The Purposeful Pen - Clarity for Christian Writers

Episode summary

Have you ever thought, “If I can’t write a bestseller with a major publisher, why bother?” Or held back your writing until it felt perfect? This week we’re tackling the “go big or go home” mindset, the belief that our writing only has value if it’s flawless and reaches a massive audience.

We look at where this all-or-nothing thinking comes from, why it can be a way of protecting ourselves from failure, and what God actually values. We also talk about how perfectionism can quietly turn into disobedience, and why imperfect writing and imperfect motives can still serve others.

In this episode, we talk about:

* Where the “go big or go home” mindset comes from, including our expectations of what a writer is “supposed” to be

* How this mindset can protect us from our own definition of failure

* Why bigger is not necessarily better in God’s economy

* The many ways we can use our gift of writing to serve others, with or without a book

* How to “define your terms” so vague mindsets lose their hold on us

* Why your writing will never be perfect this side of eternity, and what that means for publishing

* Why our motives will never be perfectly pure, and why we can serve anyway

Key takeaways

* Writing doesn’t have to become a bestseller to be worthwhile. God values faithfulness and a heart that loves Him.

* It’s not wrong to want to grow your audience, but you’re not a failure if you’re content to serve a smaller one.

* Vague mindsets hold us captive. Defining them in detail helps us debunk them.

* Keep growing in your craft, but don’t wait for perfection before you share your work.

* Imperfect writing and imperfect motives can still serve the Body of Christ.

Reflection questions

* What level of success would make your time and effort feel worthwhile? Describe it exactly: which publisher, what size of audience, what measure of success?

* What does “my writing must be perfect” actually mean to you? How would you know when you’ve reached it?

* What does your “all or nothing” mindset sound like? Write it down, then debunk it with what is true.

Mentioned in this episode

* Episode 143: Interview with Sarah Steele, who serves her local community through writing, poetry, and songwriting

Connect with Amy

* Website: amylynnsimon.com

* Newsletter: Pen Points

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

Does promoting your writing make you prideful? Many Christian writers quietly believe it does, and that belief keeps good writing from reaching the people who need it. In this episode, we continue our look at faulty mindsets by defining what “promoting our work” actually means, comparing it to boasting, and asking whether we should simply pray and let God bring the readers. We also look at how clear titles and a focused message serve readers and help them find us.

In this episode, we talk about

* Defining our terms: promotion as placing our writing where readers can find it, not announcing how great our writing is

* Why marketing is a way of serving our reader, not boasting

* The “God should do the promotion” objection, and why He typically works through natural means

* Lessons from raising ministry support with Cru, and how George Mueller’s situation differs from ours

* The argument that Jesus never promoted His ministry, and how He still went where the people were

* Why writing that solves a problem or meets a need is easier for readers to find and benefit from

* Where personal stories and encouragement-focused writing fit

Key takeaway

Getting our writing into a place and format where our ideal reader can find it and benefit from it is another way we serve that reader, which is the reason we write for others in the first place.

Reflect on this week

What is your next step toward writing for a specific reader and placing that writing where they can find it?

Resources mentioned

* “Simple SEO for Christian Writers” course by Jana Carlson

* Podcast Episode 44, interview with Jana Carlson on SEO

Connect

* Subscribe to Pen Points, our weekly email newsletter

* Download the Christian Writers’ Mindset Makeover

* Learn more about coaching and resources: amylynnsimon.com

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

Many faulty mindsets sit on top of an exaggeration or an oversimplification. This episode looks at one of them: the question of how much of our writing for God is our effort and how much is God’s work. We explore the image of co-creating with God, then apply it to the area where this mindset shows up most, which is marketing and promoting our writing.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

* Why neither extreme holds up: “all God, no effort” or “all me, no God”

* What co-creating with God looks like: abiding, time in Scripture and prayer, then writing while asking for wisdom

* Why the “let God promote my work” mindset is so common, including discomfort, uncertainty about how to market, pride concerns, and imposter syndrome

* Why using promotion as a test of whether God values your work is problematic

* How to see marketing as a way to serve your readers rather than something separate from your calling

* What it looks like to approach marketing the way you approach writing: abiding, praying, working, and trusting God with the results

Key takeaways

* You don’t need a magic formula or a percentage split of effort and faith. Co-creating with God is the guiding picture.

* If you want to write for others, getting your writing in front of them is an integral part of the process.

* God typically works through normal, natural processes. We do the work and He blesses those efforts, or doesn’t.

* Marketing is a way to help readers find what you’re offering them, and it’s part of glorifying God and building up the Body of Christ.

* Secular marketing methods have plenty to teach us, but they should be followed prayerfully.

