← The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Audacious Artistry: Reclaiming Your Creative Identity And Thriving In A Saturated World With Lara Bianca Pilcher
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Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives, I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 850 of the podcast and it is Saturday the 14th of February 2026 as I record this yes, it's Valentine's Day. In today's show I'm talking with Lara Bianca Pilcher about audacious artistry, reclaiming your creative identity and thriving in a saturated world. We talk about why self doubt is normal, the parallel career, and why designing your life around your art might be waiting for break and getting your creative rhythm back after crisis or burnout through small gentle steps. So that's coming up in the interview section in Writing and Publishing. So on the Indie Author Podcast, Mattie Dalrymple talks to Kristen Tait, who is my editor, about becoming a better writer by being a better reader. Now, Kristen suggests that while the first read of any book should be for the experience of the story and I guess this is for F, a second read allows you to switch into active analytical reading mode. If a book amazes or delights you, go back immediately to study it and learn from it to improve your writing. Now obviously shifting from reader mode to student mode is difficult, so Kristen recommends changing the format. You might listen to the audiobook first and just get into the story and then use a print or ebook copy for the second past as you study the text closely. Now I would really interested in this because of course I'm doing this master's degree and I definitely find a print book is the best for study. And this recent essay I actually just finished the draft Is Death a Good thing and my argument against immortality? Partially. It's textual analysis of literature and Simone de Beauvoir's novel All Men Are Mortal. I'd never read it before and I had to get it in print so I could underline things and go back to them. Kind of studying a novel in depth for philosophical reasons. So so I find ebook reading for pleasure and print for textual analysis. Kristen also suggests analysing books at three specific the story level, the kind of structure of the whole thing, the scene level, how the individual scenes are built and how the characters move through the scenes and all the different plot points and emotional beats and all that. And then the sentence level Word choice and syntax. Now I guess my own read of All Men Immortal was not so much for the literature side of things, but more for the philosophical side of things. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote philosophy and memoir and like non fiction books. But interestingly, Kristen also encourages writers to ignore highbrow and lowbrow distinctions. So if you write literary fiction, read genre fiction and also we should say vice versa obviously because different genres have different things things going for them. Some genre fiction you just have to read because you're like, why is this become so big? So for example, I don't really read Romantasy, it's not really my thing. But I read Fourth Wing when that came out, the Rebecca Yarros book, I was like, why is everyone going for this? In the same way that I, I did read Fifty Shades of Grey back in the day and I never read Twilight, to be honest, I never read Harry Potter. I mean some books seem to really break out and you think I need to read that and I understand that is a big deal. So yeah, I think it's important to read outside your genre. And even if you read genre fiction, you might read romance. But what about reading sci fi? And this helps you learn different techniques such as how romance writers maintain interest despite the reader knowing the ending, for example, and the emotional side, I think the emotional side of romance is so important. Now I am reading hard sci fi at the moment, which is not usually my type of genre, and I thought you might be interested in how I got to this. I'm currently reading Surface Detail by Ian M. Banks, Book nine in the Culture series, and I haven't read any of the others. So just jump straight into book nine and it's fine as a standalone, it can be read as a standalone. Now the reason I'm reading it is because Claude AI suggested this book because of the immortality essay, the philosophy essay, and also one of my last essays was on Christian hell, basically in the theological aspect, aspects of what happens after death. And this book, Surface Detail is about a war in heaven, a simulated war game which rages between civilizations far in the future. Now there are some sims and some uploaded humans and all kinds of AIs and hybrids and avatars. And these are virtual battles fought for decades. And the victors will decide the fate of the digital hells, these torturous artificial afterlives with awful horrific things that go on there. So this is really fascinating and a different angle on immortality and hell. And I mention it because some people say to me, oh, I've asked for a book recommendation from AI and it just hasn't worked. And I'm like, well, the reason why is you haven't gone deep enough on whatever conversation you want to give it context. So it's not like on Amazon where you type in a few words about what you want. With these AI systems now you can give like a million words of context. That's like your whole book series. If you have like 10 book series or something, so what you can do. So this was. I essentially have been talking with Claude about these deep and meaningful things for a while. I've fed it my essays, I've fed it my notes around different topics. And so we have really long conversations about different things. And then I will say, okay, give me 10 books around this topic. Some fiction, some non fiction. And this is how I find all my books now. And I am buying a lot of books at the moment. So I think if you want better book recommendations that are much more granular and you're willing to be open outside your genre, then I think this is a really good way to get recommendations. And then back to that interview with Kristen. She also says, learn from what you dislike. And I think it's, this is really interesting because so often when we read for pleasure, and I'm exactly like this. I don't want to read a book I dislike. I just want to put it down. I'm like, no, not into it. I'll normally sample and this is for sort of pleasure fiction reading. I will sample books and if I don't enjoy the sample, I won't buy the book. And if I do buy the book and I start reading it and I just like, nah, not good, I won't finish. And I think do not finish is fine. You know, just put, put it down. But I think if you want to learn from what you dislike, then I think this is a really good thing. So paying attention when you have a visceral negative reaction to a book and then think about why you didn't like it. And I can think of one example right as I'm talking now. I'm just thinking of one. So under the Dome by Stephen King. Great book. And the ending, I was like, I do not like this ending. Not a good ending. Whereas the Stand has a perfect ending in my eyes, the Stand by Stephen King as well has a perfect, perfect ending. And in fact, the ending of the Stand is the kinds of endings that I often have, especially in my Horror, in fact Fact in Blood, vintage. I would say that ending is a classic ending. Like the Stand. If you've read it, you'll know what I mean. I'm not going to spoil anything if you haven't read it a great book. Stand. And the thing is, under the Dome is also a really great book, and they did make a TV series of it, I think. But the ending of under the Dome was not an ending that resonated