What if the book you want to write isn’t waiting for the “perfect time” but for a version of you who’s willing to start messy?

Jennifer Locke helps people turn ideas into books.

Not someday books.

Real books that get written in the middle of family life, busy schedules, self-doubt, and the very normal fear of being seen.

In this conversation, Jennifer shares what it really looks like to follow through on a writing life, how nonfiction and fiction require completely different muscles, why marketing can’t be an afterthought, and why community might be the thing that keeps you going when motivation disappears.

Highlights

Mastery comes from consistency, not perfection

Jennifer offers one of the simplest, and hardest, truths about writing.

You don’t finish a book by waiting for the perfect conditions.

You finish it by showing up.

“Writing a little each day, even if it’s just 10 minutes, accumulates into a completed book. Consistency outpaces perfectionism in long-term growth.”

Ten minutes doesn’t sound impressive.

But it’s how books get built.

Your unique voice is your greatest differentiator

So many writers spend years trying to sound like someone else.

Jennifer gently pulls you back to what actually matters.

The thing that makes your work stand out is you.

“Focus on what makes you feel alive and true to yourself, because no one else can replicate your authenticity, making it your most powerful asset.”

Your voice is your advantage.

Rejections and revisions are part of the job

Jennifer doesn’t sugarcoat the creative process.

Books don’t come out fully formed.

Drafts get rejected and ideas get reshaped.

The people who finish don’t avoid setbacks, they learn from them.

“My experiences with multiple rejections led to stronger drafts. Setbacks often precede breakthroughs when approached with curiosity and resilience.”

Rejection isn’t the end.

Sometimes it’s the edit that makes the work better.

Marketing should start earlier than you want it to

This is the part writers love to avoid.

But Jennifer makes it clear: Marketing isn’t something you add on at the end.

It’s something you build alongside the writing.

“Identify where you enjoy showing up and dedicate your efforts there, instead of chasing every trend or platform.”

You don’t need to be everywhere.

You just need to be somewhere that’s enjoyable.

The core of a creative business is self-knowledge

Jennifer keeps coming back to alignment.

The writers who last are the ones who know what matters to them.

“Focusing inward, what excites and energizes you, rather than external metrics or comparisons, is the key to long-term differentiation.”

Your work grows when it’s rooted in who you actually are.

Creativity is meant to feel joyful

Revision doesn’t have to be misery.

Writing doesn’t have to be constant pressure.

Jennifer reframes the creative process as something that can still be playful even when it’s hard.

“Turning edit and revision into playful opportunities for discovery, not solely tasks to be endured, keeps the joy in crafting.”

Community makes the writing life possible

Jennifer pushes back against the myth of the lone genius writer.

Books are personal but writing doesn’t have to be lonely.

Feedback, support, and people matter.

“Critique groups and collaborative relationships foster resilience and inspire continuous improvement.”

Community keeps you going when your brain tells you to quit.

Closing Reflection

Jennifer Locke reminds us that writing a book is about building trust with your own voice, starting marketing earlier than feels comfortable, and surrounding yourself with people who understand what it means to create something from nothing.

If you need help bringing your book to life or balancing your endless to-do list, I want to help. Sign up for a free call where we get all those ideas out of your head and into the world.

I, I would say figure out what it is that you feel like you're being called to, that feels very exciting to you.

And figure out how you can make time for that thing and prioritize it in your life, even if it doesn't make business sense, quote unquote.

I don't know if that will help you stand out as, as a business, but like, I, I guess I'm thinking about, like, what's going to be, be like satisfying to you, like on a soul level.

I'd say whatever is like calling your attention.

Figure out how you can prioritize it and make it like a central part of your life.

And yeah, just work toward that goal or work toward that thing every day.

Build it into like the fabric of your life.

And yeah, just enjoy.

Enjoy where it takes you.

Welcome to the Standout Creatives, where making money and creating meaningful work go hand in hand.

You're already passionate about what you create.

Now let's turn that passion into a standout business.

Marketing.

Your work doesn't have to be overwhelming.

It can actually amplify your creativity.

I'm your guide, Kevin Chung, and this podcast is your roadmap to create business success.

Success.

I'll show you how to turn your unique talents into a business that truly represents who you are.

Let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of the Standout Creatives.

Today I'm on Jennifer Locke.

Jennifer, can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and some of the work you do?

Yes.

Hello, my name is Jennifer Locke and I'm a nonfiction book coach and Go strider.

So I help people translate the genius in their head into a book that changes lives, both their own life and their readers lives.

And I do this through three ways, either one to one, book coaching, ghost writing, or through my self study course, which is called My book.

And six.

Awesome.

Can you talk a little bit about the origins of you wanting to be a writer first and then like transitioning into the book phase or how did that work?

Yeah, well, I mean, how far back do you want to go?

As far as you think is relevant?

Yeah, I mean, we could go back to me reading the babysitter's club books as a child and realizing that somebody wrote that that was a job that you could do.

And really, like from age 7 on, I really only had one thing I wanted to do professionally and that was be a writer.

But I kind of came to it again.

I went to college, I studied English, I majored in English education, I taught English for a year.

A hot minute.

Ultimately, I Knew I didn't want to continue teaching.

I. I kind of made decisions that brought me like, closer and closer to that goal that I had when I was a kid of wanting to be a writer, even though I didn't fully like, declare that until I was in my mid-20s.

And like, even in college, I was.

I didn't really take any creative writing courses.

I didn't join creative writing clubs because I was too intimidated by it.

And I thought that other people had some kind of like secret knowledge or a secret ability or confidence that I didn't have.

But it wasn't until my mid-20s that I kind of came back to it as something that I wanted to do.

And that's when I began.

I wrote my first book when I was 25, like my practice novel.

And I wrote books, fiction, which I still write fiction.

I write middle grade fiction, but I wrote a lot of middle grade fiction practice novels from that time onward.

And I'm still on the journey to traditional publication for that goal.

It's been a long and winding journey with a couple of different agents, a couple of books that have gone on sub and not.

Not sold yet, but, you know, anyway, that's a different story.

But in around six years into that, I left the traditional workforce because I had twins.

And I suddenly realized that the nonprofit job I was working at that time wasn't going to be tenable.

And so I started taking courses once my twins were like one, one and a half.

And I could breathe a little bit because I was pretty underwater in those early days.

But I started taking like online courses about how to be a freelance writer.

And I did a lot of random freelance writing in the beginning.

And then I ultimately connected with someone who wanted ghost written thought leadership content.

