Your Write Life Coach | Motivation and Momentum for Heart-Led Authors

Janet McHenry is back for Part 2 of our conversation, and this time we get practical. After 40 years and 24 books, Janet has learned a few things about keeping a writing life going through hard seasons, busy seasons, and a publishing world that has changed around her.

Janet shares about the biggest challenge of her career: a season about 20 years ago that pulled her away from writing for five or six years. She shares how small assignments, work-for-hire projects, and devotional writing helped her find her way back. We also talk about how she juggles deadlines, speaking, teaching, and coaching (and still makes time to go kayaking), and why she doesn’t believe in writer’s block.

Then Janet offers bold, loving advice for writers just starting. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by everything an author has to do today, this conversation will help you breathe.

In This Episode

• The season that set Janet’s writing aside for five or six years, and how she found her way back
• How work-for-hire projects and devotional writing rebuilt her writing credits and her confidence
• How Janet manages deadlines, speaking, teaching, coaching, and marketing
• Why rest, like a day of kayaking on a mountain lake, can be part of what drives the work
• Knowing your mission and vision so you can say no to what doesn’t fit
• Why Janet doesn’t believe in writer’s block, and her “reservoir” image for how writers stay filled
• A fresh insight from the story of Hannah and Eli in 1 Samuel about praying together
• Advice for new writers
• Why readers have to feel the need before they’ll pick up your book
• The Walking Club, Janet’s Facebook group

📒 Key Takeaways for Heart-Led Authors 📒

A hard season doesn’t end your writing life. When Janet couldn’t write the way she used to, she took small assignments. They kept her writing, built her credits, and brought her confidence back.

Calendar the work, then protect your rest. Janet maps her deadlines, aims to finish early, and lets a planned day off motivate her to get the work done.

Know your slice of the pie. When you understand your mission and vision, saying no to everything else gets easier.

Fill the reservoir. Janet doesn’t wait for inspiration. She clears distractions, sets aside the time, and fills herself with deep study so she has something to say.

Learn the form before you finish the book. Know what a book like yours looks like in the market so you aren’t trying to fit it into a place in publishing that doesn’t exist.

Meet the felt need first. Readers pick up books for what they know they need, like help with grief or anxiety. Meet them there before you offer the deeper answer.

About Janet McHenry

Janet McHenry is a national speaker and the author of 24 books, including the bestselling PrayerWalk, The Complete Guide to the Prayers of Jesus, and Praying Personalities: Finding Your Natural Prayer Style. Through her ministry, Looking Up, she encourages others to look up in prayer. An avid prayer walker, Janet has been featured in magazines including Health and Woman’s Day. A former newspaper reporter and high school English teacher, she and her husband raised four children in California’s Sierra Valley. This year she celebrates 40 years as a published author.

📚 Books Mentioned 📚

• PrayerWalk by Janet McHenry

• The Complete Guide to the Prayers of Jesus by Janet McHenry

• Praying Personalities: Finding Your Natural Prayer Style by Janet McHenry (includes the Praying Personalities Quiz, also available at https://prayingpersonalities.com/)

• The Walking Club on Facebook: “Walking for Our Health, Praying for Our Communities”

Connect with Janet

Website: janetmchenry.com

Facebook: @JanetMcHenryAuthor

Instagram: @janetmchenry

Twitter: @LookingUpFirst

Books: Amazon, other online retailers, and your local bookstore

🟧 Go Deeper 🟧

Work with me one-on-one: Inquire about coaching at alicecrider.com.

Resources: Energy Journal to help you discover when you have the best energy to do your best writing.

What happens when you sit on a rock at a women’s retreat, half-rolling your eyes at the assignment, and hear God say, “I want you to write for me”? For Janet McHenry, it became a writing life that has now spanned four decades and 24 books, including the bestselling PrayerWalk and The Complete Guide to the Prayers of Jesus.

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Janet and I talk about how that calling unfolded one small step at a time: devotions and magazine articles first, then children’s board books, chapter books, and a girls’ mystery series, and eventually the prayer books that became her life’s message. She also opens up about a season of doubt earlier this year, when she hadn’t had a book contract in a couple of years and wondered whether the calling had run its course. What happened between takeoff and landing on that flight to Alabama will give you chills.

We also talk about how much publishing has changed since the late 1980s, why Janet encourages writers to “write what we don’t know yet,” how writing turned a self-described undisciplined woman into a disciplined one, and why her brand grew organically out of simply following the call.

