Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur,

bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, publishing options and marketing ideas for your book.

You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more information at

TheCreativepen.com. And that's Penn with a double N. And here's the show.

Hello, creatives. I'm Joanna Penn. And this is episode number 646 of the podcast. And it is Thursday, the 29th of September,

2022 as I record this in-between episode. So in today's show, I'm sharing two chapters from my

audiobook, How to Write a Novel, from idea to book. The first section is on outlining or

plotting, and the second is on discovery writing,

sometimes known as pantsing or writing into the dark.

And yes, it's narrated by me.

I go into the benefits and difficulties of both approaches, examples of authors who write in the various different ways,

some tips on how to do both of them, and I go into my own discovery

writing with a touch of plotting process, because yes, we all find our own way eventually,

and you'll be somewhere on the spectrum, so I go through the two extremes, I guess, and where I

am. And some people have said they didn't even know I write fiction. So just to be clear,

I write thrillers,

dark fantasy and crime as J.F. Penn. And I have around 17 novels, I keep losing count,

plus other novellas and short stories. Now, a lot of people in my survey, the reason I'm putting

this out is I'm doing a survey and many people have said, firstly, that

they have questions about this, but secondly, that these chapters helped them realise,

particularly around discovery writing, that if you're feeling like you hate plotting and you've

bought all these books on plossing and it just takes the joy out of things, that's how I feel too.

...