And we had a really good working relationship.

And eventually that person wanted me to ghost write a book for them.

And I knew I had the skill set of writing books from all of the years prior to that point, so I said yes.

I decided to kind of double down on that skill as I.

It was, you know, my highest dollar per hour value skill.

And I also, I really enjoyed it too.

Like, ghost writing is a lot of freelance writers kind of start off doing things, different things, and then they kind of land in ghost writing because they kind of, they discover like, oh, I can have.

I don't have to get a whole bunch of different jobs.

I can have one.

Like, the income potential is higher.

The relational aspect is really nice where you get to know your authors that you work with with really well on a deep level and instead of going broad and wide, you can go deep.

And that's, that's great from like income standpoint, a relational standpoint, a nervous system standpoint, you know, when you know you do have the income to sustain you and are relying on so many different things.

So that's a, a long answer to your question about how I started writing, how I started writing books.

I can.

Ghost writing.

Yeah, maybe that answers your question.

Yeah, I think everyone has a different journey.

It doesn't matter what creative pursuit you're approaching.

Everyone's journey is going to be different because we all live different lives and our way to get to the thing that we ultimately wanted to do in the first place is usually like a path that's like circling back and forwards and, you know, just weaving in and out of different things.

So it's, it's nice to always hear somebody else talk about how they came about doing the work that they do, because I think the misconception is often that we, we know what we want to do from the start and we go at it and we just do it.

But some people do do that, obviously, but I think for the, the majority of people, you just kind of stumble your way into the work that you do.

Yeah, it's definitely true.

You kind of circle back to it, even if you don't have the.

Whatever to go that way from the beginning.

It's.

You can kind of fall in the thread and see how, and certainly in my case, how I came back to where I initially wanted.

Yeah.

Can you talk about how the, the English degree has helped you and the work?

Has it or what.

What is the impact that it's had?

Oh, no, that's a good question.

The English.

Well, I mean, an English education degree is certainly useful if you want to be an English teacher, you know.

Right.

And like, as a 22 year old, that's what I was setting myself up to be, you know, like a practice career.

So that it was useful to me in, in that sense.

I mean, I think what has been most full, it's just been reading a whole lot and writing the whole lot and, you know, always looking to see what other people are doing and trying to figure it out and, and figure out my own processes and experimenting.

And each book, each book teaches you something new, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

Each.

Even if, and even if it never sees the light of day, because I have a lot of books that will never see the light of day, it still is useful training and it gets you closer to like your, your most Realized self as an artist.

So I think what has definitely been most useful has been writing a whole lot and read a lot.

Yeah.

Someone told me that you should not make your first book the one that you really wanted to make from the first place, because there's a lot of learning that goes into writing.

So save it for after you've written a couple of things and let you figure stuff out and how it works and.

And how to really market it.

Because if you start off the bat trying to release the thing that is most important to you, it oftentimes will stop you from completing it or, you know, trying to.

To finish it and get it to the place where it's perfect, because that's what we expect even though we've never done it before.

I don't know what the deal is with this.

Yeah, that's an interesting thought.

I.

Or it could be that, like, you can only kind of.

I mean, the way I see it is you often have an idea that's like calling to you and you kind of have to go on the journey of that idea and see it through to its completion.

That's just kind of the deal you make with it.

Even if your skills aren't necessarily as like, caught up to how you could do it justice at that point.

Like, I think there's some.

Something so valuable or there are so many skills that you gain and having an idea and seeing it through to completion and then, you know, then you can decide, like, do you want to pursue traditional publication?

Do you want to self publish this?

And it may not.

It may not get published.

But I think it's still like, if someone decided that they wanted to pursue traditional publication first novels that are very rarely good enough to be published, like, I'll just put it bluntly.

And are you okay with that?

Like, are you okay with making that sort of like, deal with yourself that even if it doesn't get published the way that you had originally envisioned, is it worth it to write the book anyway and see what it has to teach you and see how it involves you as a writer, as an artist and kind.

I don't know, somebody.

Something that people have to decide and discern for themselves.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Oh, go ahead.

Oh, yeah.

So I've only ever written a thing that was like calling to me at that particular point in time, you know, and certainly I've written things before where like, my.

I was not caught up to the material.

It was beyond me, you know, But I tried anyway and learned something.

So.

And I'm talking about fiction It's a different conversation if we're talking about nonfiction and like the type of work that I do with my business, which is more like thought leadership, memoir, kind of like business hybrid nonfiction.

So I want to like make that distinction because they're, they're two very different genres and two different like, processes.

But I do have a lot of experience, experience with both.

So, so I could speak to both.

Yeah.

Can you talk about the difference in writing fiction versus nonfiction in your experience?

Yeah, well, like with the authors that I work with as part of my business, you know, I'm, I'm helping them write their nonfiction books.

They're often like books that they want to write to build their brand, to get their message out to a larger audience, to maybe be like a sales tool that, like a lead magnet that can generate business for them, a credibility builder for them to be able to have access to bigger stages, speaker or travel a lot in the, are in front of these different groups.

So for those types of books and for those types of people and a lot of the mindset stuff is the same in terms of like, how am I going to do this, am I qualified to do this?

People are going to judge me.

You know, all of those fears that can inhibit someone from like just putting their voice out there.

So that's, those things are the same and have, you know, we can work through those and we can address them and find ways around them and kind of set them aside and just do the work anyway.

But the publication process and the end goal is very different.

So like, say you're investing time and money in a brand building book.

You know, you're going to have an ROI on that.

Whether it's different, like clients, clients that are booked, different speech speak speaking engagements that you're able to generate from that book.

It's going to open doors that will lead to more business and you can plan for that.

Right, right.

That's part of kind of like the business proposition for the book itself.

And so if you're investing money to get it out there, to get it published, then it's, it's just like anything in business.

You're investing money, but you, you're going to see an ROI on that.

If you're writing fiction, then, then it's different.

Right.

Because the, the money that you make from a book is not very, very seldom.

People make money from like number of units sold for a business book.

It's like the opportunities that result from that book not from the actual number of copies that are sold.

And so you can Invest more to get the message out there.

If you're writing fiction and your, the ROI is not as clear, I guess that's the main distinction between the two.

And so because of those two things, there are different publishing pathways that might be like, I encourage people who are writing nonfiction often to self publish because they can control the timeline.

They know that they're going to see a return on investment for those books.

A self published fiction book, you're, you're not like setting yourself up necessarily to make a whole lot of money from that.

