really cool idea. Let's develop that. " I'm sure they will be pulling things from this userenerated content. So, if you have good ideas for those characters or you want to play with them with your kids or whatever, then make some Sora videos over the holidays. Now I still can't access Sora. It's still only in the US for the that app. I mean also noting this news is Mark Williams on the new publishing standard. Now Mark is based in the Gambia in West Africa and always has a

much more international slant away from the English language dominant markets which is great because it gives us a new perspective. He quotes Robert Iger from Disney. He's the CEO on the AI licensing deal. No human generation has ever stood in the way of technological advance, and we don't intend to try. If it's going to happen regardless, then we'd rather participate in the dramatic growth rather than just watching it happen and essentially being disrupted by it. And of course, I agree with that. Participate rather than watch opportunity pass you by. And if you participate, you can be part of the inevitable disruption. So it's interesting that Disney are getting in on that and Mark brings this into an article on AI licensing in India. He says India's proposed mandatory AI licensing framework represents not merely a policy shift but a fundamental realignment of the global AI landscape. So this is a new potential copyright law that says AI developers would gain access to all lawfully published copyrighted works for training through a mandatory blanket license. Copyright holders cannot opt out. Instead, they receive statutory remuneration through a centralized nonprofit entity with payments linked to AI company revenues that the transaction costs evaporate. The legal ambiguities dissolve, innovation accelerates. So, I think this is really interesting. Instead of fighting for years and doing lots of legal things, they're [clears throat] making a decision and moving forward. The article notes that India is already OpenAI's second largest market after the US and that India may well become our largest market. While the country has become what analysts call the bot training capital of the world. Meanwhile, the US, UK, and Europe remain locked in legal battles, China and India accelerate. How will things look over the next 5 to 10 years? Certainly interesting times. So Mark's article also goes into the voice revolution and how voice AI is becoming the dominant interface in emerging markets fundamentally altering not just how content is consumed but who can consume it. 11 Labs who many of us use for audio book narration. So my audio books Blood Vintage and also Death Valley are in my voice clone by 11 Labs. 11 Labs reports that India has become its largest market by user registration and second largest by enterprise revenue in just 12 months. The company supports 12 Indian languages with native Hindi and Tamil already integrated into core models. Audio content platforms have reduced content production costs by 90% while scaling multilingual storytelling. And I talked about this a while back about how the English language markets have very longestablished audiobook production and English language storytelling. Most places do not have masses of audio in their own language. So the only way this was going to happen is with mass audio with AI. And as 11 Labs have said here, reduced content production cost by 90% which is incredible. Voice AI with emotional expressiveness, accent diversity, and contextual awareness is creating entirely new content consumption patterns. India's 900 million internet users, many with limited literacy or English proficiency, can now access services, shop, learn, and consume media entirely through voice. The interface breakthrough that keyboards and screens never achieved for billions of people is now happening through conversational AI. So Mark always writes really interesting articles on the new publishing standard. And because he is in West Africa and in a more developing market, it's so interesting to consider the things we take for granted. So he says, "The Western publishing model assumes literate readers engaging with text on screens or paper. Our concession to voice is passive one-way street audio books and podcasts. But now he says voice is not an add-on to text but a parallel universe of content engagement on voice AI. Publishers must stop thinking of it as an accessibility add-on or optional feature. Voice is becoming the primary interface for billions of potential readers. Publishers should be investing heavily in voice optimized content creation, not merely converting existing books to audio books. This means commissioning works that exploit voic's strength. serialization, interactivity, personalization rather than treating voice as a passive audio playback mechanism for text conceived for reading. I love thinking about this in a different way and trying to change my mindset of just text first, then turn that text into audio. I mean I already

do now with the AI generated voice those two books Death Valley and Blood Vintage when I've produced those with 11 Labs I have changed it I have changed the text so the audio product is different to the printed product because when I read something with my eyes it is a different experience to listening with my ears and the way we write is also different and so I think this An interesting potential future is trying to think about audio first products, audio designed experiences and because we now do have AI voices and services like 11 Labs, we can think much more creatively around audio. I know many of you are looking at audio dramas now, multivoice audio drama, which is possible for a lot less money than it used to be. It just wasn't possible for us before. We can do sound effects. You can do just so many things. So really interesting how this might expand over time. So Mark also finishes this article saying