with me. And so that really taught me a lot about endings, or at least taught me a lot about endings I like. So Kristen says analyzing why you hated a specific trope or ending or I guess character or anything else helps you define your own taste and refine what you want to avoid in your own writing. And this idea of taste and preference and voice and everything that makes your opinions you is so important. And this is again, in the age of AI, so important to lean into. What are the things that do interest you? What are the things that spark ideas for you? What are the areas that resonate for you? So even for me, coming back to this sci fi stuff I've written, what could be starting to delve into sci fi? For example, my short story De Extinction of the Nephilim is a crossover between my archaeological interest and my theological interest. The biblical idea of the nephilim and then moving into de extinction technologies which are happening as such, so moves into near future sci fi, I guess. So this is what's so interesting to me is I think I'm reassessing in my mind what science fiction can be and looking at what I might write in that area that also reflects on my other interests. So, yeah, I think this is so good. And Kristen's very good at this. She is an excellent editor, by the way, but she's also written about how to analyze stories. She's been on this show talking about that. She's got a book on it. But yes, go and listen to the Indie Author Author Podcast. And that is Indy Indie Author Podcast. Okay. So yeah, that is the interview with Kristen. And then just a bit on marketing. Over on the Self Publishing with Ally podcast, Orna Ross talks about how indie authors can market literary fiction. And I think I know where this came from because we were at an event and somebody asked a question like saying, oh, it's just impossible to do marketing if you write literary fiction. And of course, that's not true. So Orna writes about coming at this a different way. And the first tip is to reframe your mindset around marketing. I actually think that this is true for all of us. She says, don't buy into the myth that Marketing only works for high volume genre fiction like romance or thrillers. Literary fiction authors absolutely can market effectively. And this is true. Whatever genre you write, there are always ways to reach readers. But it's just, it requires different tactics, different expectations than often the rapid release or the algorithmic side of things. There's just very different things you can do with different books and also related to who you are. Orna says embrace the craft publisher model. Literary authors are often craft publishers rather than volume publishers, which means publishing fewer books, spending longer writing them and focusing on deep engagement and high production values. I would say that I'd slightly disagree with this. I think a lot of genre authors are now doing incredibly high production value books, specifically on Kickstarter. I mean the romantasy romance fantasy authors doing absolutely gorgeous high production value books. But you can't do that for every book if you have a lot of books. So I think for literary fiction, for people, I guess also like me, I only put out one novel, maybe one non fiction a year. And for me this is also leaning into high production value. So bones of the deep, I am having a lot of fun with that. I'll come back to that in a minute. But yeah, in terms of literary fiction, lean into the identity that you have rather than trying to force yourself into something that doesn't fit your genre, doesn't fit your personality. Also, Orna says don't obsess over audience size. While the literary audience is smaller than mass market genres, it is still huge globally. You don't need millions of readers, you only need thousands or even hundreds of the right readers. Literary readers are high value. Orna says they read more, pay higher prices and behave more like patrons than casual consumers. So again, I'd probably dispute that. I would say that there are some very clearly whale readers in the genre fiction community. I think the point is here that for any of us you don't need to aim for mass market in general. You can aim for that thousand true fans model. That's certainly what I focus on. And I would not say I write literary fiction for sure. And then one thing that really is specific, I think to literary fiction is being selective with literary magazines. Orna says avoid spending too much energy submitting to literary magazines or journals that have tiny readerships. Unless a publication has a significant audience that will help sell books, you are often better off building your own readership and platform. This is such a good tip and I think it's true for what some people still do blog tours and will be on blogs with very, very small audiences that may or may not be specific to what to the people they're aiming for. And same with podcasts, same with any kind of platform that people have. Just do a bit of research into how big their reach is. And this is again where you can use AI tools. So you can ask Chat, GPT or Claude or Gemini. You can say, I'm considering pitching this magazine or I'm considering doing a blog tour. I'm consider a podcast tour. Give me the top 20 places I could pitch in my niche. Or in a reverse way, if there's something you're thinking of submitting to, ask for deep research on that area and ranking by audience size, ranking by reach, and you'll actually find there's a lot of information about what is worth pitching, what is worth appearing on. So it really does depend on what sort of time you have. But being selective around these things, the same with competitions. You can spend a lot of time and money submitting to things that have a very small reach. So definitely consider that. Lots more tips in that episode. Just go to the Self Publishing with ally podcast or self publishing.org you'll find all the links there. In Personal News As I mentioned, I finished the draft of my philosophy essay Is Death a Good Thing? And I wanted to mention it because I was only able to get a good handle on it after I took it day off. I've been getting really annoyed with it. I just find philosophy so hard and my head was exploding and I was reading all this stuff because it wasn't just the Simone de Beauvoir book, it was all the stuff around it, all the academic writings and various things. And I was so deep into it, I just couldn't figure out how to structure an essay. And then I went to London. So I was in London last week for an evening author event and I went for the whole day and I visited the British Museum, which has two thorns in reliquaries from the Crown of Thorns, which is book research for my next arcane thriller. So I was like, right, I'll go and see these thorns. Whether or not you believe they are doesn't matter. They have two reliquaries, which is very cool. I also visited Victor Wynn's Museum of Curiosities, which is indeed very weird and very curious, which has some mercury creatures made up of, obviously, bits and bobs of other underwater creatures. Now who's to say whether these things are fake in the same way that who's to say the thorns are fake? And one can be whimsical and curious and imaginative about all of this, which is what these kind of museums of curiosities can often be. They're quite whimsical in many ways. And you can look at the crown of thorns and the thorns in the reliquaries in a kind of similar way. Like, you can believe absolutely that they're real, or you can come at them from the angle of a sort of curiosity around writing a story potentially. And I love this. I love when fiction and the real world collide. And this is where my best stories come from. But anyway, so I also. Being on