I kind of, I feel like I'm in the, in the weeds a little bit and I forgot what the original question was.

But it's, it's two different like enterprises.

When you're, whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, what's the goal behind it?

It all becomes a conversation of what are the goals for this?

What are your long term goals with this?

And that can determine like what the best publishing pathway should be.

Yeah, I think it's important just to know what you eventually want to get out of it, whether it's fiction or non fiction.

Because if you just say I want to write a book and publish it, that's, that's its own thing.

Like anyone can just self publish their own book and be fine with it.

But is there a purpose behind the writing?

Is it so that you can gain authority or attention or business from your book, which is more than non fiction?

Or is it, I need to write it because the story is in my head and I can't get it out And I, I feel like other people should read this too.

That's more of the fiction route.

There's this universe that you're kind of creating from scratch and building and why are you writing it and what is the end goal of it?

If it's just to write it, to have written it, that's its own thing.

If you want it to be successful and to make a living as a writer, that's a completely other ball game.

Right.

There's, there's all this that goes into just writing it.

But after you've written it, then what?

It's like where, where do you go from there?

Right?

Yeah.

And you can certainly, you know, do those things as people who write like one fiction book and then expect like, like to get a, a big book deal and to receive a whole lot of money from the book.

That's just very, very unlikely to happen.

So I, I guess it's useful to set, set up that expectation.

Yeah.

So just know what you're getting into before you do it, because you will frustrate yourself if you don't say you had a very lofty goal of, I don't know, making a living off of writing fiction books.

How do you get to that end point?

Like, what is the dollar amount that you need per year to sustain yourself as a writer and then work backwards?

Like, how do I get to that point?

You can't just do it on one book.

That one book is like just the starting point.

You need a series of books is how usually people start to make money off of it and then once they read one and they like it, they'll go back to your others.

Especially if it's a series, the first one is definitely an intro into the universe and the following books continue that.

So if you want to figure out how to do that, you have to really be intentional about the way that you write and promote and really become a writer as a professional.

Right?

Yeah.

And people certainly do that.

People do really well self published as self published fiction writers, but they often have a tremendous output where they write several books a year.

And they're really savvy at marketing too.

Like they've taught themselves to be really savvy marketers so that other people know about the books and are compelled to buy them.

So it's like, are you signing up for all of that?

Are you willing to take all of that on, knowing that that is what it might take to be successful in this doing, you know, writing as a self published fiction author?

You know, so it's, it's different.

It's like, are you writing fiction?

Are you writing nonfiction?

Do you want to be self published?

Do you want to be traditionally published?

Okay, well like any of those things is possible, but you, you have to chart your course and know what the court, you know, what it entails.

It's helpful to know those things before you set out and can potentially set yourself up for frustration.

Yeah, one thing that, when I talk to authors, when they say talk about their book, one thing that they regret is not having a marketing plan for the book from the start because they usually will finish it and then be like, oh, how do I market it now?

But what you really need to do is build up momentum into when the book comes out so that people will all buy it at the same time.

If your goal is to get noticed for it, obviously on something like Amazon, the charts are one of the ways that people get noticed.

So in order to get onto the charts, you have to have a lot of people already interested in it.

If and you know, pre order or buy on the first day in order to get it, the exposure that it needs versus oh, it's out.

Let me figure out what to do now.

It's like they're doing it in the opposite order of which people have found success for launching books, I guess.

Yeah, there's, there's.

I have a few modules in the resource that I created called my book and six specifically on marketing.

But one thing I say a lot is that it's never too early to start marketing your book and to get comfortable early talking about it, talk about it early, talk about it often.

Get comfortable with the words coming out of your mouth about writing a book.

You know, kind of helping people elevator pitch, helping them just gain comfort with the idea of speaking about the book, getting comfort with the idea of themselves as an author.

Like, this is what I'm doing and I'm not going to be weird about it.

I'm just going to talk about it to other people, talk about how they can show like behind the scenes of, of writing their book and talk about it with their friends and share little snippets on like social media or their email list or, you know, wherever.

Just get comfortable talking about the book as early as possible and market the book before you're finished writing the book and certainly before the book is published.

And, you know, enlist people who can help you get the word out and make very specific asks of them that may not even be to buy the book.

You know, like, people can support you without spending money.

There's a lot of ways people can support you without spending money.

So be helpful for people if they feel weird about asking people to spend money on their book.

But yeah, that's really important to have a marketing plan in place before the launch date.

Yeah.

And I think if you're going to ask people for help, make it as easy as humanly possible for them to help you.

Like, give them specific instructions on what to do.

If you're looking for something specific that you want them to say, give them like an outline of, oh, here's what I want help with as far as promoting this book.

And it'll make it a lot easier for one people to agree to it and then for, for them to actually do it.

Because people can agree, but they might not do it if they, if it's hard to do, but if you make it easy to do and give them specific ways to do it without having them think too much about it, I think that's probably the best recipe for success.

Yeah.

And they'll be happy too.

More than likely, you know, people, if you make it super easy for them, then, you know, these are people that you like and trust who like and trust you.

Then they'll be happy to help out in any way they can.

Yeah, for sure.

Can you talk a little bit about the balance?

Especially when you had your, your, your twins of doing that stuff, but also trying to build the business kind of from scratch at that, Am I?

Yeah, it cut out a little bit when you were talking and it's just a little bit blurry.

But I think he said the balance of like business building versus writing versus raising kids.

Did I get that right?

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, in the beginning, you know, I didn't have child care when my.

They're now 10.

I have two, a 10 year old and a 4 year old.

When they were little I didn't have child care.

So I did everything during their nap time and I wrote several books that way during their nap time and in the early morning hours and in the evening I joined the YMCA because they had child care.

So I would go there and do my work in the hour and a half that I had childcare there.

And then, you know, I work out too because that's, that's important for like mental health and feeling good.

Yeah.

So it's always been really important to me to prioritize my work like my writing because if I'm not doing that then I don't have energy for my clients and I start to get really resentful of the work I'm doing for other people and that's just not a good place to be.

So if I, if the pendulum swings too far towards like client work and business stuff rather than my stuff, then, then it doesn't feel good.

And then why have to course correct.

And ideally like my, my work is always.

So that looks like I'll get up really early to work on it.

I'll.

If I'm like got a novel that I'm drafting, then I kind of put the blinders on and we'll really focus on that for an intense like month or so.