publishers should also embrace AI generated content where it creates value whilst humans retain creative control. The moral panic about AI slop ignores that much human generated content is also slop. Let's get real here. AI slop is a convenient trash term for anything produced by AI that we don't personally approve of. We had this same BS when self-publishing took off in the late 2000s and early 2010s in UK and Europe. The publishing gatekeepers reveled in predicting the tsunami of crap that would bring the industry to its knees. self-published dross that no editor had set eyes on thrown into the smelly cespit of depraved desperation that was the Kindle store with derriger homemade cover and a full quot of spelling mistakes penny dreadfuls as it was called the British tsunami of crap as it overwhelmed readers and stopped them finding gatekeeper approved content so yes I agree with Mark I think there is AI slop um but there's also human slop and there's a lot of humans creating AI slop. So yeah, we all again once again we just have to be responsible creators of really good stuff whether or not we use AI as part of our creativity or not. Um but Mark says AI assisted translation into multiple languages AI generated voice narration AI powered personalization of educational content these enhance rather than diminish publishing's value proposition. The choice is stark. Evolve or become obsolete. India is showing the way forward. Western publishers would be wise to follow rather than clinging to a path that no longer serves anyone's interests. So what does this mean for us? Cuz it's all very well to say, "Oh, look at all these things happening. " Well, for me, I am revisiting AI assisted translation. I have dipped my toe into translation many times over the last decade. As ever, this was one of the occasions where me being early really harmed me. So way back now, probably 2012, 2014, I did German translations. I worked with translators. I did some Spanish. What else did I do? I did some other languages. I spent money. I spent time. And it was too early. There just wasn't the market in Kindle in those arenas. And then a few years later, it really took off and people started to do it. But I'd been burnt. So I stayed out of it. And I've uh done some uh translations over the last few years, some AI assisted, some licensing with traditional publishers. And I am now revisiting it. Um because mainly I think with uh Kindle launching Kindle translate uh last month and really seeing that 2026 may be the year of AI assisted translation as 2025 was really a year of AI assisted audiobook narration and AI voice. I think this will be an interesting possibility for next year. I'll talk a bit more about this when I do my looking forward into 2026 in the new year. But also with AI narration, I'm definitely thinking more about this voice first thing for content. And in fact, back in 2019, this is where I first got into the voice first uh movement as such. There was a hash voice first tag that we used to do stuff on Twitter as it was back then. But I did a podcast back in 2019. What if the future is voice first? What if people ask AI to find them a book to read with voice? What if the primary consumption of books is audio, not print or ebook? That's what I said back in 2019. And as ever, just a few years early, but perhaps that is gathering steam now in some markets, which is interesting. So, as ever, lots going on, lots for you to think about, but the

opportunities to create different kinds of content are just growing and growing. So if you have ideas there just there's so much opportunity now. It's very exciting. In personal news, I've submitted two essays for my masters and I have one more to get done and I've also started writing. I couldn't help myself. I have a couple of chapters for my tall thriller/horror working title is Bones of the Deep. Uh [clears throat] actually think it's more thriller at this point. We shall see. I am a discovery writer so I have a lot of it in my head but I don't really know what will happen. I do have some ideas of the climax and the ending I think but as ever these things change and it's very much inspired I've talked before that I did this tall ship crossing from Fiji to Vanuatu back in 1999. The structure of the story is that crossing. But as part of my masters in death and religion and culture, I've been writing one of my essays is around the ethics of using body parts in museums, anatomy museums as inspiration for fiction. So my book desecration was inspired by an anatomy museum. And so I've really been looking into museum ethics. And museum ethics have changed a lot in the what 14 years since I wrote desecration. and the repatriation particularly of human remains of different indigenous groups. So, I'm sort of partially using that as my inspiration within the book, too. So, it's got lots of different strands as ever, but it's going to be a fun book. And I have actually booked Kristen, my editor, for February. So, I thought I'd mention it because this can really help if you if you're somebody who is confident in how they write, then booking an editor is a really good way to force the project forward. But do not book an editor if you are not confident in your ability to get a draft done and self-edit that draft, etc. But yes, I do like to have a deadline and my next term of the masters starts mid January. So basically I'm going to get most of the draft done over the holidays and yeah I'm not taking any time off you know just a few days. Jonathan, my husband is finishing his MBA dissertation so I figured if he's working I might as well work but yeah I will be having a few days off but looking forward to have more time off hopefully in early 2026. I am also prepping my webinars on business for authors coming in January. two dates. It's the same webinar I'm running twice. Saturday 10th of January or Saturday 24th of January. [snorts] My plan