the train and being away from the desk and just having a day off and there was some wine and some food and some friends, and I got away from philosophy. And then on the way back on the train, I read Seneca's on the Shortness of of Life. And that actually really helped too. And when I got home, I knew how to write the essay and I was able to write it really fast. And I've got it printed out next to me and I will obviously do an editorial pass over it, but I'm really happy with it. Now, the reason I'm telling you this is because sometimes we push and push and grind and grind and we're like, no, no, I just need more hours on this. But sometimes the very best thing is to walk away, take a few days off, return to things later, take the pressure off. Now, I know that. I know that to be true, but I was still pushing and pushing. I was like, why can't I get this? I just need to read, like, another book and I will figure this out. And yeah, sometimes you just need to step away. So it is currently resting. Then I will hand edit it and fix it up along with the references which are in the Chicago format, and then I will submit it. But yes, I wanted to remind you if you are stuck in the grind that you should maybe just walk away. I used to find. I used to work in it and when I used to work on help desks and things, sometimes literally, obviously turning things off and on again is the first answer. But sometimes just coming back the next day, it would work. It would literally just work. And this is the same thing. There's something in our brains that just requires this stepping away. So, yeah, just to remind you about that, that as part of the stepping away, I also did the edits from Bones of the Deep and the corrections from my beta readers. So I had Kristen's edits and also two sailors and an oceanographer gave me feedback on the book. And it is now back again with Kristen for the proofread and I've started playing with Mid Journey. I mentioned I'm having some fun. So basically I'm going to do for the last few Kickstarters I've made all the custom endpapers and I'm starting to work on that again. It's kind of a fun part of the process and I want them to be journal pages from one of the characters who is sketching various elements of the ship and the bones and other things. So generating hand sketches of things that don't exist is really, really fun. So and then I'm working with Jane, my designer who turns my loads of crazy things into something actually well designed and printable. So that's my process for the custom end papers and also the sprayed edges which we're also working on because you can do really cool sprayed edges now with book vaults bespoke printing. So I'm still not sure of the timing because of various things, but you can have a look at the COVID at least and some of the photos from my trip@jfpen.com forward I'm thinking April at the moment, but we shall see. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Tim Gallows Books on YouTube said of Kevin's interview, thanks for a great interview. I'm seeing the indie writer Life as a choose your own adventure series. The trick is to get the information before choosing the next path you walk. These podcasts help us understand the paths others have taken and even if they're not our path, they help inform us about possible steps for our journey. Journey. That's great Tim. And yeah, obviously none of us can have exactly the same career as anyone else, but it does help us make decisions. And John sent a lovely smiley picture with his earpods in and said, I clean offices Monday through Friday at night and listen for information to move the author career forward. I love that. And I used to clean offices. I absolutely get that job and it's pretty cool. So I'm really glad I can join you while you clean. John, thank you for the lovely picture and Ruth sent a picture of beautiful snowy mountains in the sun and said, I'm just back from a day snowshoeing in the mountains of Hakuba, Japan and I'm listening to your podcast on my way to sit and do some writing and author business at a nearby cafe. I meant to be editing a paranormal cozy mystery but got inspired to write a snow based contemporary romance. Couldn't help thinking if it were you here, you would be inspired to write something a bit more spooky. There's a lot of scope for danger in the mountains. Yes indeed. I'm definitely not so much a mountain person. I like pictures of mountains, but I'm not a winter sports or mountainy person. Although I say that I have actually got into ice dance. There was a multi part documentary on Netflix about ice dancers for the Winter Olympics. You might have seen this some of you and I was like okay, okay, yeah, I get ice dance. But yes, thank you so much for all those pictures. You can leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel. You can email me, send me pictures of where you're listening, or your favourite cemetery, crypt or churchyard. JoannaTheCreativePen.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation so today's show is sponsored by Publisher Rocket which helps you with keyword and category research on Amazon which you need for your meta metadata when self publishing as well as generating lists of keywords for your Amazon ads. You can do this manually on Amazon, but it takes a lot more time and you have to think of all the different permutations to search for. And more importantly you can search separately now across different Amazon stores us, uk, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, France and Spain as well as for ebooks, audiobooks or print books. And I know many of you are now doing translations. You can do English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Now this is super super useful. It saves so much time and frustration. It makes the process easy. You can use it to find keywords that readers actually type into Amazon Search. You can also use the competitor analysis to find categories. You can also use the reverse ASIN feature to find what keywords other books are benefiting from. So this makes keyword research easier than ever. And you can discover best selling book categories and niche categories which you can use to write to market market if that's your thing. And you can find profitable keywords for Amazon ads and easily export them so you can import them into your Amazon ads. Now Publisher Rocket is constantly adding new features and capabilities and it's always a free upgrade for owners. It is a one time payment. You get 30 days money back guarantee. You can start researching for keywords, categories and competition right away. There are also handy tutorials but I find it's pretty intuitive to use use now. Yes, I do still use Publisher Rocket. It is one of my must use tools as part of my publishing process and it is very reasonably priced so go check it out@publisherrocket.com that's publisherrocket.com so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com thecreative pen thanks to the 14 new patrons who've joined in the last week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing, craft, author, business and AI tutorials. This week I posted an article on using Claude Cowork to update ingramspark Records and also an interview with bookfunnel around signed ebooks and I intend to do signed ebooks for the Kickstarter of Bones of the Deep, which will be a first for me. So the Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at Patreon.com P-A T R E O-N.com TheCreativePen Right, let's get into the interview. Lara Bianca Pilcher is the author of Audacious Artistry, Reclaim your creative identity and thrive in a saturated world. She's also a performing artist and actor, life and creativity coach, and the host of the Healthy, Wealthy, Wise Artist podcast. So welcome, Lara.