But yeah, that's, that's always really important to me that I keep my work first even as I have a business and have kids and so, and I always encourage other people in this space as well, like ghost writers, freelance writers who like we got into this because we like to write.

So and, and we, you know, write, enjoy writing and presumably did have like our own writing dreams and things that we wanted to achieve not for clients but for Ourselves.

So I always encourage people to, like, do whatever you can do to keep that primary.

And even if you have to, like, make some other sacrifices in terms of like, not staying up quite as, you know, quite as like to watch a show or.

Yeah, like, I don't know.

I think it's important to.

For my life to, like, kind of revolve around my creativity and to protect that and to honor it and keep it as the main thing.

Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question or not.

Yeah, I mean, it's just really about finding the way to fill your own cup first, I think, is what it's happening.

Because if you don't do that, and that is the reason that you got into writing, you're gonna, like.

I think you said you're gonna start to resent some of the client work that you do, because why am I putting them ahead of myself?

So even if you just put a little bit of space, like when I was working full time, I used the mornings right before going to work for myself to work on creative things.

Because if you don't do that, by the end of the day, you're like, I'm tired.

I don't want to do this anymore.

What am I supposed to do now?

So if you can front load it, obviously not everyone has the ability to do that, but if that's not the case, then figure out where it is during your day that you can spend the time on your own creative work.

And I spoke to this author recently who had a child as well, and she wrote her book by dictating into Google Doc.

She spoke into her, I don't know, phone on her computer and it dictated what she was saying because she was like nursing at the time of writing her book, saying.

So it's like, how can you figure out any way to make it happen?

Because if.

If you're willing to sacrifice some things or figure out when to do it, like you went to ymca, that's also a creative solution.

So where can you do it and.

How can you do it?

And put yourself first.

Right?

Yeah, Yeah, I love that.

Like, get scrappy with it, you know, like, it may not look well.

I think no matter who you are.

Like, everybody has the belief that they don't have enough time to write a book.

So I'm talking about, like writing a book specifically right now.

It could be fill in any other blank of like, a personal creative goal that you want to achieve.

Like, we all have this belief that, like, we don't have enough time or I won't say we all, but often people have a belief that I don't have enough time to do it.

I'm going to do it at another time when life gets less crazy and when things settle and that just never comes, that time never, you know, if you, you'll wait forever, if that's what you're waiting for.

And what's like the.

Have you ever heard that saying, like, if you have something that you really need done and give it to a busy person.

And I, I think there's something to that in terms of like people who already have a lot on their calendar know how to be effective with their time and know how to prioritize like the highest, highest value goals.

And you can do a whole lot more than little snippets of time than you think you can, you know, so it's, it's really taking that mindset like I'm going to do this whatever it takes by talking into Google Docs, you know, or, or waking up 45 minutes earlier.

There, there is a way to accomplish it.

If you have a strong enough desire, you know, committed to seeing that desire through, then you can just get really creative and scruffy about how you're going to get there.

Yeah.

And even something like finding pockets of time during the day.

So you're waiting in line, what do you do?

You scroll social media, you're watching TV shows after dinner.

Is there something that you can do a little bit in that period?

If you have kids and you're waiting to pick them up and you have to wait in this line, use that time.

Like there's so many opportunities throughout the day.

I mean, not everybody obviously has those, but make as much of those opportunities as you can.

If it's really your goal to make it happen.

Yeah, that's what the resource I created my book in six is all about.

It showed I wanted to take everything in my head about writing books and put it down on paper and show people the exact process of how to do it.

Like day one, day two, day three.

And I wanted to show people that you don't need like all this blank space on your calendar.

You just need little pockets of time.

And if you have like a direction and focus for that time, then you can make the most of it and just like do a little bit each day and see and you know, watch your book take.

So there's first like six weeks or so are all about like building the outline.

And there'll be very specific instructions about like journal on this question for 10 minutes, you know, and that's it for the day.

That's all you have to do.

And then the next day, like journal on this for five minutes.

And then through that process, you get your outline and then it becomes a process up.

Right.

It's like 400 something words a day, maybe not even quite 400.

And so it's guiding them to the process of writing a 50,000 word nonfiction book.

But I really wanted people to see, like on a really granular level that it doesn't take as much time as they, as it might have believed that it would.

You can get there with small pockets of time, small steps taken consistently.

And indeed that's how people get there, you know, because very few people have like that, you know, unless you're Stephen King and you've been doing this for a long time and you've oriented your life this way and you write your 2,000 words a day.

But like, how did Stephen King get to be Stephen King?

Like, before he was where he is now, he was a teacher and he was working at Dunkin Donuts.

You know, he had like two jobs once upon a time, and yet he was still writing and in, in his spare time, even when they were just barely scraping by on their like, mework salaries.

So, yeah, so I, I, I just really wanted people to see that and to get that, that they can, you know, use the time that they have now to, to write and to create and that they have more time.

You know, we all have more time than we think we do, and it doesn't take as much time as we believe it does.

Yeah, that's also I think about knowing yourself a lot because some people work better in certain situations that, so some people will need a calendar spot like directly in their calendar, or they won't do it.

Or some people will ignore the calendar.

Just they won't even look at it.

So it's like really recognizing what it is and when you need to do it and how to do it in order to just get it done.

Because if you're trying to follow someone else's recipe, usually that doesn't work.

You need to really figure out what it is that you can do.

Right.

Yeah.

There is no like, there is no like, proper method.

There is no proper way, you know, like, the only way that works is the way that works for you and it might change on the next book.

You know, everybody kind of has to discover their own process.

I love word count goals, tracking word count goals because it's very measurable way to like, like if you put enough words On a page.

And you keep putting words on a page, guess what?

You'll get a book.

You know, like, it's a magic that happens.

But, you know, other people have their own process and their own metrics that they like to go by.

And there is no, like, one way to do it.

There's only the way that works for you.

I went to a writer's conference a long time ago, and this very successful writer who's written series that, like, millions of people have read, and, you know, her books have been turned into, like, HBO miniseries.

She said, I still have never read Stephen King's On Writing because I'm afraid that if I read that, I'm going to find out that I've been doing it wrong all this time.

And I don't know.

It's so funny.

Yeah.

There's like, there's no one right way.

Everybody has their own way.

And each book has its own thing to teach you about process.

You know, I just have to.

You just have to dive in and keep going.

Yeah.

Speaking on writing, I. I really love that book because it's not like a direct how to.

It's more like Stephen King's observations on having been a writer for so many years.

