Turning Nightmares into Books

What if the most transformative thing you can do for your writing craft and author business is to face what you fear? How can you can find gold in your Shadow in the year ahead? In this episode, I share chapters from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words.

In the intro, curated book boxes from Bridgerton's Julia Quinn; Google's agentic shopping, and powering Apple's Siri; ChatGPT Ads; and Claude CoWork.

Balancing Certainty and Uncertainty [MoonShots with Tony Robbins]; and three trends for authors with me and Orna Ross [Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast]; plus, Bones of the Deep, Business for Authors, and Indie Author Lab.

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

Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, and memoir as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker.

• What is the Shadow?
• The ‘creative wound' and the Shadow in writing
• The Shadow in traditional publishing
• The Shadow in self-publishing or being an indie author
• The Shadow in work
• The Shadow in money

You can find Writing the Shadow in all formats on all stores, as well as special edition, workbook and bundles at www.TheCreativePenn.com/shadowbook

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Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words

The following chapters are excerpted from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn.

Introduction. What is the Shadow?

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.” —C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

We all have a Shadow side and it is the work of a lifetime to recognise what lies within and spin that base material into gold. 

Think of it as a seedling in a little pot that you’re given when you’re young. It’s a bit misshapen and weird, not something you would display in your living room, so you place it in a dark corner of the basement. 

You don’t look at it for years. You almost forget about it. 

Then one day you notice tendrils of something wild poking up through the floorboards. They’re ugly and don’t fit with your Scandi-minimalist interior design. You chop the tendrils away and pour weedkiller on what’s left, trying to hide the fact that they were ever there. 

But the creeping stems keep coming. 

At some point, you know you have to go down there and face the wild thing your seedling has become. 

When you eventually pluck up enough courage to go down into the basement, you discover that the plant has wound its roots deep into the foundations of your home. Its vines weave in and out of the cracks in the walls, and it has beautiful flowers and strange fruit. 

It holds your world together. 

Perhaps you don’t need to destroy the wild tendrils. Perhaps you can let them wind up into the light and allow their rich beauty to weave through your home. It will change the look you have so carefully cultivated, but maybe that’s just what the place needs.

The Shadow in psychology

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychologist and the founder of analytical psychology. He described the Shadow as an unconscious aspect of the human personality, those parts of us that don’t match up to what is expected of us by family and society, or to our own ideals.

The Shadow is not necessarily evil or illegal or immoral, although of course it can be. It’s also not necessarily caused by trauma, abuse, or any other severely damaging event, although again, it can be.

It depends on the individual. 

What is in your Shadow is based on your life and your experiences, as well as your culture and society, so it will be different for everyone. 

Psychologist Connie Zweig, in The Inner Work of Age, explains,

“The Shadow is that part of us that lies beneath or behind the light of awareness. It contains our rejected, unacceptable traits and feelings. It contains our hidden gifts and talents that have remained unexpressed or unlived. As Jung put it, the essence of the Shadow is pure gold.”

To further illustrate the concept, Robert Bly, in A Little Book on the Human Shadow,uses the following metaphor:

“When we are young, we carry behind us an invisible bag, into which we stuff any feelings, thoughts, or behaviours that bring disapproval or loss of love—anger, tears, neediness, laziness. By the time we go to school, our bags are already a mile long. 

In high school, our peer groups pressure us to stuff the bags with even more—individuality, sexuality, spontaneity, different opinions. We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding which parts of ourselves to put into the bag and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.”

As authors, we can use what’s in the ‘bag’ to enrich our writing — but only if we can access it. My intention with this book is to help you venture into your Shadow and bring some of what’s hidden into the light and into your words.

I’ll reveal aspects of my Shadow in these pages but ultimately, this book is about you. Your Shadow is unique. There may be elements we share, but much will be different.

Each chapter has questions for you to consider that may help you explore at least the edges of your Shadow, but it’s not easy. As Jung said,

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

But take heart, Creative. You don’t need courage when things are easy. You need it when you know what you face will be difficult, but you do it anyway.

We are authors. We know how to do hard things.

We turn ideas into books. We manifest thoughts into ink on paper. 

We change lives with our writing. First, our own, then other people’s. It’s worth the effort to delve into Shadow, so I hope you will join me on the journey.

The creative wound and the Shadow in writing

“Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, make it your creative offering.” —Susan Cain, Bittersweet 

The more we long for something, the more extreme our desire, the more likely it is to have a Shadow side. For those of us who love books, the author life may well be a long-held dream and thus, it is filled with Shadow. 

