It took about fourteen months after that for me to write it, edit it. And so that turned into 5,000 words that became the first Arkane novel, Stone of Fire. It was the first I’d ever written fiction since school.
So I did NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and I wrote 20,000 words in that month. That very much challenged my self-definition. He said, “Sounds like you’ve got a block about that.” In 2009, I had someone on my podcast, and I said, “Oh, I could never write a novel.” A few years later, she encountered her next big challenge. That nonfiction book was her start, but it was far from the end. My natural way of expression is writing, and I felt that if I could try to write a book about it, I would learn what I needed to learn. I think everyone has a natural way of expression. So I started to try and figure out what I wanted to do.Īnd in that process I decided to write a book about career change. My husband said, “Look you have to figure out what you want to do with your life, and then we’ll make it happen.”. We had all the stuff that goes in there.īut I was crying every day at work. She actually started writing nonfiction to teach others about things she didn’t know, things that were challenging for her. Keep looking for the next challenge, the next adventure that will keep you growing.įor Joanna, the first challenge was nonfiction. The more you publish, the more you’ll be able to connect with readers. Keep publishing your writing: as books and novels, as short stories, as articles on a blog. Or, prepare it yourself and self-publish it (that’s what Joanna did).Īnd don’t stop there. Reach out to agents and publishers to publish your book traditionally.
If you want to become an author, you must publish your writing. But if you value writing in your life and you believe in yourself and your creativity, then you have what it takes to finish. This step is in some ways the hardest step of all. So she set her intention, which gave her the focus she needed to make the leap. What was in line with them was becoming an author. She was in her thirties when she determined her values-and knowing those values helped her see where her life wasn’t yet in line with them. Joanna’s dream life centers on three core values: reading, writing, and traveling. What do you want for your life? Before you can build a dream career you’ll love, you need to know what you really want. What does it actually take to become an author? Joanna built her career by following these five steps. 5 Steps to Become an Author From Joanna Penn So it was about five years of doing all that before I could go full-time. You know, I was building and writing while I had the day job. and write, and come home and do marketing. So I would leave on time, which as most of us know, in corporate you don’t leave on time you work more than the hours you’re meant to work.Īnd I didn’t want promotion. I will do what I have to do to keep my job, but no more. I made this mindset shift around my day job, which was: This is now a day job. So she determined a goal, made a plan, quit her job, and transitioned into writing full-time. In fact, she spent years working in the corporate world and wishing she could find a career in which she could thrive.Įventually, the pain of staying in her corporate job became greater than the risk it would be to step away. She didn’t start out as a writer, though. She’s also a leading voice in the indie publishing movement. Penn, is a New York Times bestselling author of supernatural thriller novels. In this episode of Character Test, I talk with one of the most successful self-published authors writing today about how she fulfilled her dream to actually become an author. What does it take to become an author? How do you go from working in an uninspiring job and not writing to building a thriving career as an author? That might sound impossible and out of reach-but it’s not.
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