is to cut through the noise and help you level up your author business. If you have a business of some kind, a small one or a bigger one, it will be a chance to think about some more strategic questions and set yourself up for 2026. Or if you're thinking that you might want to run an author business, this will help you, too. So, it's going to be very thoughtprovoking. I absolutely intend to make it challenging. So yeah, come and join me live or you get the replay if you buy a ticket and there's slides and other material. You can find the links at the creativepen. com/live lithecreativepen. com/live. Patrons get 25% discount. So check the Patreon site if you are a patron before you book. So, thanks for all your emails and comments and photos this week. Ledger and Lace on YouTube said around Sasha's interview, "Oh, wow. This is amazing. I really love packaging," which is just fantastic. I really think there are two types of people in the world. People who love packaging and people who don't, and I am one of the latter. Also, Marin in New Zealand sent a picture breakfast in bed with my British blue lovely cat Fuzzy while listening to the interview with Sasha. Heaven. Oh, that was a lovely picture. You know, I love cats. [snorts] Tammy says, "I always listen to the podcast when I bake my gluten-free cookies for the week. Doing some pizzas today as well. Thanks for creating great content. " Thanks, Tammy. And Brian said, "I spent a few days in New Orleans during a cross-country road trip and happened upon the Lafayette Cemetery while on a Garden District walking tour. Here's a few pictures. I also witnessed an impromptu jazz music parade. It was all quite magical. And thanks Brian for sending pictures of some of those tombs above ground. And my thriller, Valley of Dry Bones, was inspired partially by a trip to New Orleans. So, I do love that city. It is a great place. Okay, please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creativepen. com or on the YouTube channel or email me. Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favorite cemetery, crypt or death culture place, joanna@thecreatpen. com.

I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. And yes, that is my email. And so if you're getting one of these spam emails and it's not from joanna@thecreativepen. com, then it's not from me. — Okay, today's episode is sponsored by Draft to Digital who I use for ebook publishing to Nook, Apple and Library Services amongst others and also for the relaxed author publication with Mark Lefave coming up soon as they have a payment splitting for royalties service which really helps with the admin. They also do print. Are you an indie author in need of an easy and efficient print on demand service backed by a world-class customer support team? Look no further than Draft to Digital Print DTOD Print. DTOD Print is ideal for authors who've already published ebooks but haven't yet done print. You can convert an ebook to a print on demand file with just a few clicks. Turn an ebook cover into a wraparound print cover in seconds. Choose from dozens of beautiful layouts, industry standard trim sizes, and formatting options. You can distribute worldwide. You can use free ISBNs. You can order author copies within 32 countries, and they do not have the word proof stamped on the book. You can also use free change tokens every 90 days to make updates. All this and more with no setup or recurring fees. Print on demand is a gamecher for indie authors because while brickandmortar bookstores can't physically stock every book, they can check for the print ondemand availability of a book when a customer requests it. If you only publish ebooks, you could be missing a huge opportunity with readers. Let's fix that with Dto Print. Just go to draft2digital. com. That's the number two, draft2digital. com. So, this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription, and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community at patreon. com/thecreativepen. Thanks to the 14 new patrons who've joined this week, and thanks to everyone who've 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, AI tutorials, and more. This week we had live office hours where I went through AI assisted translation options and how AI is helping people shop this holiday season and what it means for book discoverability in 2026. Patrons also get 25% discount for my business for authors webinar. 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/thecreative pen. Right, let's get into the relaxed author. Take the pressure off your art and enjoy the creative journey. Written and narrated by Joanna Penn and Mark Leslie Lefave. Why the relaxed author? The definition of relaxed is free from tension and anxiety from the Latin laxis 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 backto-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 southwest 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 overstressing 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, podcasts, 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. 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? with a partner that is constantly stressed out or constantly trying to reach deadlines based on someone 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're 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. — Part one, relaxed writing. 1. 