Books have long been objects of desire, power, and authority. They hold a mythic status in our lives. We escaped into stories as children; we studied books at school and college; we read them now for escape and entertainment, education and inspiration. We collect beautiful books to put on our shelves. We go to them for solace and answers to the deepest questions of life. 

Writers are similarly held in high esteem. They shape culture, win literary prizes, give important speeches, and are quoted in the mainstream media. Their books are on the shelves in libraries and bookstores. Writers are revered, held up as rare, talented creatures made separate from us by their brilliance and insight.

For bibliophile children, books were everything and to write one was a cherished dream. To become an author? Well, that would mean we might be someone special, someone worthy.

Perhaps when you were young, you thought the dream of being a writer was possible — then you told someone about it.

That’s probably when you heard the first criticism of such a ridiculous idea, the first laughter, the first dismissal. So you abandoned the dream, pushed the idea of being a writer into the Shadow, and got on with your life.

Or if it wasn’t then, it came later, when you actually put pen to paper and someone — a parent, teacher, partner, or friend, perhaps even a literary agent or publisher, someone whose opinion you valued — told you it was worthless.

Here are some things you might have heard:

• Writing is a hobby. Get a real job.
• You’re not good enough. You don’t have any writing talent.
• You don’t have enough education. You don’t know what you’re doing.
• Your writing is derivative / unoriginal / boring / useless / doesn’t make sense.
• The genre you write in is dead / worthless / unacceptable / morally wrong / frivolous / useless. 
• Who do you think you are? No one would want to read what you write.
• You can’t even use proper grammar, so how could you write a whole book?
• You’re wasting your time. You’ll never make it as a writer.
• You shouldn’t write those things (or even think about those things). Why don’t you write something nice?
• Insert other derogatory comment here!

Mark Pierce describes the effect of this experience in his book The Creative Wound, which “occurs when an event, or someone’s actions or words, pierce you, causing a kind of rift in your soul. A comment—even offhand and unintentional—is enough to cause one.”

He goes on to say that such words can inflict “damage to the core of who we are as creators. It is an attack on our artistic identity, resulting in us believing that whatever we make is somehow tainted or invalid, because shame has convinced us there is something intrinsically tainted or invalid about ourselves.”

As adults, we might brush off such wounds, belittling them as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. We might even find ourselves saying the same words to other people. After all, it’s easier to criticise than to create. 

But if you picture your younger self, bright eyed as you lose yourself in your favourite book, perhaps you might catch a glimpse of what you longed for before your dreams were dashed on the rocks of other people’s reality.

As Mark Pierce goes on to say,

“A Creative Wound has the power to delay our pursuits—sometimes for years—and it can even derail our lives completely… Anything that makes us feel ashamed of ourselves or our work can render us incapable of the self-expression we yearn for.”

This is certainly what happened to me, and it took decades to unwind. 

Your creative wounds will differ to mine but perhaps my experience will help you explore your own. To be clear, your Shadow may not reside in elements of horror as mine do, but hopefully you can use my example to consider where your creative wounds might lie. 

“You shouldn’t write things like that.”

It happened at secondary school around 1986 or 1987, so I would have been around eleven or twelve years old. English was one of my favourite subjects and the room we had our lessons in looked out onto a vibrant garden. I loved going to that class because it was all about books, and they were always my favourite things.

One day, we were asked to write a story. I can’t remember the specifics of what the teacher asked us to write, but I fictionalised a recurring nightmare.

I stood in a dark room. 

On one side, my mum and my brother, Rod, were tied up next to a cauldron of boiling oil, ready to be thrown in. On the other side, my dad and my little sister, Lucy, were threatened with decapitation by men with machetes.

I had to choose who would die.

I always woke up, my heart pounding, before I had to choose. 

Looking back now, it clearly represented an internal conflict about having to pick sides between the two halves of my family. Not an unexpected issue from a child of divorce. 

Perhaps these days, I might have been sent to the school counsellor, but it was the eighties and I don’t think we even had such a thing. Even so, the meaning of the story isn’t the point. It was the reaction to it that left scars.

“You shouldn’t write things like that,” my teacher said, and I still remember her look of disappointment, even disgust. 

Certainly judgment.

She said my writing was too dark. It wasn’t a proper story. It wasn’t appropriate for the class.

As if horrible things never happened in stories — or in life. 

As if literature could not include dark tales.

As if the only acceptable writing was the kind she approved of. We were taught The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie that year, which says a lot about the type of writing considered appropriate. 