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B
Thank you for having me.
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A
Jo oh no, it's exciting to talk to you today. First up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing.
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B
Well, I'm going to call myself a greedy creative in that case, because I started as a dancer, singer, actor, actress in musical theater, which ultimately led me to London, your end of the world. And I was just pursuing that in high competitive performance circles. Highly competitive. So a lot of my future works come from that kind of place. But when I moved to America, which I did do after my season in London, little stint back in Australia, then to Atlanta, Georgia, I had a visa problem where I couldn't work legally, and it went off on for about six months. And because I feel this urge to create, as so many of your listeners probably relate to, I was not okay with that. And that's actually where I started writing in the quietness, with the limits and the restrictions and the and I've got two children and a husband and they would go off to school and work and I'd be home thinking, huh. And in that quietness I just began to write. And it was an another I love this thinking of creativity as a mansion with many rooms, and you get to pick your rooms. And I decided, okay, well, the dance, acting, singing door is shut right now. I'm gonna go into the writing room. So I did.
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A
I do find this interesting. This. I have had a few, I guess, physical creatives on the show. And obviously your primary. I guess one of your big rooms in your mansions is a. Is a physical room where you're actually, actually performing and moving your body. And I feel like this is something that those of us whose biggest area of creativity, I guess, is. Is writing, we really kind of struggle with the physical side. How do you think that physical practice of creativity has helped you in writing? Which can be, I guess, quite constrictive in that way.
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B
It's so, so good that you asked this, because I feel what it trained me to do is ignore noise and show up. And I don't like the word discipline. Most of us kind of get, oh, that. It's not a nice word. But what being a dancer did was taught me the practice of what I like to call a rhythm, a creative rhythm rather than a discipline, because rhythm ebbs and flows and works more with who we are as creatives. By the way, creativity works in our body. But that taught me go to the bar over and over again whether you feel the ballet, but I'm talking about. Not that the pub, go there over and over again, warm up, do the work, show up when you don't feel like it. And that I naturally pivoted over to writing. So they're incredibly linked in the way that creativity works in our body.
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A
And do you find that you need to do physical practice still in order to get your creativity moving? I mean, I'm. I'm not a dancer. I do like to shake it. Shake it around a bit, I guess. But I mainly walk. Like, if I need to get my creativity going, I will walk. So do you think people, if they're stuck, you know, maybe doing something physical is a good idea?
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B
It is. Because the way that our body and our nervous system works without going into too much boring science, although some people probably find it fascinating, is that when we shake off that kind of lethargic feeling and we get blood flowing in our body, we naturally feel more awake. And often when you're walking or you're doing something like dance, your brain is not thinking about all of the big problems. You might be listening to music, taking in inspiration, taking in sunshine, taking in nature, whatever it is, getting those endorphins going. And that naturally leads to the brain being able to psychologically show up more as a creative. However, there are days, if I'm honest, where I wake up and the last thing I want to do is move. I want to be in a little blanket in the corner of the room with a hot cocoa or a coffee and just keep to myself. So sometimes those days I have two, but they're not always the most creative days. But sometimes I need that in my creative rhythm. And that's okay too.
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A
Yeah, it's interesting and I. I agree. I don't like the word discipline, but I think as a dancer that certainly you would have had to do that. And I can't imagine how competitive it must be. And I mean, I guess this is another thing about a career in dance or the physical art. It. Does it age out? Like, is it really an ageist industry? Whereas I feel like writing you, it isn't so much about what your body can do anymore.
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B
That's. That is true. There is a very real marketplace industry that. And I'm careful because there's two sides to this coin. There is the fact that as we get older, our body has trouble keeping up at that level. There's more injuries, that sort of thing. But there are some fit, as we know, women performing in their 60, 78, you know, on Broadway that have been doing it for years, and they are fine. They'll probably say, though it's harder for some of them, but. But absolutely. I think there. There does feel in the professional sense like there can be a cap. A lot of casting in acting. And in that world, kind of feels like there's less and less roles, particularly for women as we get older. But people are in that space all the time. There's a Broadway dancer I know who is 57 who's still trying to make it on Broadway and really open about that, and I think that's beautiful. So I'm careful with putting limits because I think there's always outliers that step outside and go, hey, I'm not listening to that. I'm very much in that box. I think there's an audience for every age, if you want there to be and you make the effort. But at the same time, yes, there is a reality in the industry. Totally.
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A
Yeah. And I mean, obviously this show is not for dancers. I think it was more framing it as we're lucky in the writing industry, especially in the independent author community, because we. You can be any age, you can be writing on your deathbed, and most people don't have a clue. Authors look like And I love that actually.
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B
It's probably one of the reasons I maybe subconsciously went into writing because I'm like, I want to still create and I'm getting older. Yeah, it's fun.
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A
Freeing. Yeah, that's freeing.
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B
So freeing. So it's a wonderful room in the mansion to stay in until the day I die, if I must put it that way.
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A
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I think also I loved, you mentioned that Broadway dancer now, I mean a lot of listeners write fiction. I write fiction as well as nonfiction. And it immediately, immediately makes me want to write her story, the story of a 57 year old still trying to make it on Broadway. I mean that is, there's just so much in that story. And so I, I feel like that's the other thing we can do in our communities, various communities is writing about the communities we come from, especially at different ages. So yeah, I think that's interesting. Well, let's get into your book, Audacious Artistry. So I want to start on this word audacity. And you say audacity is the courage to take bold, intentional risks, even in the face uncertainty. And I read it and I was like, you know, I love the sentiment, but I also know most authors are just full of self doubt and bold and audacious. These are difficult words. So what can you say to authors around those sort of big words?
