How Women Write

Leslie Vickrey wrote her chapter for a collaborative book in about an hour. She also pulled her first one from print three times.

If you've ever written something vulnerable and then hesitated before publishing, you totally understand.

Leslie is the founder and CEO of ClearEdge, a marketing, recruiting, and leadership development firm for the talent and tech world. She studied journalism and thought she'd go into broadcasting. Then she realized the part she loved most was the writing.

She co-led the Lady Leaders Book Club, a group of 15 women who met on Zoom in March 2020 after a celebration dinner was canceled. That group became a virtual family, and then two books: Together We Rise and Rising With Courage.

In this conversation, Leslie talks about writing her second chapter while she was still in the hardest season of her leadership — writing from the wound, not the scar.

She shares why most women still say no when she invites them to speak, and the question she asks whenever doubt creeps in: Is this fear leading, or is this me leading?

We also talk about AI. Because Leslie runs a marketing agency, people ask her about it constantly. Her answer: we're human-led, AI-enabled. The ideas and the lived experience stay hers.

And she has a nudge for you … Write your story. From childhood on. Nobody ever has to read it.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How a high school interview assignment showed Leslie the power of making someone feel seen

• Why she writes best on airplanes and late at night

• How a canceled dinner in March 2020 became a book club, a virtual family, and two books

• What it was like having 14 co-authors critique her chapter idea

• Writing a vulnerable chapter while still in the middle of it, and why it felt like "the best medicine"

• Her "evil DJ" and how she changes the song

• Her human-led, AI-enabled approach

• The solo book that might be waiting

1. Ask who's leading. When you hesitate to publish, pitch, or say yes, ask: Is this fear leading, or is this me? Fear tells convincing fiction.

2. When it pours out, pay attention. Leslie wrote her chapter in an hour because it was what she was meant to write. The story you're forcing might not be the one you're meant to tell.

3. You can write from the wound. Writing while you're still in it can help you let go. You decide later what to share and when.

4. Your old story might not be your current one. Leslie's co-authors told her she wasn't that leader anymore. Sometimes you need outside eyes to see who you've become.

5. Keep the human part human. Use AI as a thought partner and formatter. The ideas, the lived experience, and the voice stay yours.

6. Nobody notices what you missed. She skipped her closing line on stage. Ran out of pizza at her party. Nobody knew until she told them. Hit publish.

7. Write your story just for you. Start with childhood. Write it down. It may become a book, or posts, or a gift for your kids. Or it may stay yours.

Leslie Vickrey is an entrepreneur, author, podcast host, and passionate advocate for helping women find their voices, build confidence, and lead with courage. For more than 20 years, she's built a career helping companies and people tell their stories while learning the power of sharing her own.

Leslie is the founder and CEO of ClearEdge, a marketing agency specializing in helping staffing, recruiting, and workforce solutions companies strengthen their brands, accelerate growth, and connect with the audiences that matter most. She is also the co-founder of ARA, an organization dedicated to attracting, retaining, and advancing women in technology.

A co-author of Together We Rise and Rising with Courage: A Guide to Life and Leadership, Leslie also hosts two podcasts, TheEdge and Honestly, We're Learning. Through her writing, conversations, and advocacy, she shares candid lessons from her own journey while encouraging others to challenge expectations, embrace their stories, and recognize the power of their voices.

Leslie serves on the Board of Advisors for New ERA ADR, VMS Professionals, and Central Michigan University's College of Business Administration, which honored her with its Distinguished Alumni Award. She was inducted into the UIC Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, recognized as an Enterprising Woman of the Year, and named to Staffing Industry Analysts' DEI Influencer list three consecutive years. A frequent industry speaker, Leslie shares insights on marketing, AI, entrepreneurship, and leadership.

Leslie lives in Breckenridge, Colorado, with her husband and son. Outside of work, you'll find her biking, skiing, hiking with her two dogs, or playing hockey with the Breck Betties.