1 write what you love. The pandemic has taught us that life really is short. Momento my 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 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. It's common that writers are drawn into storytelling from some combination of passion, curiosity, and unrelenting interest. We probably read or saw something that inspired us and we wanted to express those ideas or the resulting perspectives that percolated in our hearts and minds. Or we read something and thought, "Wow, I could do this, but I would have come at it differently. " Or I would approach the situation or subject matter with my own flare. So we get into writing with passion and desire for storytelling. And then sometimes along the way we recognize the critical value of having to become an entrepreneur to understand the business of writing and publishing. And part of understanding that aspect of being an author is writing to market and understanding shifts and trends in the industry and adjusting to those es and flows of the tide. But sometimes we lose sight of the passion that drew us to writing in the first place. And so writing the things that you love can be a beacon to keep you on course. I love the concept of do something that you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And that's true in some regard because I've always felt that way for almost my entire adult life. I've been very lucky. But at the same time, I work extremely hard at what I love. Some days are harder than others and some things are really difficult, frustrating and challenging. But at the end of the day, I have the feeling of satisfaction that I spent my time doing something I believe in. I've been a book seller my entire life, even though I don't sell books in brickandmortar bookstores anymore. That act of physically putting books in people's hands. But to this day, what I do is virtually putting books in people's hands. both as an author and as an industry representative who is passionate about the book business. I was drawn to that world via my passion for writing and that's what continues to compel me forward. I tried to leave the corporate world to write full-time in 2018, but realized there was an intrinsic satisfaction to working in that realm, to embracing and sharing my insights and knowledge from that arena to help other writers. And I couldn't give that up. For me, the whole core, the whole essence of why I get up in the morning has to do with storytelling, creative inspiration, and wanting to inspire and inform other people to be the best that they can be in the business of writing and publishing. And that's what keeps me going when the days are hard. Passion is the inspiration to keep going. There are always going to be days that aren't easy. There will be unexpected barriers that hit you as a writer.

You'll face that mid novel slump or realize that you have to scrap an entire scene or even plotline and feel like going back and restarting is just too much. You might find the research required to be overwhelming or too difficult. There'll be days when the words don't flow or the inspiration that initially struck you seems to have abandoned you for greener pastures. Whatever it is, some unexpected frustration can create what can appear to be an insurmountable block. And when that happens, if it's a project you don't love, you're more likely to let those barriers get in your way and stop you. But if it's a project that you're passionate about and you're writing what you love, that alone can be what greases the wheels and helps reduce that friction to keep you going. At the end of the day, writing what you love can be a honing, grounding, and centering beacon that allows you to want to wake up in the morning and enjoy the process as much as possible. even when the hard work comes along. For me, relaxation comes from writing what I know and love and trusting the emergent process. As a discovery writer, I experience great joys when the story, characters, and dialogue simply emerge in their own time, in their own way. It feels wonderful. Valerie Andrews. Writing makes me a relaxed author. Just getting lost in a story of my own creation, discovering new places, and learning what makes my characters tick is the best way I know of relaxing. Even the tricky parts when I have no idea where I'm going next have a special kind of charm. Imagin Clark 1. 2. Write at your own pace. Writing at your own pace will help you be a more relaxed author because you're not stressing out by trying to keep up with someone else. Of course, we all struggle with comparing ourselves to others. Take a quick look around and you can always find someone who has written more books than you. Norah Roberts, traditionally published author, writes a book a month. Lindsay Broker, fantasy indie month of over 100,000 words. If you compare yourself to someone else and you try to write at their pace, that is not going to be your relaxed schedule. On the other hand, if you compare yourself to Donna Tart, who writes one book every decade, you might feel like some speed demon crushing that word count and mastering rapid release. Looking at what others are doing could result in you thinking you're really slow, or you could think that you're super fast. What does that kind of comparison actually get you? I remember going to see a talk by Canadian literary author Farley Mo when I was a young budding writer. I'll never forget one thing he said from that stage. Any book that takes you less than four years to write is not a real book. Young teenage Mark was devastated, hurt, and disappointed to hear him say that because my favorite author at the time, Piers Anthony, was writing and publishing two to three novels a year. I loved his stuff, and his fantasy and science fiction had been an important inspiration in my writing at that time. The personal notes I add to the end of my stories and novels came from enjoying his so much. That focus on there being only a single way, a single pace to write ended up preventing me from enjoying the books I'd already been loving because I was doing that comparisonitis Joanna talks about. But as a reader, I took someone else's perspective too much to heart and I let that ruin a good thing that had brought me personal joy and pleasure. It works the same way as a writer because we have likely developed a pattern or a way that works for us that is our own. We all have a pace that we comfortably walk, a way we prefer to drive, a pattern or style of how and when and what we prefer to eat. We all have our own unique comfort food. There are these patterns that we're comfortable with and potentially because they are natural to us. If you try to force yourself to write at a pace that's not natural to you, things can go south in your writing and your mental health. And I'm not suggesting any particular pace except for the one that's most natural and comfortable to you. If writing fast is something that you're passionate about and you're good at it and it's something you naturally do, why would you stop yourself from doing that? Just like if you're a slow writer and you're trying to write fast, why are you doing that to yourself? There's a common pop song line used by numerous bands over the years that exhorts you to shake what you got. I like to think the same thing applies