In This Episode

• How Janet juggled newspaper reporting, ten years in her husband’s law office, teaching high school English, and raising four kids while answering a call to write
• The retreat near Lake Tahoe, the rock, and the moment she heard, “I want you to write for me”
• Why a string of rejections from women’s magazines didn’t end the story
• Her starting small
• The college senior who swore she could never write a couple hundred pages, and the 95,000-word book she has since written
• Her season of doubt this year, and the email waiting for her when her plane landed
• How publishing has changed
• Writing what you don’t know yet as a path to intellectual and spiritual growth
• Organic branding versus trying to brand yourself
• Why Praying Personalities is the book that stretched her most

📗 Key Takeaways for Heart-Led Authors 📗

A calling can start small. Janet never set out to write a book. She wrote short pieces she could already write well and let each step lead to the next.

Test the call. Janet distinguishes between someone telling you “you should write a book” and a calling you’ve examined prayerfully and seen confirmed.

Doubt doesn’t cancel the call. Even after 40 years, Janet wondered if she was done. Her answer was surrender, not striving, and the next door opened.

Write what you don’t know yet. Curiosity and inquiry can grow you as a writer and as a person.

Your brand can grow out of your message. Janet’s identity as “the prayer lady” came from following what was on her heart, not from choosing colors and fonts first.

About Janet McHenry

Janet McHenry is a national speaker and the author of 24 books, including the bestselling PrayerWalk, The Complete Guide to the Prayers of Jesus, and Praying Personalities: Finding Your Natural Prayer Style. Through her ministry, Looking Up, she encourages others to look up in prayer. An avid prayer walker, Janet has been featured in magazines including Health and Woman’s Day. A former newspaper reporter and high school English teacher, she and her husband raised four children in California’s Sierra Valley. This year she celebrates 40 years as a published author.

📚 Books Mentioned 📚

• PrayerWalk by Janet McHenry
• The Complete Guide to the Prayers of Jesus by Janet McHenry
• Praying Personalities: Finding Your Natural Prayer Style by Janet McHenry (includes the Praying Personalities Quiz, also available at https://prayingpersonalities.com/)

Connect with Janet

Website: janetmchenry.com

Facebook: @JanetMcHenryAuthor

Instagram: @janetmchenry

Twitter: @LookingUpFirst

🟧 Go Deeper 🟧

Work with me one-on-one: inquire about coaching at alicecrider.com.

Resources: Energy Journal to help you discover when you have the best energy to do your best writing.

I tackle a belief that quietly sabotages a lot of writers: that the real obstacle to getting words on the page is a lack of time. Using a recent, honest example from my own life — sitting down to write this very episode and hitting nothing but brain fog — I make the case that energy, not time, is usually the real bottleneck. I share three practical shifts for working with your natural energy instead of fighting it, no matter how full your schedule already is, and introduce a free tool to help you find your own best writing hours.

In This Episode

• Why my own attempt to write this episode kept stalling out — and what changed when she moved it to her highest-energy hour instead of her last open time slot
• The idea of the “Round Tuit” — a playful token some motivational speakers have handed out as a nudge against waiting for the “perfect moment” to take action
• Why willpower is a limited resource, and what happens when you keep writing during your lowest-energy hours out of guilt or obligation
• Three shifts Alice recommends: finding your personal best writing window, working in short high-energy bursts instead of forcing long low-energy ones, and making honest, intentional trades with your time rather than chasing a mythical energy surplus
• Why the goal isn't a full schedule overhaul — just noticing where your energy actually is

✍️ This Week's Invitation ✍️

For the next week or two, pause a few times a day — morning, midday, evening — and notice whether your energy feels high, medium, or low. Jot down the time and what you ate or drank around it to start spotting your own patterns.

Free Resources

• My 2-Week Energy Journal — a free tool to help you track your energy across the day and find your natural best writing hours. Available at alicecrider.com.
• Live Workshop on Wednesday, October 7: The Missing Link: What Stands Between the Writer You Are and the Author You’re Meant to Be. I'll be doing live coaching and sharing practical tools to help you move forward with real momentum. Join the newsletter at alicecrider.com for details and the link to join.

Resources & Mentions

📒 The “Round Tuit” token, popularized in motivational speaking circles

📒 My 2-Week Energy Journal (free download at alicecrider.com)

📗 Grab your free copy of My 2-Week Energy Journal at alicecrider.com to start noticing your own best writing hours this week. Available at alicecrider.com.

In Part 2 of my conversation with bestselling indie author Paula Scott, I turn to the practical side of the writing life: marketing, readers, and growth.

