Kent talks to Joanna Penn about her brand-new book, How to Write a Novel. You’ll learn how writing a novel changes you, whether you should try discovery writing or outlining, how to choose a story structure, how to get over the fear of being judged, and much more.

Joanna Penn is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, writing under the pen name J.F. Penn. She also writes non-fiction for authors. Joanna is also the host of The Creative Penn podcast and an award-winning creative entrepreneur. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com has been voted in the Top 100 sites for writers by Writer’s Digest.

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When there are a dozen potential messages you could focus on, how do you move forward without feeling like you’re making the wrong choice?

That said, there are times when it’s OK to have several different messages. That’s when you’re writing a lot of books and want to build a few different brands.

Some authors do this by having different pen names. For instance, one of my favorite writers, Joanna Penn, creates resources for authors. But she also writes thrillers under the author pen name J. F. Penn. It’s a way to separate her nonfiction for writers from her fiction, which is mostly a different audience.

My friend and writing mentor, Honorée Corder, does this very, very well. She has a series of books for single mothers, she has books for business leaders, and she has books for writers, among other topics. But she has done this over the long term.

That’s important to keep in mind… you’re doing this over the long term. It’s hard enough for most writers to consistently write on one topic, much less two or more.

So don’t get distracted and feel you have to write about everything. Focus on one main thing. That being said, if you’re highly motivated and want to put the work in to write multiple books a year and build multiple “brands” with your books, then go for it! The more great books you can write, the better.

Question: On a scale of 1-10, how motivated are you to have more than one core message by writing a lot of books?

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