here. And do it with pride and conviction because what you got is unique and awesome. Own it. Shake it with pride. You have a way you write in a word count per writing session that works for you. And along with that, you likely know what time you can assign to writing because of other commitments like family time, leisure time, and work, assuming you're not a full-time writer. Simple math can provide you with a way to determine how long it will take to get your first draft written. [clears throat] So, your path and plans are clear, and you simply take the approach that aligns with your writer DNA. Understanding what that pace is for you helps alleviate an incredible amount of stress that you do not need to thrust upon yourself. Because if you're not going to be able to enjoy it while you're doing it, what's the point? Your pace might change project to project. While your pace can change over time, your pace can also change project to project. And sometimes the time actually spent writing can be a smaller portion of the larger work involved. I was on a panel at a conference once and someone asked me how long it took to write my non-fiction book of ghost stories, Haunted Hamilton. About 4 days, I responded. And while that's true, I crafted the first draft over four long and exhausting days, writing as much as 16 hours each day, the reality was I'd been doing research for months. But the pen didn't actually hit the paper until just a few days before my deadline to turn the book over to my editor. That was for a non-fiction book, but I found I do similar things with fiction. I noodle over concepts and ideas for months before I actually commit words to the page. The reason this comes to mind is that I think it's important to recognize the way that I write is I first spend a lot of time in my head to understand and chew on things. And then by the time it comes to actually getting the words onto the paper, I've already done much of the prewriting mentally. It's sometimes not fair when you're comparing yourself to someone else to look at how long they physically spend in front of a keyboard hammering on that word count because they might have spent a significantly longer amount of time either outlining or conceptualizing the story in their mind or in their heart before they sat down to write. So that's part of the pace, too. Because sometimes if we only look at the time spent at the writer's desk, we fool ourselves when we think that we're a slow writer or a fast writer. Your pace will change over your career. My first novel took 14 months and now I can write a first draft in about 6 weeks because I have more experience. It's also more relaxing for me to write a book now than it was in the beginning because I didn't know what I was doing back then. Your pace will change per project. I have a non-fiction work in progress, my shadow book working title, which I have started several times. I have about 30,000 words, but as I write this, I have backed away from it because I'm still not ready. There's a lot more research and thinking I need to do. Similarly, some people take years writing a memoir or a book with such emotional or personal depth that it needs more to bring it to life. Your pace will also shift depending on where you are in the arc of life. Perhaps you have young kids right now or you have a health issue or you're caring for someone who is ill. Perhaps you have a demanding day job so you have less time to write. Perhaps you really need extended time away from writing or just a holiday. Or maybe there's a global pandemic and frankly you're too stressed to write. The key to pacing in a book is variability. And that's true of life, too. Write at the pace that works for you. And don't be afraid to change it as you need to over time. I think the biggest thing for me is reminding myself that I'm in this to write. Sometimes I can get caught up in all the moving pieces of editing and publishing and marketing. But the longer I go without writing or only writing because I have to get the next thing done instead of for enjoyment, the more stressed and anxious I become. But if I make time to fit in what I truly love, which is the process of writing without putting pressure on myself to meet a deadline or to be perfect or to meet someone else's expectations, that's when I become truly relaxed. Aerial ceiling 1. 3 write in a series if you want to. I have some standalone books but most of them are in series both for non-fiction