Paula shares the surreal story of an unsolicited Publishers Weekly review, why she keeps her books mostly off her personal marketing efforts and lets them find readers on their own, and where she believes real readers actually spend their time.

Paula and I also talk about what writing has taught her about herself — including the reader letters that keep her going — and she closes with her best advice for anyone just starting to write a book.

About the Guest

Paula Scott is a bestselling indie author who writes under her husband's first name; she also runs West Butte Orchards, her family's stone fruit farm in Sutter County, California. Her books, published under her own imprint, West Butte Press, include The Mother Keeper, River of Mercy, Farming Grace, and Love in a Fertile Land.

In This Episode

• How Paula's early self-published novels found readers largely without active marketing on her part, including a debut that took a year to “hit” after she put it on Amazon
• The unsolicited Publishers Weekly review for The Mother Keeper — and the New York publicist who tracked Paula down after reading it, not realizing she was self-published
• Why Paula brought on an Amazon ads specialist this year for the first time, and what that's changed about how her books are being found
• Why Paula doesn't feel comfortable actively marketing her books on social media — even though she has a large following built around West Butte Orchards
• Where Paula believes real, avid readers actually spend their time (Goodreads, reader-focused Facebook groups) versus general social media, and why she mostly avoids reading her own Goodreads reviews
• What writing has grown in Paula personally: learning to trust her “muse,” and the reader letters she's received from people who say her books — including The Mother Keeper — brought them back to faith
• Paula's “woman at the well” framing for her sense of calling as a writer
• Jack London as an example of a self-taught writer, and Paula's advice to learn to write partly by reading widely
• Paula's core advice for someone just starting out: finish the whole novel, treat writing as a craft you build through repetition, and don't write for money or fame
• Where to find Paula's books, and the story behind her pen name, Paula Scott

Resources & Mentions

• Paula Scott — The Mother Keeper (novel) — “Scott elegantly considers the difference between faith and trust” — Publishers Weekly
• West Butte Press (Paula's publishing imprint)
• West Butte Orchards (Paula's family farm)
• Jack London (author)
• Goodreads

Connect with Paula Scott

Website: https://www.paulascott.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulascottbicknell/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulascottbicknell.9

📋 Join Alice's email list to get the workshop details and Zoom link: alicecrider.com (fill out the contact form)

I sit down with longtime friend and bestselling self-published author Paula Scott for the first half of a wide-ranging conversation about the writing life.

Paula traces her path from newspaper reporter to novelist — including two early manuscripts that almost sold, a Hollywood movie option that never became a film, and nearly a decade away from writing while raising her family. Paula and I dig into what she calls her “muse”: the sense that her stories arrive from somewhere outside herself, and what it's like to follow that voice even when it's unsettling. Along the way, we talk about flow states, faith, and the strange experience of writing something that later seems to come true.

About the Guest

Paula Scott is a bestselling indie author living on a fruit farm near the Sutter Buttes in California — often described as the world's smallest mountain range. She began her career as a newspaper reporter before turning to fiction full-time. Her novels include the California Rising series, The Mother Keeper, and River of Mercy, along with two memoirs, Farming Grace and Love in a Fertile Land.

In This Episode

• How Paula moved from two near-miss novel deals (one considered by Harlequin) into newspaper reporting, and the New York literary agent and Hollywood movie option that followed her third attempt at a novel
• Why Paula stepped away from writing for close to a decade while raising four children as a military spouse, and what brought her back during five months of bed rest with her fourth child
• What Paula means when she talks about writing “by the muse” — and how that differs from imposter syndrome and the inner critic, topics Alice has covered in recent episodes
• The prayer Paula prayed when she became a Christian: asking God to take the muse away if it wasn't from Him
• How her novel that began as “The Peach Orchard” became River of Mercy, and her early feedback from a Christian literary agent
• My own NaNoWriMo story — a chapter that “wrote itself” and got the attention of a literary agent, even though the rest of the manuscript needed work
• Paula's reflections on Jack London's Call of the Wild as an unintentional self-portrait, and the authors she believes also write “by muse,” including Francine Rivers and Stephen King
• The story behind Paula's novel The Mother Keeper
• How events in River of Mercy seemed to mirror something that later happened in Paula's own family — unsettling enough that she pulled back from promoting the novel for several years