Because I think he wrote it after he already published a bunch of books.

So it's just like different ways to look at characters and story and his writing journey.

And it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to follow this.

It's.

If you did follow it, you probably wouldn't find success because it was his journey.

He's just telling people what it was like for him to be a writer.

Yeah, I've read it, but it's been a really long time.

But that's a really good one for people who are looking on for, like, crap books about writing.

Yeah.

Can you talk about some of the differences between this, the things that you do?

So you have the book and six, you have ghostwriting and you have book editing.

So how do you manage your time between all those different things?

Well, book at all.

Correct.

And say book coaching instead of book editing.

I do do some editing, but it's not my favorite.

So I would much rather write a book than edit it.

This is why I prefer ghost writing.

Yeah.

So it's not every project that comes is in the same.

Same, like, stage of development.

So, like, for instance, if I'm ghost writing a book, there's a lot of work that needs to be done before I can get to the part where I'm writing it, where I'm drafting it.

And so like the author and I will meet and we'll figure out the outline and that's a process that can take a month and a half or so because we get like a rough outline together and then I see where there are need, there needs to be more filled in.

So I'll meet with the author and we'll schedule some additional interviews.

And I'm really trying to pull out their stories for the book and pick out the most interesting ones, the most attention grabbing ones and decide where they should go in the outline.

So it takes a while to get like a complete outline and then we both sign off on it and say like, you know, I think this is ready to go.

What do you think?

And make sure that the author is happy with it and then I can begin the writing of it.

So it takes a while before we get to the actual writing of it.

Whereas if I had like a developmental editing project, say where the author came to me and they had a full draft, but they wanted to make sure that it's like aligned with their, they, they need kind of like a big picture to pass over it, talking about like the strengths and the opportunities for how it can better like speak to their ideal reader.

Then you know, in that case we're starting with graph.

And then I'm using kind of a different skill set than when I creating the book outline with the author.

So I say all that to say like even though I might be working on various projects, they don't all require the same level of like intense focus.

And from, from me, some I'm more guiding the author, some were creating it, some there is and they, sometimes they come to me within a draft that they've completed.

Sometimes we're creating the draft from scratch, but in that case like if I'm coaching someone to do it and the work is really on them and I'm working as a guide and I'm offering feedback as they go, but they're the one who's writing it.

So there's different projects that require different things from me and not all requiring the same level of attention.

Those strikes requires the most.

But I like it, it's fun.

So you know, and as I said, I'm not going to write a book and edit it.

To me that's much easier.

How do you think those things have helped you with your own writing?

Yeah, I think everything is, that's like everything is developing the skill of feel.

Like my own writing informs my ghost writing, the work I do for clients and then the client work also informs the Fiction work?

I do.

I think storytelling is the baseline.

I'm always like, if it's fiction or if it's nonfiction, I care about the stories.

I want to make sure that they pop, that they're engaging, that the reader is drawn in and has an emotional experience.

So how am I, like, growing as a storyteller?

A storyteller.

I think both streams kind of feed into the same river.

Yeah.

And can you talk a little bit about some of the fiction books that you've written and what made you decide to write those specific stories?

Stories, sure.

Yeah.

Well, as I said, I've been on a long and winding road to traditional publication, which is my goal.

I had an agent.

I left that agent.

I'm with a second agent.

Had a couple books go on submission and not be picked up.

I'm getting ready to gear up to another one.

All that to say getting traditionally published is really hard.

And I've written a lot of.

I've written a lot of books, even though you can't buy.

Can't buy them yet.

The one I just wrote and revised this year is a really fun book about a girl who is from a family of wolf walkers.

And when it's.

She wants you to know that they're not werewolves, they are wolf walkers.

And there's.

She gets very offended when people call them werewolves, but they.

At night, they turn into wolves, and they have this sacred job to protect the forest.

And they do that through hunting populations.

Like, it kind of goes into the biology of wolves and how they, like, help protect the ecosystem.

But it's got a very humorous voice.

Returning powers start kind of going out of control, going haywire, and they don't know why until the end of the book.

She is very much faced with the conflict of wanting to, like, lean into her humanity and kind of her humanness and stake her claim among this friend group that she has even as her wolf powers are getting out of control and her family wants something very different, wants them to move.

So I kind of describe it as Turning Red plus encanto.

If you've ever seen any of those movies, those are both very big in our house because I have girls who love both of those movies, but I guess that was the inspiration for that one.

Like, Turning Red was very much an inspiration for that, for that book.

I love that movie.

I've seen it a lot of times and, like, the funness of it, the goofiness of it, the wanting to do, like, the out of the box kind of like, I'm a girl and now I'm a huge.

And that movie is a red panda.

And this book, it's a wolf.

And like, I don't know, I just wanted to do.

And like she's got these three brothers and they're all kind of like goofy and they find a lot.

They're also like a really loving, happy family unit unit.

Even if they have like some dark things in their past they're trying to work through.

Yeah.

So that I just.

My daughters were like really into wolves.

I noticed that like anytime a wolf.

I don't know, like my four year old would talk about wolves every night in my daughters too.

But like my older girls would get really interested in anything on Wool 7.

What if I did something with this in a book?

And then, you know, it's interesting to think of like this plus this equals this.

Like this is what writers do is like take different genres and kind of like mix them up and see what they get.

So it's like okay, turning red plus encanto plus this.

Like it's, you know, just kind of play with big fake themes and big like plot structures and see, see where you land and see what kind of what the story requires.

How it needs to be different, how it could be the same.

Yeah, that's.

I don't know if I answered your question.

Well, I'm different.

Inspiration.

I just love hearing how people came about the inspiration or the ideas behind a book.

I just started recently writing fiction myself and it was based on one of the dolls that my wife and I sell.

We sell creepy dolls on Etsy.

They all have like a little story behind them.

But I'm in a writing group and the prompt was like it all started when or something along those lines.

So I just looked back at through all the things that we had listed that I haven't sold and like, oh, this would be a perfect one to write about.

And it's just like spiraled from there.

I'm just.

And now I'm like studying all these writing books on horror specifically and just like some of the stuff that you can do.

And I love just to hear how people are inspired by other people because it's just like, yeah, you take inspiration from the people who've done it before you.

Because if you try to do it and learn it all yourself from scratch, it's very difficult.

Right.

So what can I do to look at what others do?

In your case, it was the two Disney movies and in my own writing, because if it worked for that, it can work for me.

It's just how do I tell this story that that's just come about because of my children and inspiration from some other stories.