and for my fiction as JF Pen. It's how I like to read and write. As we draft this book, I'm also writing book 12 in my Arcane series, Tomb of Relics. It's relaxing because I know my characters. I know my world. I know the structure of how an arcane story goes. I know what to put in to please my readers. I have already done the work to set up the series world and the main characters, and now all I need is a plot and an antagonist. It's also quicker to write and edit because I've done it before. Of course, you need to put in the work initially, so the series comes together, but once you've set that all up, each subsequent book is easier. You can also be more relaxed because you already have an audience who will hopefully buy the book because they bought the others. You will know approximately how many sales you'll get on launch, and there will be people ready to review. Writing in a non-fiction series is also a really good idea because you know your audience and you can offer them more books, products, and services that will help them within a niche. While they might not be sequential, they should be around the same topic. For example, this is part of my books for authors series. Financially, it makes sense to have a series as you will earn more revenue per customer as they will hopefully buy more than one book. It's also easier and more relaxing to market as you can set one book to free or a limited time discount and drive sales through to other books in the series. Essentially, writing a book in a series makes it easier to fulfill both creative and financial goals. However, if you love to read and write standalone books, and some genres suit standalone better than series anyway, then of course, go with what works for you. — I like to equate this to no matter where you travel in the world, if you find a McDonald's, you pretty much know what's on the menu and you know what to expect. When you're writing a series, it's like returning to hang out with old friends. You know their backstory. You know their history. So, you can easily fall into a new conversation about something and not have to get caught up on understanding what you have in common. So, that's an enormous benefit of relaxing into something like, "Oh, I'm sitting down over coffee chatting with some old friends. They're telling me a new story about something that happened to them. I know who they are. I know what they're made of. and this new plot, this new situation. They may have new goals. ways they're going to grow as characters, but they're still the same people that we know and love. And that's a huge benefit that I only discovered recently because I'm only right now working on book four in my Canadian Werewolf series. Prior to that, I had three different novels that were all the first book in a series with no book two. And it was stressful for me. Writing anything seemed to take forever. I was causing myself anxiety by jumping around and writing new works as opposed to realizing I could go visit a local I'm familiar and comfortable with. And I can see new things in the same local just like sometimes you can see new things and people you know and love already. Especially when you introduce something new into the world and you see how they react to it. For me, there's nothing more wonderful than that sort of homecoming. It's like a nostalgic feeling when you do that. I've seen a repeated pattern where writers spend years writing the first book. I started A Canadian Werewolf in New York in 2006, and I did not publish it until 10 years later after finishing it in 2015. FYI, that wasn't my first novel. I had written three and published one of them prior to that. That first novel can take so long because you're learning. You're learning about your characters, about the craft, about the practice of writing, about the processes that you're testing along the way. And if you're working on your first book and it's taking longer than planned, please don't beat yourself up for that. It's a process. Sometimes that process takes more time. I sometimes wonder if this is related to our perception of time as we age. When you're 10 years old, a day compared to your lifetime is a significant amount of time. And thinking about a year later is considering a time that is onetenth of your life. When you have a few more decades or more under your belt, that year is a smaller part of the whole. If you're 30, a year is only 130th of your life, a much smaller piece. Just having written more books

particularly in a series, removes the pressure of that one book to represent all of you as a writer. I had initial anxiety at writing the second book in my Canadian Werewolf series. Book two was more terrifying in some ways than book one because finally, after all this time, I had something good that I didn't want to ruin. Should I leave well enough alone? But I was asked to write a short story to a theme in an anthology. And using my main character from that first novel allowed me to discover I could have more fun spending more time with these characters in this world. And I also realized that people wanted to read more about those characters. I didn't just want to write about them, but other people wanted to read about them, too. And that makes the process so much easier to keep going with them. So, one of the other benefits that helps to relax me as a writer working on a series is I have a better understanding of who my audience is and who my readers are and who will want this and who will appreciate it. So, I know what worked. I know what resonated with them and I know I can give them that next thing. I have discovered that writing in a series is a far more relaxed way of understanding your target audience better because it's not just a single shot in the dark. It's a consistent ongoing stream. Let me reflect on a bit of a caveat because I'm not suggesting sticking to only a single series or universe. As writers, we have plenty of ideas and inspirations and it's okay to embrace some of the other ones that come to us. When I think about the Canadian rock trio Rush, a band that produced 19 studio albums and toured for 40 years, I acknowledge a very consistent band over the decades. And yet they weren't the same band that they were when they started playing together, even though it was the same three guys since Neil Pier joined Getty Lee and Alex Lifson. They changed what they wrote about, what they sang about, themes, styles, approaches to making music. All of this, they adapted and changed