How can you write freely and release any blocks that are holding you back? How can you focus on the strengths in your writing and avoid critical voice? Robin Finn gives plenty of writing tips in this interview.

In the intro, KDP's identity verification; Why authors need platforms [Kathleen Schmidt]; Romance genre report from K-lytics; Canva has bought Leonardo AI image generator.

Plus, join me and Orna Ross for a writing retreat near Dublin, Ireland 11-13 April 2025 [More details here; Kickstarter Rewards]

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Today’s show is sponsored by Findaway Voices by Spotify, the platform for independent authors who want to unlock the world’s largest audiobook platforms. Take your audiobook everywhere to earn everywhere with Findaway Voices by Spotify. Go to findawayvoices.com/penn to publish your next audiobook project.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

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Robin Finn is an award-winning writer, teacher, and coach, and the author of Heart. Soul. Pen.: Find Your Voice on the Page and In Your Life.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Overcoming the fear of judgement and shame when writing





• Uncovering the different layers of limiting beliefs





• Valuing our writing across all genres and topics





• Strengths-based feedback and how to use it





• Using the TIDES principle in the critique process





• Tapping into your curiosity to find your author voice





• The magic that can come from timed writing





• Practicing the art of discernment in your writing and sharing





• Benefits of an in-person writing community

You can find Robin at RobinFinn.com and on Instagram @RobinFinnAuthor.

Transcript of Interview with Robin Finn

Joanna: Robin Finn is an award-winning writer, teacher, and coach, and the author of Heart. Soul. Pen.: Find Your Voice on the Page and In Your Life. So welcome to the show, Robin.

Robin: Thank you so much for having me.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Robin: Well, my story is a little meandering. I really was a writer when I was a child, but I sort of tucked that away for decades.

Then years later, after I became a mom, I had a child with severe hyperactivity. It made parenting so difficult and excruciating, particularly the judgment that I got from all the other parents, that I ultimately ended up writing as a means of healing.

I wrote, originally, a lot of personal essays about parenting a child with special needs. That was really the beginning of my writing career.

During the time when I was really actively parenting and really struggling, I ended up going back to school and getting a master's degree in spiritual psychology. Spiritual psychology is a program where you really connect to what is your purpose. One of the things that came out of that program for me is that I'm a writer. So I started to write about parenting a child with special needs.

I was really scared. I had a lot of shame and a lot of judgment about what I was writing.

I went to a conference, and I met some writers, and I decided I'm going to send out one of my essays. To my shock, it was accepted. Then when I saw it online, I was so shocked and scared, but what happened from that point was I was flooded with emails from other parents, really, Jo, from all over the world.

From Australia and Japan, thanking me for writing this piece and telling me they were having a similar experience. That connecting with others and realizing how healing writing can be, not just for myself, but for other people, really spurred me on to publish my work.

Then from there, it was really, again, like I was reached out to by so many women asking me about writing and about how they also were having experiences they wanted to write about.

So I sort of blended my background in public health, spiritual psychology and writing, and I created this program called “Heart. Soul. Pen.” for women writers to find their voice. I taught this program for many years, and then ultimately, it became the book.

Joanna: That's so lovely for you to share those feelings. It really strikes me. We've only been on the phone like three minutes, and you've used the words judgment, shame, scared, shocked. These are all really emotional words to use about writing.

I know there's people listening, I've certainly felt it myself, I wrote a book last year—well, it was written over a long time, I published it last year—called Writing the Shadow, which is based on the Jungian idea of Shadow. I cut some things out of that book because of some of those things you're talking about. So if people listening feel the same thing, they feel that fear of judgment, they feel that shame—

How did you get past those things in order to share that first essay?

Like that first step before you got the feedback, how did you do that?

Robin: Well, it's a really good question because when I was writing the book, Heart. Soul. Pen., I had been teaching “Heart. Soul. Pen.” for years, but I literally didn't know what it was I was teaching.

It's such an intuitive process that I had to be like, okay, wait, how can I make into a system what I'm doing? It's interesting you bring this up, because the first step of the book is called “Revise and Release Limiting Beliefs.” That's step one.

I literally take you through how I did that with parenting and how it really applied to writing. This idea of writing down what I believed about myself as a mother.

That was the despair that brought me to spiritual psychology school was this idea that I was a failure as a mother because I couldn't fix my son and I couldn't fix my family and make them into this perfect fantasy family.

I had to go through this entire process of writing down what my beliefs were about myself, and then really asking myself, do I even believe my beliefs?

Also asking myself, do these beliefs support me having a joyful, peaceful parenting life? And they really did not.

Then being willing to rewrite the beliefs and then repeat them every day until eventually over time, they became my new belief system.

When I started writing, I literally went back to that very same process, and I outlined it in the book. It is a step-by-step process of being willing to start with examining what do you believe about writing, and about worthiness, and about your own voice, and being willing to write it down and look at it.

I can tell you that a lot of things I believed about my own writing and my own voice were just dumb, just silly. I didn't even believe my own beliefs, but they were there inside of me.

Then being willing to review them and ask myself, if I believe I don't have anything important to say, for example, does that support my goal of writing? Not really.

Am I willin