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B
Yeah, well, first of all, that self doubt, a lot of us don't even know what it is in our body. We just feel it and go. And we read it as a lack of confidence. And it's not that it's, it's actually natural. We all get it. And what it is, is our body's natural ability to perceive threat and keep us safe. So we're like, oh, I don't know the outcome. Oh, I don't know if I'm going to get signed. Oh, I don't know if my work's going to matter. And we read that as self doubt. I don't have what it takes and those sorts of things. And that's where I say, no, the reframe. As a coach, I would say the reframe is that it's normal and that self doubt is normal, normal and everyone has it. But audacity is saying, I have it, but I'm going to show up in the world anyway. And there is this thing of believing, even in the doubt, that I have something to say. It's like when you look at PhD writers, they don't think, oh, I'm, I'm well Some of them might, to be fair, but I like to think of it as a metaphor of a massive feasting table at Christmas and there's heaps of different dishes and we get to bring a dish to the table rather than think, I'm going to bring the whole table. So the audacity to say, hey, I have something to say, and I'm going to put my dish on the table.
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A
Yeah, I feel like the. I have something to say. It can also be really difficult for people, though, because, for example, you mentioned you have kids. And many people, like, I want to share this thing that happened to me with my kids or a secret I learned or a tip I think will help people, but there's so many people who've already done that before. So when we feel like have something to say, but other people have said it before, how do you address that?
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B
Yeah, because I think everything I. I say, someone has already said, and I'm okay with that. But they haven't said it like me. They haven't said it in my exact way. They haven't written the sentence exactly the way that's probably too narrow a point of view in terms of the sentence, maybe the. The story or the chapter. They haven't written it exactly. Like me and my perspective and my point of view and my life experience, my lived experience. It matter. People have very short memories. We watch something, you think of the last thing you watched on Netflix, and most of us can't remember what happened when we'll watch the season again. So I think it's okay to be saying the same things as others in the. But recognize that the way you say it, your point of view, your stories, your metaphors, your incredible way of putting a sentence together still matters in that noise.
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A
And I think you also talk in the book about rediscovering the joy of creation, as in, you're doing it for you and I. One of the themes that I'm sort of emphasize is the transformation that happens within you when you write a book. Like, forget all the people who might read it or not read it. But even just what transforms in you when you write is important enough to make it work, worthwhile.
- [36:30]
B
Yeah, it really, really is. And for me, I mean, talking about rediscovering the joy of creation is because I've lost it at times in my career, both as a performing artist and as an author in a different kind of way. But when we get so caught up in the industry and the noise and the trends, it's easy to just feel overwhelmed and Overwhelm is made up of a lot of emotions like fear and sadness and grief. Grief and all sorts of things. A lot of us don't realize that that's what overwhelm is. And when we start to go, hey, like I'm losing my voice in all this noise because comparison is taking over and I'm feeling all that self doubt and things, it can feel just crazy. So for me, rediscovering the joy of creation is vital to survival as an author, as an artist, because what happens is. Classic example, if you don't mind me sharing my author's story really quickly, is that when I first wrote the first version of my book, I was writing very much for me, not realizing. And this is hindsight, you know. And as I wrote, it was quite, I guess, my first version, a little more self indulgent and it didn't really have enough. I like to think of it like an arrowhead. It had two. I was trying to say too much, much. But the thing is, is that the concept was good enough that I got picked up by a literary agent and worked with an editor through that for an entire year. But at the end of that time, they dropped me. And I felt like through that time I learned a lot. It was wonderful. And their reason for dropping me was saying, I don't think we have enough of a unique point of view to really sell this. And that was hard. I laid on my bed, stared at the ceiling, felt grief. But the reality is, is that it's so competitive. And what happened for me in that year is that I was trying to please. And if you're a new author, this is really important. You were so desperately trying to please the editor, trying to do all the right things, that you can easily lose your joy and your unique point of view because you're trying to show up for what you think they all need and want. And what cut through the noise for me is I got off that bed after my three hours of grief. It was probably longer to be fair, but I booked myself a writing coach. I went back to the drawing board, I threw a lot of the book away. I took some good concepts out that I already knew were good from the editor. And then I rewrote the entire thing. And it's completely different to the first version. And that's the book that got a traditional publishing deal. That book was my unique point of view. That book was my belief from that grief that I still have something to say. And instead of trusting what the literary agent and the editor were giving me, in those red marks, all those over that first version, I was like, this is what I want to say. And that became the arrowhead that's cut into the industry rather than the semi trailer truck that I'm trying to bulldoze in with no clear point of view. So rediscovering the joy of creation is very much about coming back to you. Why do I write? What do I want to say? And that unique point of view will cut through the noise a lot of the time. I don't want to speak in absolutes, but a lot of the time it will cut through the noise better than you trying to please the industry.
- [39:57]
A
Yeah, I mean, there's. I can't remember who said it, but somebody talked about you've got your stone and your stone is kind of rough and it has random colors in and all this. And then you start polishing the stone, which you have to polish the stone to a point. But if you keep polishing the stone, it looks like every other stone. And so, yeah, what's, what's the point? And yeah, that kind of fits with what you were saying there. And trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. But I also think the reality of what you just said about that the book is a lot of people's experience with writing in general is certainly for me, I don't write in order. I chuck out a lot. I'm a discovery writer. And so I think people think, oh, you sit down and you start a and finish Zed and that's it. But it's kind of messy, isn't it? Was that the same in your more physical, creative life?
- [40:45]
B
Yep, everything's a mess. And so in the book I actually talk about learn to embrace the cringe because we all want to show up perfect just as you shared. We think because we read perfect and look at perfect or near perfect work, that's debatable all the time we want to arrive there and I guess that's natural. But what we don't often see on social media or place. I love the behind the scenes of films. Like, I want to see the messy kind of creative process. I'm really one of those people that will do that. But reality is, is we have to learn to embrace the message messy cringe. Because that's completely normal and it's so messy. My first version was so messy and it's being able to refine it and recognize that that is normal. So, yeah, embrace it. That's my, my quote for the day. Embrace the cringe. Show up messy. It's all right.