Connect with Leslie

• Leslie Vickrey on LinkedIn (her favorite place to connect)

• ClearEdge

• Together We Rise by The Lady Leaders Book Club

• Rising With Courage: A Practical Guide to Life and Leadership by The Lady Leaders Book Club

• How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith

Finding Flow: Breathe New Life into Your Substack is underway. It's not a challenge — it's an activation. A daily prompt, a weekly live call with time to write, and the feeling of moving forward again. We run new moon to new moon, through December 7th. Joining late? Watch the replays and dive in.

The Constellation Writing Retreat is open by application. Four nights in a beach house on Anna Maria Island, January 26–30, for memoir and personal essay. A 1:1 session before, during, and after is included, so you arrive knowing exactly what you're working on. Early bird pricing ends November 20th.

The Billet Season — my book about the year my son played junior hockey and lived with a host family. I'm writing it out loud, one chapter a week, free.

And I'm talking to camera on Instagram every day for six months. Short, unpolished, 15 minutes max. Come say hi at @theintuitivewritingschool.

Connect with Jacqueline/Other Links

• Finding Flow: Breathe New Life into Your Substack

• The Constellation Writing Retreat (apply here)

• The Billet Season

• Instagram

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• Work privately with Jacqueline

• LinkedIn

It's November 2017 at 5:00 a.m., and I'm sitting in the dark, on the couch with my laptop balanced on my knees. I wrote 1,667 words every day that month and technically "won" NaNoWriMo.

Then I didn't touch that draft for 11 months.

In this solo episode, I share why I stopped recommending intense writing challenges years before NaNoWriMo shut down — especially for women and anyone prone to pushing too hard. I talk about what that month really cost me, the start-stop-guilt pattern I see in so many writers (and on Substack), and the moment a simple graph changed how I write.

If your Substack has gone silent, or you keep circling a book, this one's for you.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The quick history of NaNoWriMo, including how only 6 of the original 21 writers hit 50,000 words

• Why the draft that became Unfussy Life took almost five years to publish (and how 30,000 of those words didn't make it)

• What I saw when I ran intense writing challenges inside my community from 2018 to 2021

• The all-or-nothing pattern behind the burst-of-posts-then-silence Substack, and why coming back doesn't have to be hard

• How seeing two hormone graphs side by side reshaped my writing practice

• What 13 years of corporate push taught me about masculine and feminine energy, and why we need both

• The four moon phases, simplified for your writing: plant, draft, publish, refine

• Why Writing with the Moon was the easiest book I've ever written

• A map of this November's moon cycle, from the new moon in Scorpio on November 9 to the dark moon on December 7

• An invitation to Finding Flow: Breathe New Life into Your Substack

Some of these links may be affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I earn a commission.

• Finding Flow: Breathe New Life into Your Substack — 29 days, new moon to new moon, November 9 – December 7. A daily voice memo and prompt, live 90-minute Monday calls at 1:00 pm ET (recorded), integration week over Thanksgiving, and a free copy of Writing with the Moon. $97. Join here.

• Writing with the Moon

• Intuitive Writing

• Unfussy Life

• Read the companion essay, "The Ultimate NaNoWriMo Alternative," on Energy-First Writing

• Sign up for Finding Flow: live 29-day writing experience beginning on November 9

• Work privately with Jacqueline

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

What if half your book is already written, sitting in blog posts you forgot you wrote?

That's where Karen Marcus started. After 27 years as a tech copywriter, she downloaded about three dozen blog posts, dropped them into a folder, and figured she'd stitch them into a book.

Well, it wasn't that simple. It took ten years start to finish, including a few years when she set it down entirely. A story so many authors know well.

When she came back to the book, she did something that changed everything: she made herself the client and treated the book like one very big assignment.

We talk about the writing process, surprises since publishing, how Karen uses AI today (even after losing work to it), and the moment after publishing when she realized a book being out in the world isn't the same as people finding it.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How Karen landed in copywriting without knowing what a copywriter was

• The practical process of turning blog posts into book chapters

• Why she put her book down after a publisher asked for changes, and what brought her back

• How she uses AI at work now, and her possibly controversial take on AI-written content

• What surprised her most about self-publishing

• Why she skipped building a platform first and published anyway

• How she's deciding what to write next

1. Your archive is raw material, not a manuscript. Old posts make great jumping-off points for chapters. Expect to sort, cut, update, and restructure them, though. Karen had to decide what her focus was before the pieces fit.