Resources & Mentions

• Paula Scott — River of Mercy (novel)
• Paula Scott — The Mother Keeper (novel)
• Paula Scott — California Rising series (novels)
• Paula Scott — Farming Grace and Love in a Fertile Land (memoirs)
• Jack London — Call of the Wild
• Francine Rivers (author)
• Stephen King — On Writing; The Green Mile; Different Seasons (source novella for the film Shawshank Redemption)
• National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

Connect with Paula Scott

Website: https://www.paulascott.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulascottbicknell/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulascottbicknell.9

📋 Join Alice's email list to get the workshop details and Zoom link: alicecrider.com (fill out the contact form)

That voice that shouts “you're crazy” in the middle of a rough draft, or calls you names the second you catch a mistake — it's not going anywhere. Not through willpower, not through positive thinking, not through gritted-teeth persistence.

This episode is a follow-up to Episode 17. I draw a sharp line between everyday self-doubt and the much louder, much crueler voice of the inner critic — and make the case that the critic isn't really the problem. It's a symptom of self-abandonment, the quiet habit of overriding your own needs and instincts to stay safe or keep the peace. Drawing on a story from my coaching work and one from my own childhood, I offer a different way forward: you don't have to silence the inner critic. You can learn to dance with it instead.

In This Episode

• The real difference between imposter syndrome (self-doubt) and the inner critic (shame and fear)
• The story of an author who nearly quit her book because of a voice that wasn't even hers
• My own inner critic, and the childhood moment it still echoes
• Why the inner critic is a symptom of self-abandonment — and what self-abandonment actually looks like for a writer
• The important difference between self-abandonment and sacrifice
• The seven types of inner critics, from psychotherapists Jay Earley and Bonnie Weiss — and how to tell which one is talking
• Why editorial judgment isn't the enemy: separating real craft feedback from inherited cruelty
• Four ways to dance with your inner critic instead of fighting it — including a simple two-column exercise you can do this week

📜 From the Episode 📜

“The inner critic is a symptom of self-abandonment. It's not the root problem. It's the smoke, not the fire.”

“You don't need it gone. You just need it to stop being the one holding the pen.”

✍️ Your Invitation This Week

Four ways to dance with your inner critic, friend:

1. Give it a goofy name — something too ridiculous to take seriously
2. Thank it for trying to protect you, then take the step anyway
3. Draw a line down a page. Left side: what the critic says about you, others, and what's possible. Right side: what wisdom would say. Notice the difference — then choose which voice to believe
4. Do something. Take one small, true action in the direction that makes you nervous

Start noticing when you're abandoning yourself to satisfy that voice. And in that moment, choose yourself instead.

Links & Resources Mentioned

📋 Join Alice's free workshop on Wednesday, October 7th — a deeper dive into imposter syndrome and the inner critic, with live coaching and tools to help you move forward

📋 Join Alice's email list to get the workshop details and Zoom link: alicecrider.com (fill out the contact form)

📗 The seven types of inner critics referenced come from psychotherapists Jay Earley and Bonnie Weiss's Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach, detailed in their books Self-Therapy for Your Inner Critic and Freedom from Your Inner Critic

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Enjoyed This Episode? Leave us a comment or review! 

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About Your Host

Alice Crider is an author coach, book editor, and certified life coach. She has edited hundreds of books and spent decades helping writers move from stuck to published — with their voice, vision, and sanity intact. Her podcast, Your Write Life Coach, exists to give heart-led authors the motivation AND the momentum they need to do the work that matters.

Find Alice at alicecrider.com

You may have already called yourself a fraud at least once this week. Not out loud, but just that quiet voice that shows up right before you hit send, right before you speak up, right before you finally share the thing you've been working on.

We've been told for almost fifty years that this feeling has a name — imposter syndrome — and a cause rooted in self-doubt. In this episode, I — author coach, book editor, and certified life coach — question whether that story is actually the right one. Drawing on an author who sat on a finished manuscript for two years and her own imposter moment at the launch of this very podcast, I make the case that what is often called "imposter syndrome" might really just be your nervous system doing exactly what it was built to do.

In This Episode

• Why the science behind “imposter syndrome” isn't as settled as we've all assumed

• Where the term actually came from — and how it drifted from “phenomenon” to “syndrome”

• The story of an author who sat on a finished, good manuscript for two years, convinced it “wasn't ready”

• My own imposter moment at the start of this podcast — and what actually moved her through it

• Why your nervous system, not a personality flaw, is behind most of your self-doubt

• The important difference between real barriers (bias, gatekeeping) and internal doubt — and why they deserve different conversations

• A simple, four-step practice for noticing doubt instead of obeying it

• The invitation: one small, true step you can take this week

📗 From the Episode 📗

“That wiring never got the memo that wild beasts are no longer eating people for breakfast.”