- [41:36]
A
Yeah, and then you have to tidy up eventually. But it's interesting, I mean, you mentioned their social media and the subtitle of the book mentions a satchel saturated world. And the other problem is there are millions of books out there now. AI is generating more content than humans do, and it. It is extremely hard to break through. So how are we to deal with this saturated world? When do we join in and when do we step away?
- [42:04]
B
Yeah, I think it's really important not to have black and white thinking about it because trust me, every day I meet an artist that will say, I hate that I have to show up online. And to be honest with you, there's a big part of me that does also. But the saturation of the world is something that I recognize and I go. For me, it's like I'm in the world but not of it. And recognizing that that saturation can cause so much overwhelm and nervous system threat and comparison. So what I've personally decided to do with that is that I have intentional showing up. So that looks like checking in intentionally with a design, not a randomness, and then checking out. But push comes to shove, at the end of the day, I really believe that what sells books is people's trust in us as a person. And yeah, they might go through an airport and not know us at all. And the book may be something like a bestseller and they just trust because of the reputation. But so much of what I'm finding as an artist is that personal relationship, that personal trust, whether that be through people knowing you in your podcast or people meeting you in a room, especially in non fiction anyway, I think that's really big. But intentional presence from a place where we've regulated ourselves and just being so aware that yeah, it's saturated, but my job's not to be focused on the saturation. My job is to find my unique voice and say I have something to bring and be intentional with that and then step out of the noise, be intentional, shoot your arrow and then step out of the noise. Because it's just overwhelming if you choose to live there and scroll without any intentionality at all.
- [43:51]
A
So how do people do that intentionality in a practical way around, first of all, choosing a platform and then second of all, how they create content and share content and engage. What are some actual practical, practical tips?
- [44:07]
B
Yeah, for me, and I can only speak from my experience, but look, I'm going to be honest. Every single application I sent asked for my platform stats. Every single one. And platform stats as in how many followers, how many people listening to your podcast, how many people are reading your blog. That came up in every single literary agent application. So I would be a fool to to say you've got to ignore that because that's just the brass tax, unless you're already like a famous footballer or that's just the brass tag. So for me, raising that platform and building a platform of my own audience has been a part of why I was able to get a publishing deal. But in doing that, I've learned a lot of hard lessons. And you embrace the cringe with marketing and social media as well, because it's its own beast and it's a bit of a beast. But algorithms are not what I worry about because they're not going to do the creativity for you. The creative part's mine. Social media is great at is saying, hey, I'm here. And awareness, it's not where I sell stuff, it's where I say I'm here. This is what I'm doing. And people become aware of me and I can build that relationship. And so I don't think of it. And yes, people do sell through social media, but it's more about awareness statistically in terms of what social media does. And I am on a lot of platforms, but not all of them work for every author or every star style of book. So I have done a lot of training. I've really had to upskill in this space and get good at it. And so I've put myself through courses and I've done a lot of that because I feel like, yeah, we can ignore it if we want to, but for me it's an intentional opting in because I know from the data of what happened for me is that that's been a big part of being able to get published. And that's overwhelming to hear for some people, they don't want to hear that. But that's kind of the world that we're in, isn't it? To some extent.
- [46:10]
A
I think the main point is that you can't do everything and you shouldn't even try to do everything. And so the best thing to do is to pick a couple of things or pick one thing and, and focus on that. So for example, I barely ever do video, so I definitely don't do tik tok. I don't do any kind of video stuff.
- [46:29]
B
But.
- [46:30]
A
But I have this podcast. Audio is my happy place. And as you said about long form audio and it builds trust and so that is one way you can sell. But it's also very slow. It's very, very slow to build a, a audio platform. So. And then I guess my main social media would be Instagram, but I don't engage a lot there. So do you have one or two main things that you do and any sort of thoughts on using those for Books Month?
- [46:58]
B
Yeah, I do a lot of cross posting. I am on Instagram and I do a lot of creation there and I'm super intentional about this. I actually do 30 days at a time and then I. It's like my intentional opt in thing. So I'll create over about two days and edit and do all of that plan and how. So it's really, really, really planned. Shoot everything, edit everything, put it all together and then upload, load everything and that would be 30. And then I back myself right out of there because I don't want to stay in that space. I want to be in the creative space. But I do put that two days a month aside to do that on Instagram. And then I tweak things for YouTube and what works on LinkedIn which is completely different to Instagram. So as I'm designing my content, I have in mind that this is. This one will go over here, here and this one is. Can go on here. And it just because different platforms push different things. I am on threads. That's easy. But threads is again not statistically where you sell books. It's just awareness. Pinterest I don't think has been very good for my type of work, to be honest. For others it might, but it's the place, it's a search engine, it's where people go to get a recipe. So I don't necessarily feel like that's the best place, that this is just my point of view. For someone else it might be brilliant if you're doing a cooking book or something, something like. But yeah, I do. I'm on. I am on a lot of platforms. My podcast however, I feel is where I'm having the most success and also my blog and those things as a writer are very fulfilling. So yeah, I've pushed growing a platform really hard and I am on probably Almost except for TikTok, I'm on probably every platform but I'm very intentional with each one.
- [48:48]
A
And then the. I guess the other thing is the business model. I mean a lot of people listening, the fiction business model is very, very different. Different to non fiction. You've got a book, but your higher costs and higher value offerings are things that a certain number of people are going to come through to you and pay you more money than the price of a book. So, yeah, I, I guess maybe you could sort of talk about that, about how the book leads into different parts of your business. Because some people are like, oh, am I going to make a living wage from the book sales of an, of a nonfiction book? And usually people have that multiple streams of, of income.