2. Make yourself the client. Karen finished her book by treating it like any other assignment. That means gathering the material, finding the structure, and powering through.

3. Humans are the final arbiter. Karen uses AI as a starting point and a way to get unstuck. The judgment about what's good, true, and worth publishing stays with the writer.

4. Treat publishing as an experiment. Karen didn't wait for a platform or a perfect marketing plan. She published to learn the process, and now she's testing what comes next.

Karen Marcus has spent decades helping business professionals communicate clearly. A lifelong lover of words and books, Karen earned two degrees in English and worked as a freelance copywriter in the tech industry for 27 years. She became known for distilling complex technical concepts into understandable information that helped her clients gain customer interest and trust.

In her work as a copywriter, Karen created standard processes and consistent practices to deliver quality work on every project. In her first book, The Confident Copywriter, she shares her secret sauce so inexperienced writers don't have to figure it out the hard way.

Karen still loves to read, especially sci-fi. When not reading or writing, she enjoys spending time with people, trees, and cats.

• Visit Karen's author website

• Connect with Karen on LinkedIn

• Purchase The Confident Copywriter on Amazon

• Get Meet Your Book: The guided audio & workbook

• Work privately with Jacqueline

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

This one is a full-circle conversation for me.

Amber Heinrich and I met in corporate. We were in the same practice area, both in communications, and both vegan when that was a rare thing to find in a conference room. We've both since stepped away from the corporate consulting world, and now she's written a book.

Debug Yourself: Reprogram Your Mind, Body & Spirit for Well-Being is the book Amber wishes she'd had when she was burned out. After 25 years of leading people through change, her own resets stopped working. So she collected the tools that helped, built a framework (she's a consultant, of course there was a framework), and five years later, it became a book.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How Amber went from "executive hippie" in corporate boardrooms to coach and author, and why she rebelled against her bohemian childhood by going to business school

• Why she drafted most of the book by hand, often rushing in the door after a morning walk because she couldn't hold the ideas any longer

• The 30,000 to 35,000 words of personal story she cut, and why she calls it memoir material for another book

• Her three proposals through a writing community: one that went nowhere, one that earned editorial feedback that reshaped everything, and one that won a publishing package

• How every section she revised seemed to bring a life challenge that tested the advice she was writing

• The moment her book went on sale while she was in Delphi, on a trip she'd promised herself she'd be fully present for

• Why her real voice came easily in the book, but the corporate voice creeps back in when she sits down to market it

• Her advice for the woman just out of corporate who thinks there's a book in her: start with your stories, and write down what each one taught you

Amber Heinrich is the author of Debug Yourself: Reprogram Your Mind, Body & Spirit for Well-Being — a science-informed, soul-rooted guide for changing the internal patterns that shape how you think, feel, work, and live. Drawing on neuroscience, ancient healing traditions, and lived expertise leading people and organizations through transformational changes, Amber offers a modern doorway into timeless wisdom. She is a life and business coach, author, certified hypnotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher, and a former corporate executive. Amber founded Spirit Stone Wellness to help people navigate change without stress and find joy, purpose, and energy in all areas of work and life. She is the creator of The PATH of Well-Being, a framework now used in coaching programs, online courses, immersive retreats, and Debug Yourself.

Links

• Visit Amber's Website: https://spiritstonewellness.com/

• Get Debug Yourself: https://bit.ly/debugyourselfbook

• Book a call with Amber: https://call.spiritstonewellness.com/scheduling

• Connect with Amber: https://spiritstonewellness.com/link-in-bio

• Get Meet Your Book: The guided audio & workbook

• Work privately with Jacqueline

• The Studio

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• Read The Billet Season

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

Joyce De Bakker has reinvented herself more times than she can count — international moves, relationship endings, a corporate career that looked successful but felt like someone else's life.

In 2026, she stopped watching others succeed from the sidelines. She launched her coaching and mentoring business and gave herself a 30-day challenge: write and publish on Substack every single day — no topic list, no strategy, and no perfect plan.