their style at least a dozen times over the course of their career. No album was exactly like the previous album. and they experimented and they tried things, but there was a consistency of the audience that went along with them. And as writers, we can potentially have that same thing where we know there are going to be people who will follow us. Think about Stephen King, a writer who's been writing in many different subjects and genres. And yet, there's a core group of people who will enjoy everything he writes. And he has that constant reader he always keeps in mind. And so when we write in a series, we're thinking about that constant raider in a more relaxed way because that constant raider like our characters, like our worlds, like our universes, is like we're just returning to a comfortable cozy spot where we're just going to hang out with some good friends for a bit. Or as the contemplative rush song Time Stand still expresses, the simple comfort and desire of spending some quality time having a drink with a friend. 1. 4 schedule time to fill the creative well and for rest and relaxation. What we do as writers is quite cerebral. So we need to give ourselves mental breaks in the same way we need to sleep regularly. Our bodies require sleep. And it's not just physical rest for our bodies to regenerate. It's for our minds to regenerate. We need that to stay sane, to stay alive, to stay healthy. The reality for us as creatives is that we're writing all the time. Whether or not we're in front of a keyboard or have a pen in our hand, we're always writing, continually sucking the marrow from the things that are happening around us. Even when we're not consciously aware of it. And sometimes when we are more consciously aware of it, that awareness can feel forced. It can feel stressed. When you give yourself the time to just let go, to just relax, wonderful things can happen and they can come naturally, never feeling that urgent sense of pressure. Downtime for me is making space for those magic moments to happen. I was recently listening to episode 556 of the Creative Pen podcast where Joanna talked about the serendipity of those moments when you're traveling and you're going to a museum and you see something and you're not consciously there to research for a book, but you see something that just makes a connection for you. And you would not have had that for your writing had you not given yourself the time to just be doing and enjoying something else. And so whenever I need to resolve an issue or a problem in a project I'm writing which can cause stress, I will do other things. I'll go for a run or

walk the dogs, wash the dishes or clean the house, or I'll put on some music and sing and dance like nobody is watching or listening. And thank goodness for that because that might cause them needless anxiety. The key is I will do something different that allows my mind to just let go. And somewhere in the subconscious, usually the answer comes to me. Those non- cerebral activities can be very restorative. Yesterday, my partner Liz and I met her daughter at the park, and while we quietly waited, the two of us wordlessly enjoyed the sights and sounds of people walking by, the river in the background, the wind blowing through the leaves and the trees above us. That moment wasn't a purposeful, "Hey, we're going to chill and relax. But we found about 5 minutes of restorative calm in the day. A brief but powerful ah moment. And when I got back to writing this morning, I drew upon some of the imagery from those few minutes. I didn't realize at the time I was experiencing the moment yesterday that I was going to incorporate some of that imagery in today's writing session. And that's the serendipity that just flows very naturally in those scheduled and even unscheduled moments of relaxation. I separate this into two aspects because I'm good at one and terrible at the other. I schedule time to fill the creative well as often as possible. This is something that Julia Cameron advises in the artist's way and I find it an essential part of my creative practice. Essentially, you can't create from an empty mind. You have to actively seek out ways to spark ideas. International travel is a huge part of my fiction inspiration in particular. This has been impossible during the pandemic and has definitely impacted my writing. I also go to exhibitions and art galleries as well as read books, watch films, and documentaries. If I don't fill my creative well, then I feel empty, like I will never have another idea, that perhaps my writing life is over. Some people call that writer's block, but I know that feeling now. It just means I haven't filled my creative well and I need to schedule time to do that so I can create again. Consume and produce. That's the balance you need in order to keep the creative well-filled and the words flowing. In terms ofuling time to relax instead of doing book research, I find this difficult because I love to work. My husband says I'm like a little sports car that goes really, really fast and doesn't stop until it hits a wall. I operate at a high productivity level and then I crash. But the restrictions of the pandemic has helped me learn a lot more about relaxation after much initial frustration. I have walked in nature and lane in the garden in the hammock. And recently we went to the seaside for the first time in 18 months. I lay on the stones and watched the waves. I was the most relaxed I've been in a long time. I didn't look at my phone. I wasn't listening to a podcast or an audio book. We weren't talking. We were just being there in nature and relaxing. Authors are always thinking and feeling because everything feeds our work somehow. But we have to have both aspects. Active time to fill the creative well and passive time to rest and relax. I go for lots of walks and hikes in the woods. These help me work out the kinks in my plots and also to feel more relaxed. Exercise is an added benefit. TWW Piperbrook. 1. 5. Improve your writing process, but only if it fits with your lifestyle. A lot of stress can occur in writing if we try to change or improve our process too far beyond our natural way of doing things. For example, trying to be a detailed plotter with a spreadsheet when you're really a discovery writer, or trying to dictate 5,000 words per hour when you find it easier to handr write slowly into a journal. Productivity tips from other writers can really help you tweak your personal process, but only if they work for you. And I say this as someone who has a book on productivity for authors. Of course, it's a good idea to improve things, but once you try something, analyze whether it works for you, either with data or just how you feel. If it works, great. Adopt it into your process. If it doesn't work, then