Or perhaps the issue stemmed from the school motto, “So hateth she derknesse,” from Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women: “For fear of night, so she hates the darkness.”

I had won a scholarship to a private girls’ school, and their mission was to turn us all into proper young ladies. Horror was never on the curriculum.

Perhaps if my teacher had encouraged me to write my darkness back then, my nightmares would have dissolved on the page. 

Perhaps if we had studied Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or H.P. Lovecraft stories, or Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I could have embraced the darker side of literature earlier in my life.

My need to push darker thoughts into my Shadow was compounded by my (wonderful) mum’s best intentions. We were brought up on the principles of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale and she tried to shield me and my brother from anything harmful or horrible. We weren’t allowed to watch TV much, and even the British school drama Grange Hill was deemed inappropriate.

So much of what I’ve achieved is because my mum instilled in me a “can do” attitude that anything is possible. I’m so grateful to her for that. (I love you, Mum!)

But all that happy positivity, my desire to please her, to be a good girl, to make my teachers proud, and to be acceptable to society, meant that I pushed my darker thoughts into Shadow. 

They were inappropriate. They were taboo. They must be repressed, kept secret, and I must be outwardly happy and positive at all times.

You cannot hold back the darkness

“The night is dark and full of terrors.” —George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

It turned out that horror was on the curriculum, much of it in the form of educational films we watched during lessons.

In English Literature, we watched Romeo drink poison and Juliet stab herself in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. 

In Religious Studies, we watched Jesus beaten, tortured, and crucified in The Greatest Story Ever Told, and learned of the variety of gruesome ways that Christian saints were martyred.

In Classical Civilisation, we watched gladiators slaughter each other in Spartacus. 

In Sex Education at the peak of the AIDS crisis in the mid-’80s, we were told of the many ways we could get infected and die.

In History, we studied the Holocaust with images of skeletal bodies thrown into mass graves, medical experiments on humans, and grainy videos of marching soldiers giving the Nazi salute.

One of my first overseas school field trips was to the World War I battlegrounds of Flanders Fields in Belgium, where we studied the inhuman conditions of the trenches, walked through mass graves, and read war poetry by candlelight. As John McCrae wrote:

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie, 
In Flanders fields.

Did the teachers not realise how deeply a sensitive teenager might feel the darkness of that place? Or have I always been unusual in that places of blood echo deep inside me?

And the horrors kept coming. 

We lived in Bristol, England back then and I learned at school how the city had been part of the slave trade, its wealth built on the backs of people stolen from their homes, sold, and worked to death in the colonies. I had been at school for a year in Malawi, Africa and imagined the Black people I knew drowning, being beaten, and dying on those ships.

In my teenage years, the news was filled with ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and massacres during the Balkan wars, and images of bodies hacked apart during the Rwandan genocide. Evil committed by humans against other humans was not a historical aberration.

I’m lucky and I certainly acknowledge my privilege. Nothing terrible or horrifying has happened to me — but bad things certainly happen to others.

I wasn’t bullied or abused. I wasn’t raped or beaten or tortured.

But you don’t have to go through things to be afraid of them, and for your imagination to conjure the possibility of them. 

My mum doesn’t read my fiction now as it gives her nightmares (Sorry, Mum!). I know she worries that somehow she’s responsible for my darkness, but I’ve had a safe and (mostly) happy life, for which I’m truly grateful. 

But the world is not an entirely safe and happy place, and for a sensitive child with a vivid imagination, the world is dark and scary. 

It can be brutal and violent, and bad things happen, even to good people. 

No parent can shield their child from the reality of the world. They can only help them do their best to live in it, develop resilience, and find ways to deal with whatever comes.

Story has always been a way that humans have used to learn how to live and deal with difficult times. The best authors, the ones that readers adore and can’t get enough of, write their darkness into story to channel their experience, and help others who fear the same.

In an interview on writing the Shadow on The Creative Penn Podcast, Michaelbrent Collings shared how he incorporated a personally devastating experience into his writing: 

“My wife and I lost a child years back, and that became the root of one of my most terrifying books, Apparition. It’s not terrifying because it’s the greatest book of all time, but just the concept that there’s this thing out there… like a demon, and it consumes the blood and fear of the children, and then it withdraws and consumes the madness of the parents… I wrote that in large measure as a way of working through what I was experiencing.”

I’ve learned much from Michaelbrent. I’ve read many of his (excellent) books and he’s been on my podcast multiple times talking about his depression and mental health issues, as well as difficulties in his author career. Writing darkness is not in Michaelbrent’s Shadow and only he can say what lies there for him. But from his example, and from that of other authors, I too learned how to write my Shadow into my books.