In this conversation, we talk about what actually happened during those 30 days — the article that took four hours (and how she kept going!), the deeply vulnerable piece that brought her the most DMs, and the moment she realized she had more to say than she ever thought possible.

Joyce also opens up about growing up in a cult, learning to read as an act of rebellion, and how writing "like the Queen" — proper, performed, safe — kept her from hitting publish for years. She shares a couple of simple practices that changed everything: five minutes of breathing before writing, and the discipline of collapsing the time between finishing a piece and putting it out into the world before the inner critic could catch up.

In this episode:

• Growing up in a cult, and what it meant to read outside its teachings

• Why her writing always came out sounding like "the Queen trying to write" — and what changed

• The friend, the deadline, and the fear of being left behind that sparked the 30-day challenge

• What almost made her quit the writing challenge

• Why she also challenged herself on Instagram video

• The five-minute breathing ritual before writing, and why it worked

• What daily writing surfaced about patterns she's still unlearning

• Finding — and losing, and refinding — her voice after starting a business

• Her advice for the woman who's mid-restart and doesn't trust herself to finish

Joyce has likely reinvented herself more than Madonna. International relocations, relationship breakdowns, walking the path less travelled — change has been the red thread running through her life.

She recently reached the end of the road in a successful corporate career, no longer recognising the woman looking back at her in the mirror. For years, fear held her back from starting a coaching business, even while she was unofficially doing the work anyway, working with many women transforming their lives through new careers, business start-ups, and gathering themselves after breakups and divorce.

This year, she finally staked her claim and said no more. She started writing, launched her official coaching and mentoring business, and chose what matters most.

• Read Joyce's writing on Substack

• Visit Joyce's website

• Read the article on the 5-minute landing practice before writing.

• Work privately with Jacqueline

• The Studio

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

Jennifer Ciaramello is the author of Quiet Boil and founder of Quiet Boil Project, a faith-based ministry for women learning to notice the slow-building heat in their lives and step out of it. She's also a licensed aesthetician with 26 years in the beauty industry.

In this episode, Jennifer shares how her book began as a box of handwritten notes. She also shares how that box sat untouched for fifteen years before COVID boredom brought her back to it. We talk about the difference between writing to process and writing to publish, why the ending was harder to write than the trauma itself, and the new moon ritual she used to release the manuscript once it was done. This was a first!

• Why the box became her earliest writing tool, and how this process can work for your own memories

• The difference between writing from the wound and writing from the scar

• Why the hardest chapter to write was the one she tried to force

• What it meant to burn her own book — and why she's done the same ritual with other physical reminders of her past

• Letting go of control over how (and whether) a book performs

• Her next three projects — these are so fun!

The book links below are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• Quiet Boil Project

• Jennifer's Book: Quiet Boil: Simmering in the Pot: A True Story of Sin, Survival, and Salvation

Jennifer M. Ciaramello is a licensed esthetician, entrepreneur, singer, writer, photographer, and follower of Christ who lives in Florida with her husband, Sway. For twenty-seven years, she has helped women care for their outward beauty through her business, Skin Chic, LLC. In her memoir Quiet Boil, she shares a much deeper story: a journey through trauma, abuse, abandonment, addiction, and loss to redemption and God's faithfulness. Through the Quiet Boil Project, Jennifer writes, speaks, and prays with women trapped in unhealthy or abusive situations, encouraging them to recognize their worth, find their voice, and take steps toward safety, healing, and restoration.

• Work privately with Jacqueline

• The Studio

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

When Cara Chace was a teenager sitting in a Denny's with her dad, she told him, "I want to be a writer."

He shot it down before she could finish her Grand Slam. How on earth would she make a living doing that?

It took her 30 years to come back around. Today, she calls herself a writer.

In between, Cara became a federal special agent, then the social media manager for Megadeth, and then founded a digital marketing agency. She knows how to do social media well — except it made her sick.

After three years of healing, she took a two-week break over the holidays in 2025 and felt better than she had in years. The day she switched back into content calendars and platform strategy, however, her body reacted to everything she ate.

