For this edition of Things You Might Not Have Seen, I will talk about the book The Successful Author Mindset: A Handbook For Surviving the Writer’s Journey by Joanna Penn.
A successful mindset is important in any career; it makes sense in writing too. Joanna Penn highlights problems that haunt authors, such as self-doubt, comparisonitis, and perfectionism. She also offers antidotes to these situations. Her best advice: Don’t let self-doubt stifle your creative spirit. Keep writing.
Joanna offers the readers snippets from her journal, which adds a personal touch to the book. Her voice is clear and compassionate. She has been on the writing journey too and it can be lonely at times. For instance, Joanna shares how anxious she used to get before her early public speaking appearances, but onstage, she would mask her nerves with a smile. She talks about about uncreative she used to feel, and how she took ownership of her self-doubt by naming her podcast and blog as the ‘Creative’ Penn.
Joanna encourages writers to keep a journal to write out their thoughts and feelings when going through a really tough phase. She says that writing about your challenges can help you to become more objective about the situation and perhaps even find a solution. I think that keeping a journal is a successful habit that can help in other professions too.
I haven’t finished this book yet (because I am in the editing stages for my next book, soon to be released 😬) but I know that I will read Joanna’s book time and time again for all the wonderful advice and insights.
This is a great book to learn from if you are a writer, want to be a writer, or are just interested in reading about the creative challenges that writers go through.
I hope that you liked today’s blog post. Thank you for reading! 😊
You can find this blog post as a podcast at anchor.fm/aisha-urooj
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