“A rejected query doesn't make you a fraud. It makes you a writer who queried. That's the whole game, friend — not zero rejection, just zero surrender.”

✍️ Your Invitation This Week

Four small steps:

• Notice the thoughts that make you doubt yourself — without judging them

• Thank your nervous system for trying to keep you safe

• Remind yourself of your calling, and ask: “What is one small step I can take?”

• When the answer comes — take that step

It doesn't have to be big. It just has to be true, and it has to be yours. Then give yourself a high five — you just expanded your own comfort zone, and that's worth celebrating.

Links & Resources Mentioned

• Grab some free resources for writers at alicecrider.com /your-write-life-coach-podcast  

• Work with Alice one-on-one: alicecrider.com or email [email protected]

• The term “impostor phenomenon” was coined by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in their 1978 paper, “The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention,” published in the journal Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice

• Definition referenced from Merriam-Webster

Enjoyed This Episode? Leave us a comment or review!

⭐ Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts (iOS only)

1. Open the Apple Podcasts app and search for the show. Tap the title to open the main show page.
2. Scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section and tap the stars to leave your rating.
3. Tap Write a Review, enter your title, comments, and nickname.
4. Tap Send to submit.

********************* 

About Your Host

Alice Crider is an author coach, book editor, and certified life coach. She has edited hundreds of books and spent decades helping writers move from stuck to published — with their voice, vision, and sanity intact. Her podcast, Your Write Life Coach, exists to give heart-led authors the motivation AND the momentum they need to do the work that matters.

Find Alice at alicecrider.com

In Part 1, Laurie Davies got honest about the decade of inner work — and self-rejection — behind her debut book, Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck.

In this second half of the conversation, Laurie and I turn to what actually moves a writing career forward: staying authentic instead of chasing platform tactics, why writers' conferences matter more for relationships than for strategy, and how Laurie has come to define success in a way that has nothing to do with bestseller lists.

Laurie also shares a laugh-out-loud story about the day she accidentally made her first impression on her future acquiring editor, plus a moment with a reader that she now considers the real measure of whether her book is hitting the mark.

About Laurie Davies

• Author of Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck (Moody Publishers, 2026)
• Writer, speaker, and lay counselor who helps women let go of emotional "clutter" — regret, grudges, bitterness, and shame
• Background in journalism; has written professionally for 35 years and added speaking to her work over the last 8 years
• Writer for Proverbs 31 Ministries devotionals
• Lives in the Phoenix, Arizona area with her husband of 30 years

Connect with Laurie Davies

• Website: LaurieDavies.com
• Instagram: @lauriedaviesauthor
• Facebook: @LaurieDaviesAuthor
• Book: Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck — available wherever books are sold

What You'll Hear in This Episode

• What actually kept Laurie going through self-rejection
• Why chasing platform tactics never felt authentic to Laurie — and why that's okay
• The unexpected "kindness" Laurie now sees in her platform not growing faster
• The belief Laurie had to let go of
• The two things Laurie says are pure gold about writers' conferences
• The story of how Laurie accidentally met her acquiring editor
• Why no one in the Bible went from zero to serving overnight
• How Laurie defines success in book publishing — and it's not the bestseller list
• What "success" really looks like
• Laurie's advice for writers just starting out

📜Quotable Moments

“I think you have to just stay in love with writing... So much of the business side of all of this can just suck the life right out of that.” — Laurie Davies

“I can't find one person in the Bible who went from zero to serving the kingdom overnight.” — Laurie Davies

“Man looks at the outward man, but God looks at the heart.” — Laurie Davies

Enjoyed This Episode? Leave us a comment or review!

⭐ Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts (iOS only)

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2. Scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section and tap the stars to leave your rating.
3. Tap Write a Review, enter your title, comments, and nickname.
4. Tap Send to submit.

In this first half of a two-part conversation, I sit down with author, speaker, and lay counselor Laurie Davies to talk about the long road to her debut book, Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck.

Laurie and I met ten years ago at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, and in this episode Laurie gets honest about what it actually took to get from "rising star" (as I called her) to published author — including the pride she had to let go of, the season when speaking opportunities outpaced her writing career, and the surprising moment her manuscript finally sold. We also dig into comparison, platform-building, and the real story behind Laurie's own rejection — which, as she puts it, was mostly self-imposed.