That was the spark for her book The Social Media Burnout Cure, out now.

In this conversation, we talk about what happens when you catch yourself composing a caption in your brain in the middle of a moment where real life is happening. Cara's answer to what to do with "caption brain" is so simple it gave me goosebumps: don't post it. Put it in a Google Doc. And that's exactly how she wrote her book — in just three months.

The best parts? She did it without burning out and says that the process was the easiest thing she's ever done.

You'll hear how she mined 10 years of her own blogs and talks for material she didn't know she'd already written, why she works from a "morning menu" instead of a word count or to-do list, and why she fired her first cover designer even with a deadline looming. Plus — her favorite Megadeth song and what's in her mug when she writes. You know, all the things we writers want to know.

If you've ever said "If it weren't for my business, I'd never be on social media again," this one's for you.

• Thinking in captions? Write it down instead. Every time a gold nugget bubbled up, Cara put it in a messy working Google Doc instead of an Instagram reel or story.

• Mine your own archive. A decade of blogs, talks, and course scripts delivered more of her book content than she expected. She'd been circling this theme for years.

• Try a morning menu, not a checklist. Cara rebels against her own routines, so she lets each morning decide for itself based on her season, her cycle, and what feels right that day.

• The hard part isn't always the writing. For Cara, the messy middle was organizing everything. And the moment she thought she was done, she realized she had half a book. A moment so many authors can relate to.

• Trust your gut, even with a deadline. She knew right away her first cover designer wasn't a fit. This time, she didn't let sunk cost make the call.

• Writing how you speak takes repetition. Readers tell Cara they can hear her voice on the page. That came from 10 years of blogging, emails, and scripting.

• Signposts, not stages. You don't have to delete your social media profiles. Set them up to point people to where you actually show up — your email list, your podcast — and post when you have something to say.

• The Instagram experiment. Cara stopped posting to her feed in January. By March, her website traffic from Instagram hadn't dropped — and her engagement went up.

Cara Chace is an author and burnout coach helping women entrepreneurs build sustainable, anti-hustle businesses without trashing their nervous systems.

She built what she wishes she'd had when she burned out — when the planners, the productivity hacks, and the color-coded calendars left her more exhausted, more behind, and more resentful than when she started. Through Chaos Detox, her signature course, and her forthcoming book on social media burnout, Cara teaches women how to stop white-knuckling their way through the week and start building a business that fits the life they're actually living.

She's the host of the Ditch the Chaos podcast, a 10-year entrepreneur, and a former Special Agent. She lives in Idaho with her family and runs her business with margin, intention, and a deep aversion to hustle culture.

• Get The Social Media Burnout Cure

• Listen to the Ditch the Chaos podcast

• Hire Jacqueline for private Intuitive Writing Mentoring

• The Intuitive Writing Studio

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

00:00 Welcome And Cara Chace Intro

01:32 Authors And Social Media

02:35 Early Writing Roots

03:47 Denny's Dream Detour

05:58 Becoming A Writer Again

08:02 From Anthropology To Special Agent

09:57 Burnout And Career Pivot

13:23 Agency Life And Health Crash

17:34 Marketing Mode Trigger

21:20 Social Media Colonized Brain

22:39 Spark And Writing The Book

24:46 Capture Ideas In Google Docs

26:25 Escape the Algorithm Trap

26:41 Reclaim Stillness and Autonomy

28:32 How the Book Began

29:48 Messy Middle and Structure

31:24 Writing Without Routines

33:50 Trusting Intuition in Publishing

35:36 Why the Draft Came Quickly

37:58 Metalhead Detour and Focus

39:36 Writing Soundtrack and Coffee

41:44 Signposts Not Stages Strategy

43:47 Instagram Experiment and Wrap Up

It's my birthday, so I'm doing something a little different. There's no guest today, just me, some gifted Tom Ford Lost Cherry perfume I just spritzed on, me, my mic, and a mascara-free, honest catch-up.

You'll hear how I'm spending the day, what this year actually felt like, and the decisions I've made that I'm sharing out loud with you today. You're hearing them here first.