- [49:25]
B
Yeah. And I think it's smart to have multiple streams of income. But yeah, a lot of people in, as you would know, would say that a book is a funnel, a funnel for those who've not heard of it being a way that people come into your bigger offerings, but they don't have to be. But very much I, I do see it that way. But it's also credibility. When you have a published book, there's a sense of credibility. But yeah, I do have other things. I have courses, I have coaching. I have of a lot, lot of things that I call my parallel career that chug alongside my artist work that actually help stabilize that freelance income. And having a book is brilliant for that. I think it's a wonderful way to get out there in the world. And nothing really, no matter what's happening in all the online stuff, when you're on an airplane so often someone still wants to read a book or when you're on the beach, they don't want to be there with a laptop. If you're on the sand, you know, you want to be reading a paper, beautiful book, the smell of it, the visceral experience of it. So books aren't to me, going anywhere. I still feel like there's always going to be people that want to pick it up and dig in and learn so much quickly of your entire life experience.
- [50:39]
A
Oh, no, absolutely. We all love books here, but I think it's important. And you do talk about career design and you mentioned there the parallel career. And I get a lot of questions from people. They may just be writing their first book and, and they want to get to the point of making money. So they could, say, leave their day job or whatever. But it takes time, doesn't it? So how can we be more strategic about this sort of career design?
- [51:06]
B
Yeah, for me, this has been a big one because lived experience here is that I know artists in many different areas, whether they're Broadway performers or they're music artists. And some of them are on almost everything I watch on tv. I'm like, oh, there that guy is again. That I know that actor on almost everything. And I'll apply this over to writers, but the reality Is is that these high end performers that I see all the time showing up even on Broadway in lead roles all have another thing that they do because they can still have, even at the highest level, six months between a contract. So applying that over to writing is, is the same thing in that books and the money from them will ebb and flow. Flow. And what so often artists are taught and authors fit into this, of course, is that we ultimately want art to make us money. And so often that becomes may my art rescue me from this horrible life that I'm living. And we don't design the life around the art. We hope, hope, hope that our art will provide. And I think it's a beautiful hope and a valid one. And some people do get, get that. And so I'm all for hoping our art will be our main source of income, but the reality is for the majority of people that they have something else. And what I see over and over again is these audacious dreams which are wonderful and everything pointing towards them in terms of work. But then I'll see the, the actor in Hollywood that has a cafe job and I'm like, how long are you going to, to just work at that cafe job and be like, well, I'm going to get a big break and then everything's going to change. And I think we can think the same way. It's right. It's like my big break will come, I'll get the publishing and then everything will change. So what I'm finding is that the reframing our thinking is what if we looked at this differently instead of side hustle, fallback career, instead of my day job, we were like parallel career. How do I design a life that supports my, my art? And if I get to live off my art, wonderful. But that for me has looked like teaching and directing musical theatre. It's looked like being able to coach other artists. It's looked like writing and being able to pivot my creativity in the seasons where I've needed to. But all of that is still creativity and energizing and all of it feeds the great big passion I have to show up in, in the world as an artist. And that doesn't take away. None of it is actually pulling me away or draining me. I mean you have bad days, of course, but it's not draining my art. And when we're in these sort of ways of thinking that one day, one day, one day we're not designing intentionally. So it's like what does it look like to maybe upskill and train in something that maybe would be more energizing for my parallel career that will chug alongside us as an artist until we all hope art can totally 100% provide for us. Which is the dream and a wonderful dream and one that I still have.
- [54:16]
A
Yeah, it's hard, isn't it? Because I also think that, I mean personally I need a lot of input in order to create and so I, I call myself more of a binge writer. So I just finished the edits on my next novel and I worked really hard on that and now I won't be writing fiction for I don't know how long. Sick, maybe six months or something because now I need to input for the next one. And I, I have friends though who will write 10,000 words a day because they don't need that. They have something internal that or they're just writing a different kind of book that doesn't need that. And I mean your book is a result of years of experience and you can't write another book like that every year. You just can't because, well, you just don't have enough new stuff to put in a book book like that every single year. So I feel like that's the other thing is that people don't anticipate the input time and that the time it takes for the ideas to come together, it's not, it's not just the production of, of the book, for example.
- [55:19]
B
Yep, that's completely true. And it goes back to this metaphor of we're not. Creativity in the body is not a machine. It's. It's a rhythm. Rather than, I like to say, a rhythm over consistency which allows us to get to say, hey, I'm going to be all in. And I was like, you all in on writing? I went into a vortex for days on end, weeks on end, months and yet probably years on end I would go. But even within that there was ebbs and flows of input versus I can't go near it today. And recognizing that that's actually normal is fine. There are those people that are outliers and they will be out of that box and a lot of people will push that as the only. Like I am going to write every morning at 10am regardless. And that can work for some people and that's wonderful. But for those of us who don't like that, and I'm one of those people that. That's not me as an artist, I accept the rhythm of creativity and that sometimes I need to do something completely different to feed my soul. I'm A big believer that creative block, a lot of it is because we need. Need an adventure, that we need to go out and see some art. To do good art, you've got to see good art, read good art, to get outside, to do something else for the input so that we have the inspiration to get out of the block. I know a screenwriter who was writing a scene, a really hard scene of a daughter's death of her mum. And it's not easy to just write that in your living room when you've never gone through it. So she took herself out. I mean, it sounds morbid, but as a writer you'll understand the visceral nature of this. And sat at somebody's tombstone that day and just let that inform her mind and her heart and was able to write a really powerful scene because she got out of the house and allowed herself to do something different. All that to say that creativity, the natural process, is an in and out thing. It ebbs and flows as a rhythm. So people are different to that. That's fine. But it's is a rhythm in the way it works scientifically in the body.