Have you talked about or read the story to them or anything?

Yeah, I have actually.

So I, so I printed out this.

Both of my 10 year olds read it and so did my husband and they.

One of, one of them who's like the bigger reader, like stayed up late trying to finish it, which made me feel really good that she was like staying up well past bedtime to finish it.

And then like I left that draft and also I got notes from an agent and an editor that she works with that were like, oh, we're really, we really like this.

And, and then I got notice.

I was like, oh, and here's like a six page edit letter on, on what we think needs to happen in order for it to have the best chance at publication.

And so I, I changed a lot of things I had to take out, like, you know, it took me a while to figure out how I would incorporate these edits and so like revise and totally rethink the book.

Certain characters who played a major role, like, got taken out entirely.

You know, the, the focus of the book shifted very much.

And so then I told them that I would, I would be creating a new draft and like this one character would be going and up.

My daughter's got upset that, like, that like, oh no, this change is like, mom, you can't do that.

No, like, and so I was like, okay, maybe I'm not gonna let them read drafts anymore.

But they, I was like, girls, I think you'll like this new version.

I think you'll really like it a lot more.

And they're like, okay, mom.

Well, if they don't give it the best like, chance at being published and okay, you know, I guess you can change it.

Like there were.

But I was changing it.

But I think it did make the, you know, I think this version is stronger as, as tough as it was to like say goodbye to that version of the story, I think it did lead the book to, you know, a better place where it is stronger.

So.

And getting that big like edit letter, as tough as it was, was a vote of confidence, you know.

So I think for whoever needs to hear that, like, it's not necessarily easy to be edited for anyone, especially when you get really big edits that mean you're going to have to change a whole lot and totally rethink your work in some cases.

But, but people are giving those to you because they believe in your ability and they believe that it could be better.

So, yeah, it's in my opinion, best to stick with it for a moment and to kind of let it sink in and settle in.

Imagine a different way forward.

Yeah, I think it's really important a couple of things.

One is to be open to feedback because these people have, you know, experience in this world and they, they've seen examples of things and they know the ins and outs and just don't take the work as talking about you.

It's.

It's just its own work.

Right.

It's your creation, it's not you.

So don't, don't take every thing that people say as an indictment on who you, you are being a writer.

It's just people's opinions based on experience, which is oftentimes helpful.

Like you said, it did improve it.

And I think the other thing is to know that if you're going to have your book traditionally published, you will be open to the fact that other people will have their own ideas on what your work is.

So if you want to release it as it is in its original form, that's when you would go with self publishing.

So you just got to weigh the pros and cons of everything that you're doing in order to figure out what the best solution is for you.

And like we said in the beginning, what is your ultimate goal with the book?

To know that is to know what you should be doing.

Yeah.

And I think even if you're going to self publish, you should still have a developmental editor.

It's an align editor and, and that might be the same person.

But yeah, you still want it to be as strong as it could be if you're self publishing it.

Yeah.

If you're traditionally published, like, I guess it's for anybody on the writer's path, you're going to have to get used to sharing your work and receiving feedback on it and kind of like setting your ego aside and knowing that that is in the best interest of the work.

Of course, be selective about who you take feedback from, you know, and I think, but I really do think anybody has, like, if somebody has your best interest and your writing's best interest at heart, then you can learn something from anybody, whether they're like several echelons above you in terms of experience or credentials or if they're quote unquote, beneath you, inter, like they haven't been doing it as long, you know.

And that's all I really mean by beneath you.

I mean like not as experienced and not necessarily as like skilled or skill yet.

You know, I think that person still has valuable things to offer you in your writing.

They can still give you really valuable insights.

So don't discount whatever feedback you get if you believe it's from somebody who has your best interest at heart.

Of course, don't give your work to somebody who's like, really negative and, you know, I don't know, not a nice person.

But you want feedback from people who are, like, working on their craft, who are committed to getting better, no matter where they are in the journey.

But yeah, you're just going to have to get used to that, whichever pathway you take.

Traditional or self publishing, but especially if you want to do traditional publishing, because there's so many gatekeepers involved in the process, like agent.

And the agent has to sell the book to editors and there's just going to be so much rejection comes your way that you.

There's these.

That's just it.

There's rejection.

You can't go.

Like, you have to be rejected a whole lot.

And you have to get comfortable with rejection and develop a relationship with it if you're going to go that path.

So.

Which definitely means you have to share your work with other people and Leo into receiving.

Yeah, I think it's really important to, to be comfortable with the people that you're working with, number one, because if you're not, then you're not going to be comfortable with the feedback that they give you.

So it's really about, like, being in alignment and all having the same goal.

Like in your case, the goal was to make it as strong as it possibly could be in order for it to.

To get the biggest chance to get published.

Right.

So it's like, what is it that you need to do in order to do that?

You have to be willing and find the right people who are in conjunction with you to push it forward.

Right.

People who like, like, you know, get you as an artist to a certain extent and appreciate your.

You as an artist, as a writer and who want to give you space to do that.

You know, like people who have your artistic flourishing that's in their.

What they want is your artistic flourishing.

You know, that doesn't mean they say yes to you all the time.

That means they might deliver hard feedback and tell you no a lot.

Even, even if you're in.

Like, I wrote a whole book.

I spent a couple years on a book that I was really hoping would get published, and I had an agent at that point and she said, like, this is really good, but I just don't think there's a place for it in the market right now.

So we're not even.

We didn't even go on submission with it, you know, and so I was, like, devastated because I'd speak.

Spent a couple years on it, and I kind of had, like, a breakdown that led to some breakthroughs, you know, But I guess that.

I don't know what I'm saying, other than there's not necessarily a point of arrival.

Even if you, like, as you attain certain things, the doors don't all magically open.

There's still rejection involved in the process.

And that's just part of it.

Yeah.

Until you're someone like Stephen King.

Right.

Yeah.

Even then, I think these people are still going to give him feedback on what it is, but the likelihood of it happening is definitely higher.

So it's just, you got to keep on working until you've reached a point where people can.

If you ever do.

It's not like a guarantee or anything.

It's just do the best you can with the circumstances that you've been given.

And sometimes an idea that didn't work five years ago could work now because everything changes.

Even like a year, it could change.

So it's not give up on it completely.

It's like, see where the winds take you and this thing that you've created and see if there's like, a.

An opportunity in the future.

Because, you know, one breakthrough in a movie or a book can change the whole landscape of how everybody else sees things.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's totally like.