I walked away from some things with no regrets, and even though I'm nervous, I'm saying yes to some others. And much of it is thanks to a single book that I haven't even finished yet.

You'll also hear about how I started books five and six, but book seven was actually next. And I'm not writing it for my business. I'm following God's lead. Which doesn't fit neatly into any kind of book marketing funnel.

If you're a woman writing something that lights you up, this one's for you.

• Choosing a path on purpose means naming what you're letting go of, not only what you're adding.

• Some books don't fit the funnel. Write them anyway.

• Walking away from work you're good at can be the right move.

• You can teach writing and still be a student of it.

• A milestone is a good excuse to ask what you thought you were walking toward and what showed up instead.

• Say the risky thing out loud. It's usually the thing someone else needed to hear.

A question for you: What are you writing, or avoiding writing, right now? Send me a message at hi [at] jacquelinefisch.com. I read every one (except if you write the whole thing with Claude … I talk about that too).

Links from this episode: Some of these are affiliate links. If you click one and make a purchase, I might earn a commission.

• The Threshold Session — live Friday, Sept 25

• The Living Draft — now enrolling until spots are filled. Starts Oct. 9.

• Writing with the Moon, May 2026

• The Studio

• The Billet Year Book

• Outwitting the Devil: The Secrets to Freedom and Success (Official Publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation)

• Hire Jacqueline for private Intuitive Writing Mentoring

• The Intuitive Writing Studio

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

00:00 Birthday Intro and Astrology

01:16 How I'm Celebrating Today

02:54 Year in Review Milestones

03:38 Studio Evolution and Curriculum

06:19 Writing Books in Public

07:29 The Billet Season Story

10:35 Teaching Wins and Networking Lessons

13:12 In-Person Connection in the AI Age

16:24 Birthday Wishes and a Life-Changing Book

19:44 Free Threshold Session and Living Draft

25:15 Wrap-Up and Stay in Touch

There's a particular kind of ache that doesn't show up on the outside. You're doing everything right, checking all the boxes with a solid career and a great-looking life. But under the surface, something is off. It's like your current life no longer fits.

That's the ache Liz Holtzinger shares with readers in her book Lead Yourself First. Liz spent over two decades teaching rhetoric and composition at Penn State when, on her 50th birthday, she woke up with COVID. She ended up spending this milestone birthday snuggledup alone, under a blanket, and asking herself the big questions she'd been avoiding. What came out of that year was a Substack, started for just one paying subscriber, which eventually became her book.

In this conversation, we talk about the chapter she struggled with most. The chapter asked her to look at her past and name something as abuse for the first time. We talk about writing in public before you know what you're building, which I know is what so many writers are bravely doing. We also talk about her Leadership Compass framework, built on clarity, alignment, presence, and truth — the same four words she used to teach her students and used to find her own way back to herself.

If you've built something that looks right and feels off, this one's for you.

• The 50th birthday that cracked everything open and sparked what would become her first book

• Why Liz wrote the book as a Substack first — for an audience of one

• The chapter she almost couldn't write

• Her Leadership Compass framework: clarity, alignment, presence, truth

• Why she believes most of us aren't lost — just disconnected from our own judgment

• The one chapter she wants you to read if you only have time for one

Liz Holtzinger is a writer, professor, entrepreneur, and author of Lead Yourself First. Her work explores what happens when the life you've built no longer fits—and how to find your way back to yourself without blowing everything up and starting over.

Drawing on more than two decades of teaching, leadership experience, and her own journey through burnout, self-neglect, and personal transition, Liz challenges the idea that people need constant reinvention. Instead, she believes most of us are searching for something we've lost: trust in our own judgment, values, and inner voice.

Liz speaks on self-leadership, identity, burnout, communication, and the pressure to perform in modern life. Her approach is grounded, honest, and practical, helping people move from exhaustion and uncertainty toward greater clarity and alignment.