discard it. For example, I wrote my first novel in Microsoft Word. When I discovered Scrivener, I changed my process and never looked back because it made my life so much easier. I don't write in order, and Scrivener made it easier to move things around. I also discovered that it was easier for me to get into my first draft writing and creating when I was away from the desk I use for business, podcasting, and marketing tasks. I started to write in a local cafe and later on in a co-working space. During the pandemic lockdown, I use specific playlists to create a form of separation as I couldn't physically go somewhere else. Editing is an important part of the writing process, but you have to find what works for you, which will also change over time. Some authors are more relaxed with a messy first draft, then rounds of rewrites while working with multiple editors. Others do one careful draft, and then use a proofreader to check the finished book. There are as many ways to write as there are writers. A relaxed author chooses the process that works in the most effective way for them and makes the book the best it can be. When it comes to process, there are times when you're doing something that feels natural versus times when you're learning a new skill. Consciously and purposefully learning new skills can be stressful, particularly because it's something we often put so much emphasis or importance upon. But when you adapt ongoing learning as a normal part of your life, a natural part of who and what you are, that stress can flow away. I'm always about learning new skills, but over time, I've learned how to absorb learning into my everyday processes. I'm a pancer or discovery writer or whatever term we can apply that makes us feel better about it. And every time I've tried to stringently outline a book, it has been a stressful experience. And I've not been satisfied with the process or the result. Perhaps I satisfied the part of me that thought I wanted to be more like other writers, but I didn't satisfy the creative person in me. I was denying that flow that has worked for me. I did, of course, naturally introduce a few new learnings into my attempts to outline. So, I stuck with those elements that worked and abandoned the elements that weren't working or were causing me stress. The thought of self-improvement often comes with images of blood, sweat, and tears. It doesn't have to. You don't have to bleed to do this. It can be something that you do at your own pace. You can do it in a way that you're comfortable with. So, it's causing you no stress, but allowing you to learn and grow and improve. And if it doesn't work, but you force yourself to keep doing it because a famous writer or a six-figure author said, "This is the way to do it. " you create pressure and when you don't do it that way you can think of yourself as a failure as opposed to thinking of it as no this is just the way that I do things when you accept how you do things if they result in effectively getting things done and feeling good about it at the same time you have less resistance you have less friction you have less tension constantly learning adapting and evolving is good. But forcing ourselves to try to be or do something that we are not or that doesn't work for us, that causes needless anxiety. I think a large part of it comes down to reminding myself why I write. This can mean looking back at positive reviews so I can see how much joy others get from my writing or even just writing something brand new for the sake of exploring an idea. Writing something just for me rather than for an audience reminds me how much I enjoy writing which helps me to unwind a bit and approach my projects with more playfulness. I see Sedwick. So, I hope you found the relaxed author chapters useful and you can get the whole book with sections on relaxed publishing, relaxed marketing, and relaxed business at creativepenbooks. com or on your favorite retailer or on the YouTube channel at the creativepen. And the book is in all the usual formats. And yes, that is human us narrating. Okay, 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, there is no show as it is Christmas week, but I will be back

before the end of the year with a roundup reflecting on my goals for the year and how I did and what changed since I never end up doing exactly what I intended to do. I'll also have a new year episode with my goals for 2026 and what might lay ahead for the publishing industry. And remember, if you are thinking ahead to 2026, which, let's face it, is only a few weeks time, you might like to join me for my January webinar on business for authors. Details at thecreativepen. com/live. Or if you're a patron, use the special link and get 25% discount. In the meantime, happy Christmas or happy holidays wherever you are in the world. 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 the creativepen. com/mpodcast. And you can get your free author blueprint at therecreaten. 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 @ jfpenauthor.