* Uncomfortable doesn’t mean wrong. It just means uncomfortable.

Resources:

Sign up for Pen Points, a weekly email to encourage you in your writing.

Download the Christian Writer’s Mindset Makeover.

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

Ryan Pote was an injured Navy pilot trying to heal from trauma and rebuild his life. His counselor suggested that he journal, but doing so in the first person felt too vulnerable. Instead, he fictionalized his experiences as a way to process his trauma.

In this interview, you’ll hear how God used his journaling to bring healing as well as lead him to a personal relationship with Jesus. Those journals also unearthed a love of writing fiction and paved the way for his current career writing thriller novels embedded with biblical truth.

More about Ryan

Ryan is a twelve-year veteran Navy helicopter pilot and mission commander who was part of a joint interagency special operations task force (JIATF). He did three deployments during Operation MARTILLO countering narcotics smuggling throughout Central and South America.Ryan then served as a search and rescue pilot for the US Navy Experimental Test Wing and NASA. After getting out of the Navy, he was a federal investigator for six years on prototype aircraft development programs. He currently works for the Navy’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Test and Evaluation Squadron as the safety department head.Before the Navy, he lived and worked in Hawaii as a PADI SCUBA Instructor and lab tech researching algal-biofuels for Shell Oil. Ryan’s been the director of an oil company, a bartender, and even a live musician. He attended college at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and earned a master’s degree in US History and Teaching from Ashland University.

Books:

Blood and Treasure (Berkley 2025), The Ghost City (Berkley 2026), CLIVE CUSSLER The Serpent's Eye (Putnam April 2027). Various other projects in print and Hollywood protected by NDA.

Find him at https://www.ryanpote.com and @ryanpotebooks (IG, FB, X, Goodreads, Youtube)

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

Disclaimer: I believe in and approach life (and writing) from a distinctly evangelical Christian perspective, but some of my guests may not. When I interview a guest on a specifically spiritual topic, I do my best to know in advance that I can support their theological stances on the topics that relate to our interview. When the topic is not particularly spiritual, our theological views may differ. My interviewing of guests and providing links to their work does not necessarily indicate a complete theological endorsement of all their written work.

What does it actually mean to be “called” to write? Do you need that calling to keep going? This week we’re digging into what Scripture says about calling, how to recognize it in your own season of life, and the faulty mindsets that can quietly distort it.

In this episode, we cover:

* What the Bible primarily means by “calling” (hint: it’s not what you think)

* The internal and external elements of recognizing a specific calling, drawing on Jared Wilson’s The Storied Life

* Three faulty mindsets that turn a calling into pressure instead of purpose

* Why your calling doesn’t have to look like a burning bush — or a book

Reflection questions:

* Have you sensed both the internal and external parts of a calling to write?

* Which faulty mindset tends to pull at you the strongest?

Continue the conversation in the comments!

You can download the “Christian Writers’ Mindset Makeover” here.

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

This week we’re tackling a mindset that keeps so many writers stuck: the belief that we aren’t worth investing in. If you’ve ever hesitated to spend money on a writing course, a community membership, or a coach because you weren’t sure you were “serious enough” to justify it, this episode is for you.

I share my own story of wrestling with this during Covid, when I felt God nudging me away from writing assorted magazine articles and toward building something of my own: a website, a focused message, an audience I could actually serve. I found an online writing community that felt like exactly what I needed, but it came with a monthly cost, and I froze. Was it worth it? Did I even believe my writing was worth it?

Spoiler: investing in that community changed everything. And I think a lot of us need permission to ask the same question about our own writing.

What We Cover

* The empty-nest season many of my coaching clients are in, and why “what’s next” can feel disorienting after years of pouring into other people

* The difference between spending money and investing wisely: courses you finish but never apply, memberships you never fully engage with

* Practical ways to invest in your growth as a writer: a paid community like the Writers’ Bloc, a writer’s conference, or working with a coach

* Why it’s worth journaling through where this mindset came from in the first place (a practice we talked about back in episode 150)

* What it means to be a good steward of the gift of writing, not just a good steward of your money

Scripture We Return To

Proverbs has plenty to say about the cost of gaining wisdom. But the passage I keep coming back to is the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. Each servant was entrusted with something and asked to invest it, not bury it. If writing is a gift we’ve received, we’re called to invest in it so it can grow and become a blessing to others. Sometimes that means spending money. Sometimes it means spending time. Either way, it’s an act of stewardship, not indulgence.

If this episode stirred something up for you, I’d love to help you take the next step. Book a free discovery call and let’s talk about where you’re stuck and what investing in your writing could look like for you.