• Liz's website: https://lizholtzinger.com/

• Liz's book on Amazon: Lead Yourself First: Return to Yourself and Lead from Alignment, Presence, and Truth

• Liz on LinkedIn

• Hire Jacqueline for private Intuitive Writing Mentoring

• The Intuitive Writing Studio

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

00:00 Meet Liz Holzinger

01:35 Books and Childhood Reading

03:13 Early Writing Confidence

05:02 Publishing Dreams and Rejection

06:00 Accidental Path to Teaching

09:30 Penn State Breakthrough

11:00 Lead Yourself First Spark

14:04 Writing in Public on Substack

17:51 Hardest Chapter to Write

22:37 Identity and Chapter Five

26:36 New Projects and Poetry

28:24 Writing Drinks and Journaling

30:56 Substack Bonus and Farewell

My guest today is a fellow INFJ who built a writing and business empire from her keyboard — and she did it by trusting her intuition over anyone's idea of what a "proper" writer looks like. As Joanna Penn, she writes practical, generous nonfiction that has made The Creative Penn one of the most trusted resources for authors in the world. It's my favorite podcast on the craft and business of writing!

As J.F. Penn, she writes dark thrillers built on copious research, religious relics, anatomy, museums, and graveyards … and her body of work is seriously impressive, with over 40 books and over a million copies sold in 176 countries. Instead of picking a lane (or genre), she built a business and a creative life that deliver both.

Joanna's been one of the most thoughtful, AI-positive voices in the author space, and I truly appreciate it. Most importantly, she is clear on her author voice and is genuinely working through what the technology means for writers. She calls herself an "AI-assisted artisan author," and I want to be clear about what that does and doesn't mean: this isn't a label for the last twenty years of her career or that she's cranking out books written by AI. No. It's how she's naming the next chapter in her career. AI has changed how she researches, plans, and runs the business around the words — and she's refreshingly honest and optimistic about where that line sits.

We talked about the teacher who told her at eleven to "write something nice" — and how long it took to write her way back to the dark stuff she actually loved. We talked about her fifth novel, the one where she finally stopped censoring herself and found her real voice. We also talked about why fiction and nonfiction ask completely different things of her, how her intuition tells her which book to write next, and what it looks like to bring AI into an established creative life without losing an ounce of what makes her sound like her.

If any part of you has been waiting for permission to trust what you already know and start — this is it.

• Intuition can be your business strategy, not just your creative process. Joanna describes an "intuitive sense" of what book she needs to write next — and she listens to it, even when the entrepreneur in her has a more strategic idea.

• You don't have to choose one creative identity. You can build a system that holds many. Joanna writes practical nonfiction as Joanna Penn and fiction as J.F. Penn. They're two different creative muscles, each with its own time block, energy, and audience.

• Your "real" voice might not show up until book five. Joanna didn't find hers until Desecration, her fifth novel — where she stopped writing what she thought a "proper" book should be and focused on writing what she truly loved. If your first book doesn't feel like you yet — keep writing.

• Fiction and nonfiction require different kinds of energy. She describes fiction as decision-fatigue-heavy, every character choice a choice, while nonfiction pours out because she already knows it.

• Being an author-entrepreneur means diversifying, not compromising. Between book royalties, podcast ads, and a Patreon, Joanna built multiple income streams around her writing instead of relying on one book to carry her whole business.

• Joanna Penn's website: thecreativepenn.com

• Joanna's podcast: The Creative Penn Podcast

• Fiction Books at J.F. Penn.com

• Joanna's Patreon

• Hire Jacqueline for private Intuitive Writing Mentoring

• The Intuitive Writing Studio

• Substack: Energy-First Writing

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

00:00 Meet Joanna Penn

01:35 Bookish Childhood Roots

03:30 The Wound and Shadow

05:20 Leaving IT for Writing

09:01 Author Entrepreneur Income

11:58 First Book Hard Lessons

16:51 Breaking into Fiction

20:57 Relics Research and Readers

23:22 Spiritual Seeking and Writing

26:05 Fiction Burnout Reset

29:06 Urgent Book Pull

31:38 Time Blocking System

34:19 Energy And Flexibility

36:00 Rituals And Real Work

38:13 Finding Author Voice

40:47 AI-Assisted Author

46:14 Recharging And Drinks

48:52 Five Minute Start