How Ordinary Drafts Become Extraordinary Books. Revisionaries With Kristopher Jansma

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Joanna Penn

Self-improvement, Arts, Books, Entrepreneurship, Business, Education

4.8 • 745 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How can we avoid the mistake of comparing our first drafts with the finished books we love? How can we improve our manuscripts? Kristopher Jansma gives his tips.

In the intro, Finding your deepest reason to write [Ink In Your Veins]; London Book Fair, AI audio and ‘vibe coding' [Self Publishing with ALLi]; Pirated database of books used to train AI models [The Atlantic]; Fair use and copyright with Alicia Wright; The Guardian strategic partnership with OpenAI; Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan and potential around fair use [Ars Technica]; How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed by Richard Susskind; Death Valley, A Thriller by J.F. Penn.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

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

Kristopher Jansma is the award-winning author of literary fiction novels, short fiction and essays, as well as Revisionaries: What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers.

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

* The mistake of comparing first drafts to finished works

* Dismantling the notion of genius

* How to turn our manuscripts into masterpieces

* Knowing when it's time to walk away from a book, or push through and persevere

* Seeking support from editors and friends

* Balancing the joyful side and business side of being an author

* The importance of social media in developing your personal brand

* Drawing boundaries and protecting personal information ...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur,
0:08.0	bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing craft and creative business.
0:14.7	You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at thecreativepen.com.
0:22.5	And that's Penn with a double N.
0:25.0	And here's the show.
0:26.5	Hello, creatives.
0:27.7	I'm Joanna Penn.
0:28.9	And this is episode number 800 of the podcast.
0:32.3	And it is Sunday, the 23rd of March, 2025 as I record this.
0:41.1	In today's Writing Craft Focus show, I'm talking to Christopher Jansmar about how to turn ordinary drafts into extraordinary books. We go through the
0:48.6	mistake of comparing first drafts to finished books, which we all do. We dismantle the idea of genius and talk about
0:57.4	how to improve our manuscripts, knowing when to walk away or when to persist, balancing the writing
1:03.8	and the author business side and drawing a line to protect your personal boundaries. So that's
1:10.0	coming up in the interview section.
1:15.9	In writing and publishing things, I wanted to point you at an interview on Inc in Your Vains
1:21.8	podcast with Rachel Heron and it's an interview with Tiffany Yates Martin on finding
1:27.4	your deepest reason to write.
1:30.7	Now Tiffany's been on this show a number of times and it's very encouraging and of course
1:34.3	Rachel is wonderful and it's good to come back to this basic question when things get a little
1:39.9	fraught. They discuss the drive inside us that makes us want to create. And for me and you,
1:47.6	that manifests as writing. And I love this because I feel like for everybody, in my family,
1:53.9	everyone has a different way. A lot of my family are visual artists. I'm the only writer,
	...

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