Part 2 continues the conversation with practical wisdom on what actually moves a writing career forward, including how to get the most out of writers' conferences and staying connected to your "why."

About Laurie Davies

• Author of Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck (Moody Publishers, 2026)
• Writer, speaker, and lay counselor who helps women let go of emotional "clutter" — regret, grudges, bitterness, and shame
• Background in journalism; has written professionally for 35 years and added speaking to her work over the last 8 years
• Writer for Proverbs 31 Ministries devotionals
• Lives in the Phoenix, Arizona area with her husband of 30 years

Connect with Laurie Davies

• Website: LaurieDavies.com
• Instagram: @lauriedaviesauthor
• Facebook: @LaurieDaviesAuthor
• Book: Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck — available wherever books are sold

What You'll Hear in This Episode

• How Laurie and Alice met at the 2016 Mount Hermon Writers Conference
• The "back of the house" personal growth that happened over Laurie's 10-year path to publication
• Why Laurie had to let go of pride — and what she learned from watching speaking doors open before writing doors did
• The moment Laurie "laid down" her attachment to platform, and what happened eight weeks later
• Laurie's take on comparison, and why it never leads anywhere good
• The real story of Laurie's rejection — and why she says it wasn't imposter syndrome
• The "three-legged stool" of publishing: writing, idea, and platform — and how Laurie sold a book with only two

📜 Quotable Moments 📜

“Sometimes there's some pride that has to go, so we can adopt a posture of humility, which is essential in this space.” — Laurie Davies

“I was my own rejection.” — Laurie Davies

“The best way for you to show up as a writer is to be absolutely you.” — Alice Crider

Enjoyed This Episode? Leave us a comment or review!

⭐ Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts (iOS only)

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2. Scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section and tap the stars to leave your rating.
3. Tap Write a Review, enter your title, comments, and nickname.
4. Tap Send to submit.

Most of us never actually stop to ask why we write. We assume we know — and often, we're wrong. In this episode, I take listeners back to my own teenage assumption that being good at English meant I was meant to be a writer, and the adult detour that followed: chasing the idea of making money as an author, before realizing that wasn't my real why after all. That realization led me to editing instead — and, decades later, to writing a book of my own for reasons that have nothing to do with a royalty statement.

I walk through the real reasons writers write — to communicate, to be heard, to be noticed, to contribute, to leave a legacy, or because they simply feel called — and name something many authors carry quietly: the shame of wanting to be paid for their work, and the fear that admitting it makes them less "legitimate" as a writer. I ground the conversation in real numbers from the Authors Guild's 2023 Author Income Survey, and close with a simple, layered writing exercise designed to help you find your own most honest why.

In This Episode

• Why being good at something isn't the same as being called to it
• The real reasons writers write: to communicate, to be heard, to be noticed, to contribute, to leave a legacy, or because they feel called
• What the Authors Guild's 2023 Author Income Survey actually reveals about what published authors earn
• The quiet shame many writers carry about wanting to be paid — and permission to let it go
• My own story: from a teenage assumption about being a writer, to chasing a money-driven dream, to becoming an editor instead
• This week's exercise: the seven-layer "I write because..." question to find your most heartfelt why

🌟 From the Episode

"Fog doesn't carry you through a revision at eleven o'clock at night. Clarity does."

"Wanting to be paid fairly for your work is not a character flaw. You're allowed to want the deeper reason and the paycheck. Those two things aren't in competition. They're supposed to work together."

💎 This Week's Invitation

Take a blank sheet of paper and write, "I write because..." — then fill in the blank with your most honest answer. Underneath it, write down why you answered that way ("I write because I love to write" becomes "I love to write because..."). Keep asking the next why, based on your last answer, seven times through. By the bottom of the page, you'll have landed on your most heartfelt reason — the one that was underneath all the others the whole time.

Links & Resources

📒 Free resources: alicecrider.com

📒 The InkWell Collective: https://www.alicecrider.com/inkwellcollective

📒 Coaching inquiries: [email protected]

Source for author income statistics: Authors Guild 2023 Author Income Survey (authorsguild.org)

✒️ Join the Conversation

What's your honest answer to "I write because..."? We'd love to hear where your seven layers landed — share it with us inside The InkWell Collective, or tag Alice when you post.

About Alice

Alice Crider is a book editor, certified life coach, and author coach with nearly thirty years of publishing experience. She hosts Your Write Life Coach and leads The InkWell Collective, a community for heart-led authors. Her first book releases next year.