It's such a cliche, too, to say this and almost sounds trite, but, like, the doing of it really has to be in some reward, you know, like, that's the fun part when you get to play and when you get to, like, work in your book.

And that's the best part, you know, like, playing in the sandbox is the fun part.

So, like, when I got that big edit letter and I'm like, oh, dang it, I'm gonna have to go back and totally reimagine this.

Like I said, to, like, my husband and also my therapist, because we talk about writing a lot in therapy.

We talk about work a lot in therapy.

I was like, best case scenario, I get to go back to this and play some more, you know, and, like, to discover a new way forward for it.

And yeah, just to.

Because I. I did have a lot of fun writing it.

Like, I kind of had an intense process for writing it.

More intense than usual in that I wanted to write it in a month and I pretty much did.

So it was intense, but it was fun.

And so best case scenario, I get to go back and do that again and, like, find new, exciting ways forward.

And then even as I'm involved in this very intense focus period, I'm still playing it, I'm having fun, and, like, that, you know, that's kind of all there is, you know?

Yeah.

All the other stuff is.

Is great, but, like, you have to find the joy.

Is it fun to write?

Like, okay, then that's.

That's what you've got, and that's kind of all any of us have.

We do it because it's fun.

We do it because we enjoy it.

We do it because we enjoy getting better.

You know, of course we want other people to read it, but the reward has to be the doing of it.

Yeah.

And oftentimes you can just shift your perspective.

Like, kind of what you were saying is take it as, like, a challenge or a game in order to make this thing happen.

Like.

Like, I've written this, but how can I reimagine it in order to create a different sort of story?

Obviously, the overarching idea of the book probably didn't change that much.

Right.

Maybe a character or some.

Some situations or the overall arc a little bit.

But the.

The core of the book and the message and, like, what it is probably didn't change enough for it to be, like, a complete downer when you hear that it needs to be changed, but right into something fun for yourself.

Right?

Yeah.

It's really important to have other writer friends who understand too, you know, like, because I have a friend who understands what it is.

She.

She went through this process a lot with her book.

That is.

It did.

It paid off.

It got a good book deal.

But, like, the tumultuous times of, like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna have to totally review this again based on this one.

You know, this editor gave, like, this one sentence feedback, which means I have to totally reimagine, like, so much of this book.

Um, anyway, it's.

It's helpful to have people to.

To can, like, commiserate with you and encourage you when you're in those.

Like, holy crap, how am I gonna do this when you're in those times?

I think one thing that all creatives are told is that there's like, this lone genius myth.

But in reality, I think the best artists create within community and they figure out how to work with other people, either doing other creative stuff or within the same thing.

Like, if you're a writer Be with other writers, like, and they can commiserate, like you said.

And it's just.

We need to stop thinking that everything is on us to do this thing.

It takes, like, a whole team to.

To make the best work.

And I don't think it really matters what creative thing you're doing for the most part.

There are other people involved in this process, and you just need to deal with the fact.

Unless you're, like, some, I don't know, rare exception.

I don't.

I can't even think of somebody that made something creative and did it completely on their own.

There's always some sort of, at least inspiration.

Yeah.

I've been in critique groups before, and I've not been in critique groups before, and I'm in a critique group, and, like, I will never not be in a critique group again.

That's how, like, I'm like, oh, this.

This is so, like, necessary for.

It's just necessary, I think, to be with people who are moving toward the same goals that you are and who are supporting.

Like, if you hold it too close, like, you're writing or your art or whatever, then it doesn't feel real, and it's too easy to give up on it.

But if you have that, like, accountability in that community of other people who are moving toward the same things you are, then that's what helps you go forward.

I think we need other people.

Hmm.

Got a couple more questions left.

Do you know anyone personally who also runs a standout creative business, and what do they do to stand out?

Oh, boy.

Yeah, I'm sure I do.

I have to think about it for a minute.

I know a lot of creative business owners.

So.

What?

Any.

Any person.

Whoever comes to mind.

It's up to you.

I mean, you can say anyone.

Or maybe the.

The person that has inspired you the most lately.

Person who has inspired me the most greatly.

Like a.

My mind is going blank.

I. I know I can think of something, but, like, oh, don't worry.

I can edit it out.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Oh, I know.

It gives me, like, as soon as we get off the call, I'm sure I'll think of, like, five people, but right now, I'm not coming up with anything.

Can you, like, say things to, like, chalk my.

My brain?

Yeah.

I mean, if you want to talk about someone like Tracy or other people in her circle or whoever.

Millie that you follow a lot or.

There's a.

There's a couple.

There's two women who have a podcast that I've been following for A long time.

And one is an actor and one is a director and she directs like things on Broadway and actors and like lots of different commercials and TV and watch lots of different things.

But they've been doing this podcast for a long time called Create, and it stands for, like, Community Reclaiming Every Artist's True Expression.

I think that's what it is.

But they talk about what it takes to live a creative life.

Getting it very like the spiritual aspect of, of living the creative life.

And they inspire me a lot because they have their own offerings and their own things that they're doing, like, in the professional realm.

And then they each have like, their own classes that they're teaching and workshops.

But then they also have this beautiful friendship that they've had for the last however many years and that they talk about on this podcast.

And that was something that I found kind of early in my creative journey.

Not necessarily in my creative journey, but like my entrepreneurial journey.

That's actually also how I found my first business coach, was because she was a guest on this podcast.

Their names are Kristen Hange and Natalie Roy and they've kind of been my, like, guiding lights for a while.

Awesome.

What is one book, podcast, documentary or tool that has had the biggest impact on your creative journey?

One book, podcast, documentary or tool?

Also the artist way that maybe a lot of people give that answer.

But that was when I found that book.

I had never even heard of it actually, which, like, it's well, well though.

Right, right.

And I'll say, like, it definitely changed my life the first time that I did.

I. I don't know if you've ever done it before, but it's like a 12 week guide and it's best done in community, even though I've never done it in community.

But it kind of helps you.

It gives you all of these, like, prompts to kind of get you in touch with your truest artist self.

So you do things like write to the bullies who, like, made fun of your art when you were in kindergarten.

You know, like, it unearths all this stuff that like, you'd kind of forgotten about, but that is still kind of like hanging on.

It may be inhibiting your artistic expression.

And yeah, so I've gone through it two times and I'll, I'll.

I'll say that because the first time I, I did it was.

It was definitely life changing and very affirming for me.

And helped me kind of relax and move past some pretty severe anxiety that I had that was postpartum.