And if you’re not ready for a call yet, join us for Pen Points, our weekly email where we dig into mindset, craft, and calling together.

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

Who am I to have anything of value to offer? If that question has ever stopped you before you started writing, this episode is for you.

We’re unpacking imposter syndrome from three angles: two identity issues and one skill issue.

The writer you think you’re supposed to be. We often carry a picture in our heads of what a “real” writer looks like: confident, experienced, never stuck. But that picture is usually a myth. Even successful authors write from kitchen tables and bleacher seats, wrestling with the same doubts we do.

The spiritual worthiness question. This one runs deeper. We wonder if we’ve “arrived” enough to have something worth saying. Jesus tells us the truth in John 15:5: apart from Him we can do nothing. But that’s not the whole verse. When we abide in Him, we bear much fruit. Our worth to write was never about our own sufficiency.

The skill question. Sometimes we’re just not there yet, and that’s okay. Skill grows through writing and through community. We talk about how a space like Writers’ Bloc’s premium membership offers a safe place to get real feedback and grow.

A question for you: Which of these three angles hits closest to home? What’s one step you can take this week to lean into what’s actually true? Share in the comments!

Resources mentioned:Writers’ Bloc premium membership: www.mywritersbloc.com

The Christian Writers’ Mindset Makeover: www.amylynnsimon.com/makeover

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

This season, we’re digging into the faulty mindsets and spiritual struggles that surface when we write for others. Writing has a way of pushing our fears and insecurities into the light, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s one of the ways God grows us.

In this episode, we talk about:

* Why spiritual growth is really about renewing our minds (Romans 12:2)

* How writing for publication exposes the lies we believe about ourselves and about God

* A simple three-step process for working through any faulty mindset: reveal, investigate, replace

* A preview of the mindsets we’ll tackle this season, including “Who am I to have anything of value to offer?” and “It’s prideful of me to promote my work”

* Two upcoming interviews: Angie Baughman on rest and seeking God in our writing, and author Ryan Pote on his journey from atheist Navy helicopter pilot to Christian thriller novelist

Mentioned in this episode:Download the free Christian Writers’ Mindset Makeover at amylynnsimon.com/makeover. It walks through several of these mindsets, shows you the kernel of truth that keeps you hooked, and gives you Scripture to counter the lie.

Sign up for Pen Points, a weekly email that accompanies each episode, giving you a question to consider and some possible next steps.

Note: The journaling practice I talk about is not meant to be a quick fix or a substitute for biblical counseling, especially if the “investigate” step involves past trauma. I am not a counselor. Serious issues of your past should be addressed with a godly professional.

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

This is the last episode of this season until the podcast starts up again in September. In this episode, I recap what we talked about regarding what to do before starting to write your nonfiction book.

I also talk about what happens AFTER you finish your book proposal:

* Options for editing and evaluation of your proposal

* How writing conferences can fast-track your proposal through the submission process

* Additional resources to help you make progress

If you have ideas for future episodes or season themes, email me at [email protected].

I will still be taking coaching clients in August. Book a free discovery call here.

Sign up for Pen Points, the weekly email that accompanies the podcast here. That email will also pause for the month of August but you can still sign up any time.

You can find additional free writing resources on my website here.

I’ll see you back in September when we’ll dive into common unbiblical mindsets we typically struggle with as writers and how to counter them with truth from God’s Word. See you then!

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

Writing a book is a huge endeavor, as we’ve discussed this season. But what would it look like to write a book as a family? The Bryant family has done just that! This homeschooling family of 5 decided to turn a dream into reality and write and publish a children’s book together.

In this interview with Bobby and his three kids, BJ, Ava, and Joseph, we talk about where their idea for the book came from and what the writing and publishing process looked like. You’ll hear about the lessons they learned and be encouraged by the close bond this family has together.

You can find their book, “Trusting Timothy: a Story about Cheating” here.

About the Bryant family:

The Bryants are a Christian homeschooling family, who deeply believe in the power of God's Word and the importance of growing into the best version of yourself. Their debut children's book, "Trusting Timothy: A Story about Cheating", not only delivers a powerful message, but also serves as a testament to the creative freedom and flexibility that homeschooling provides. They are deeply driven by the desire to instill in today's youth principles of excellence and to remind them that with God, all things are possible.

You can find them on their website and on Instagram.

Additional resources mentioned in the episode:

Stuck to Steady

Pen Points

The Purposeful Pen is a weekly podcast for Christian writers designed to help you build a writing life with eternal impact. Each week you’ll hear practical tips and Biblical truth on topics such as improving your writing, honing your message, and managing your time. I always respond to listener emails and I’d love to hear from you! [email protected]