- [57:25]
A
Yeah. And on graveyards, we love graveyards around here.
- [57:28]
B
So I was like, sorry, everyone, this isn't very nice. Oh, no.
- [57:32]
A
People are well used to it on this show. But let's just come back to rhythm. So when you're in a good rhythm, or when your body's warmed up and you're in the flow and everything's great and that feels good. But what if people, some people listening have found that rhythm is broken in some way or. Or it's come to a stop? Because that can be a real problem to get moving again if you stop for too long. So what are some ways we can get that rhythm back into something that feels right again?
- [58:04]
B
Yeah. First of all, for people that are going through that, it's because our body actually will prioritize survival when we're going through crisis or too much stress and creativity in the brain will go. Will not. Is not in that survival sort of nature. So when we're going through change or like me mo countries, it would disconnect us a lot from not only ourself and our sense of identity, but creativity ultimately reconnects you back into life. And so I feel like there is a sense that to be an optimum creative, to be at our optimum creative self, that once we get through the crisis and the stress is to gently nudge ourselves back in by little micro things, whether it's, I'm just going to have the rhythm of my writing one sentence a day. Because as we do that, those little baby steps build momentum and allow us to come back in. And creativity is a life force. It actually, you know, it's not about production. It's actually how we get to. Any unique contribution we're going to bring to the world will come of our creativity. And as we start to nudge ourselves back in, there's healing in that and there's joy in that. And then I think momentum come. No, I know. Momentum comes from those little steps rather than the overwhelming I've got to write a novel this week kind of mindset. It's not going to happen most of the time when we're nudging our way back in. So little baby steps, kindness with ourselves, staying connected to yourself through change or through crisis is one of the kindest things we can offer ourselves. And allowing ourselves to come into that rhythm, like that musical song of coming back in with maybe one line of. Of the song instead of the entire masterpiece. Hopefully it will be one day.
- [59:49]
A
Yeah. And then. And I was also wondering, I was just thinking of. Of the dancing world again. And I guess one thing that is very different again with writers is that so much of what we do is alone. And I feel like in a lot of the performance art space, it's. There's a lot more collaboration and performances of groups of people which create these things together. And is that something you've kept hold of, this kind of collaborative energy, or how do you think that's something we can try and bring more into. Into writing?
- [60:21]
B
Yeah, Writing is very much alone. I mean, obviously some people, depending on the project, will write in groups, but generally speaking, it's alone. And so for me, what that looks like is to go out to. I do this. And I know for the. Some writers, this is like, I don't want to go and talk to people because there's a lot of introverts, not all of them, but a lot of introverts in writing, as you're aware. But I do go to creative mixes. I do get out there and go to things. I'm planning right now, my book launch with a local bookstore, one in Australia and one here in America. And those things are scary. But I know that it matters to say, I'm not in this alone. I want to bring my friends in. I want to have others part of this journey. I want to say, hey, I did this. And also, of course, I want to sell books. And that's important too. But it's so easy to kind of hide because it's scary getting out there and being with others. But yet I know that after a creative mixer or a meetup with all different artists, no matter their discipline, I feel very energized by that. And writers will come, dancers will come, filmmakers will come. But it's that creative force for me that really energizes my work. And of course, you can always meet with other writers and some people. I mean, there's one person that I know that runs this thing where all they do is they all get on zoom together and they all write and their audio's off, but they're just writing. And it's just the feeling of we're all writing, but we're doing it together. And it's a discipline for them. But because there's a room of creatives all on zoom zoom, they're like, I'm here. I've showed up. There's others. There's a sense of accountability. And I do think that's beautiful. I personally don't want to work that way, but some people do, and I think that that's gorgeous too.
- [62:04]
A
Yes. Whatever sustains you. I think one of the important things is to realize you're. You're not alone. And I get really confused when people say this now. They're like, writing such a lonely life. How do you manage? I'm like, it's so not lonely. But I think, yeah, I feel like, you know, I'm sure you do too. Yeah. Especially as a podcaster, you get a lot of people who want to have conversations. So, like, we're having conversation today. So that fulfills my conversation quota for the day.
- [62:28]
B
Exactly. Real human connection. It matters.
- [62:31]
A
Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, maybe there's a tip for people and I'm an introvert, and so this actually does fulfill. It's still one on one. It's still you and me one on one, which is good for introverts, but it's going out to a lot more people at some point who will listen into our conversation. And so, yeah, there is. There's some ways to. To do this. But yeah, it's really interesting hearing. Hearing your thoughts. But tell people where they can find you and your books and your podcast online.
- [62:57]
B
Yeah. So the book is called Audacious Artistry. Reclaim your creative identity and thrive in a saturated world. And it's. It's everywhere. But the easiest thing to do would be my website, larabiancapilcher.com book and you'll find all the links, a lot of links, and it'll way there and my podcast is called Healthy Wealthy Wise Artist and it's on all the podcasts at platforms and I do little short coaching for artists on a lot of the things we've been talking about today.
- [63:29]
A
Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time Lara. That was great.
- [63:32]
B
Thank you.
- [63:36]
A
So I hope you found the interview with Lara interesting and that it has sparked some ideas from marketing and your author, business and artist artistic life. Let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepen.com or on the YouTube channel at the Creative Pen, or email me joannathecreativepen.com also please send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard next Monday. I'm talking about Post Traumatic Growth, Creative marketing and Dealing with Change with Jack Wall Williamson. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes@thecreativepen.com podcast and you can get your free author blueprint@thecreativepen.com blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and x hecreative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook fpenauthor Happy writing and I'll see you next time.