So it was a game changer for me.

Yeah, I think every artists or creative should tap into their creativity as much as I can.

And I think that book specifically forces people to just really dig deep into it versus, you know, occasionally mudding creativity happen to you.

You seek it out.

Right.

You know, just letting inspiration strike.

Because if you do that, you may never feel the inspiration again.

It's like you have to really be intentional about being creative.

Yeah.

In fact, as I'm saying this, I'm like, I want to go find my coffee.

Just do it again.

Yeah.

Me.

What do you think makes a creative business stand out?

And what would you tell somebody, based on your experience, how they can stand out?

Yeah, I'm thinking, like, what makes it stand out?

Maybe I'll give the answer that I most need to give myself at this moment.

And that's like, worry less about standing out and more about, like, going inward and like, being led and kind of seeking guidance on what the next move should be.

It's really easy to, like, compare yourself to everything that's happening on social media, every other person out there and.

Yeah.

And that's just really tiring.

So I think, yeah, at least that my answer for now is more or less about standing out.

More.

More about going inside and seeking guidance from.

From that place.

Yeah, I think that's actually a very common response is people just focus on what you do best and really tap into being the best version of you that you can be.

And by virtue of doing that, you will essentially just stand out because no one else can be you.

People can copy anything, like the work or the systems or the, you know, the actual output, but they can't copy who you are as a person because we're all unique individuals, at least at the moment.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How you show up, you know, how and where you show up.

Like, how do you protect your energy so it doesn't get too diluted?

Um, yeah, I don't know.

Like, there's.

There's so many places to be, there's so many platforms you could be on, so many things you could chase and that.

That's just really tiring.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's something I'm grappling right with right now is like a push pull of like, the desire to be everywhere and then the desire to be, like, nowhere, you know, and like, how to strike that balance and like, make time for joy and nurture your own creativity.

Et cetera.

That's the most important thing for me, is to always teach my creativity, the main thing in my work, number one.

And when I do that, I find that other things kind of fall into place.

Yeah.

Focus on what you either like to do or what works the best for you and really just dig into those versus worrying about all the things you could be doing, because it's endless.

There's literally an endless number of things you could be doing.

So really do the things only you want to do and figure out where you work best and have the most success in order to really find your people.

Yeah.

Can you give the listeners a challenge that they can take action on right away to start standing out?

To start standing out?

Yeah.

Well, I guess the question is, what do you most want to accomplish?

And like, what is your number one thing that you want to put your energy toward in the coming year?

You know, is it, Is it write a TED Talk?

Is it none of those things?

Is it do a painting?

But you're like, learn how to paint, but you're not a painter, quote, unquote.

But you still, like, want to, you know, develop that skill.

Like, I, I'd say figure out what it is that you feel like you're being called to, that feels very exciting to you and figure out how you can make time for that thing and prioritize it in your life, even if it doesn't make business sense, quote, unquote.

I don't know if that will help you stand out as, as a business, but like, I, I guess I'm thinking about, like, what's going to be, like, satisfying to you, like, on a soul level.

I, I'd say whatever is like, calling your attention.

Figure out how you can push, prioritize it and make it like a central part of your life.

And yeah, just work toward that goal or work toward that thing every day.

Build it into, like, the fabric of your life.

And yeah, just sit, enjoy.

Enjoy where it takes you.

Yeah.

I think obsession is one of the things that often pushes us to do the work the most, because as long as we're interested and really want to do something, we're going to do it.

Otherwise, we're just going to be like, ah, I can do it later, right?

Yeah.

So that's such an interesting question.

It's like, what's calling to you?

What's capturing your attention?

I've been learning Italian for the last year and I study it, like, every day.

I don't know, I'll listen to Italian podcast, I'll do duolingo I have the Italian teacher that I meet with and I read Italian books like for language learners.

I watch TV shows in Italian.

I follow so many like Italian language accounts on Instagram that it's basically like the language learning app for me at this point.

Point I don't know.

That's not necessarily helping me stand out in business, but it's very interesting to me and it's like captivating to me.

Yeah.

And so I, I'm a, I don't know, I'm a big believer in like just follow your dreams.

Like even if it doesn't make sense, even if you're the only person that it makes sense to.

Yeah, just follow your curiosity, I guess.

Yeah.

I think one thing that we all take for granted and think is even something like that, you may think it's not going to help you, but think of all the people that you could talk to about this, that to you as like a person versus oh, it all has to be business all the time.

Like what are the things that make you unique and stand out as a person?

And that way, oh, this person is also trying to, to learn Italian, but they also want to write a book.

Right.

That's a very specific scenario.

And if you find that person, if that person finds you, they'll be like, this is a no brainer.

We can talk about this and this.

Right.

It's just like how do we really dig deep into the things that we like and are passionate about?

Right?

Because we're all so much more than our businesses.

Right.

Like, that's just a small part of like what we, what we do.

Like we're all alive a lot bigger than that.

So I don't know, like, yeah, there's so many things to, to pursue and so I, I just encourage people to make time for it.

No, no matter what the thing is, that's oftentimes because of what I do, that's write your book.

You know, people want to write a book, but they, and that's certainly a way to stand out.

You know, like that's a wonderful way to spread your message into being conversation with people who are, go far beyond where you can ever travel.

Like as an individual person.

That's a great way to do that.

You know.

And often the calling to write a book is not necessarily one that makes sense because it's going to take time and you know, there's a lot of like shorter term things that can yield bigger results.

But I still that like if, if you feel called to do it, then it's absolutely worth doing.

And you can only ever start where you are, and you can only ever take the first step.

But it's having the courage to take that first step and then you see the next one.

And then you see the next one, and then you see the next one.

And the way it's shown, once you pick and walk.

It'Ll only come into fruition if you do it right.

Yeah.

Even if it's something very big, like write a book, you know, like, it's okay.

Yeah.

Just start with the first word.

Yep.

Well, Jennifer, this has been amazing talking to you.

Can you let the people know where to find you and keep up to date with all the stuff that you're doing?

Yeah, you can find me at.

On Instagram, it's Enferlock writes, you can also find me on LinkedIn at Jennifer Locke or at my website.

Jenniferlock writes, that's L O, C K E, Jennifer with two N's.

J E, N, N I F E R F Ock.

Right.

Awesome.

Well, it's been a pleasure.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Okay, bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Standout Creatives.

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Thanks again for tuning in, and as always, lean into your creativity and curiosity.

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