Twenty-three years after that English lesson, in November 2009, I did NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and wrote five thousand words of what eventually became Stone of Fire, my first novel.

In the initial chapter, I burned a nun alive on the ghats of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges River. I had watched the bodies burn by night on pyres from a boat bobbing in the current a few years before, and the image was still crystal clear in my mind. The only way to deal with how it made me feel about death was to write about it — and since then, I’ve never stopped writing.

Returning to the nightmare from my school days, I’ve never had to choose between the two halves of my family, but the threat of losing them remains a theme in my fiction. In my ARKANE thriller series, Morgan Sierra will do anything to save her sister and her niece. Their safety drives her to continue to fight against evil. 

Our deepest fears emerge in our writing, and that’s the safest place for them. I wish I’d been taught how to turn my nightmares into words back at school, but at least now I’ve learned to write my Shadow onto the page. I wish the same for you.

The Shadow in traditional publishing

If becoming an author is your dream, then publishing a book is deeply entwined with that. But as Mark Pierce says in The Creative Wound,

“We feel pain the most where it matters the most… Desire highlights whatever we consider to be truly significant.”

There is a lot of desire around publishing for those of us who love books!

It can give you:

• Validation that your writing is good enough
• Status and credibility
• Acceptance by an industry held in esteem 
• The potential of financial reward and critical acclaim
• Support from a team of professionals who know how to make fantastic books
• A sense of belonging to an elite community
• Pride in achieving a long-held goal, resulting in a confidence boost and self-esteem

Although not guaranteed, traditional publishing can give you all these things and more, but as with everything, there is a potential Shadow side. 

Denying it risks the potential of being disillusioned, disappointed, and even damaged. But remember, forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes. Preparation can help you avoid potential issues and help you feel less alone if you encounter them. 

The myth of success… and the reality of experience

There is a pervasive myth of success in the traditional publishing industry, perpetuated by media reporting on brand name and breakout authors, those few outliers whose experience is almost impossible to replicate. 

Because of such examples, many new traditionally published authors think that their first book will hit the top of the bestseller charts or win an award, as well as make them a million dollars — or at least a big chunk of cash. They will be able to leave their job, write in a beautiful house overlooking the ocean, and swan around the world attending conferences, while writing more bestselling books. It will be a charmed life. 

But that is not the reality. 

Perhaps it never was. 

Even so, the life of a traditionally published author represents a mythic career with the truth hidden behind a veil of obscurity.

In April 2023, The Bookseller in the UK reported that

“more than half of authors (54%) responding to a survey on their experiences of publishing their debut book have said the process negatively affected their mental health. Though views were mixed, just 22%… described a positive experience overall… Among the majority who said they had a negative experience of debut publication, anxiety, stress, depression and ‘lowered’ self-esteem were cited, with lack of support, guidance or clear and professional communication from their publisher among the factors that contributed.”

Many authors who have negative experiences around publishing will push them into the Shadow with denial or self-blame, preferring to keep the dream alive. They won’t talk about things in public as this may negatively affect their careers, but private discussions are often held in the corners of writing conferences or social media groups online. 

Some of the issues are as follows:

Repeated rejection by agents and publishers may lead to the author thinking they are not good enough as a writer, which can lead to feeling unworthy as a person. If an author gets a deal, the amount of advance and the name and status of the publisher compared to others create a hierarchy that impacts self-esteem.

A deal for a book may be much lower than an author might have been expecting, with low or no advance, and the resulting experience with the publisher beneath expectations.

The launch process may be disappointing, and the book may appear without fanfare, with few sales and no bestseller chart position. 

In The Bookseller report, one author described her launch day as 

“a total wasteland… You have expectations about what publication day will be like, but in reality, nothing really happens.”

The book may receive negative reviews by critics or readers or more publicly on social media, which can make an author feel attacked.

The book might not sell as well as expected, and the author may feel like it’s their fault. Commercial success can sometimes feel tied to self-worth and an author can’t help but compare their sales to others, with resulting embarrassment or shame.

The communication from the publisher may be less than expected. One author in The Bookseller report said, 

“I was shocked by the lack of clarity and shared information and the cynicism that underlies the superficial charm of this industry.”

There is often more of a focus on debut authors in publishing houses, so those who have been writing and publishing in the midlist for years can feel ignored and undervalued.

In The Bookseller report, 48 percent of authors reported “their publisher supported them for less than a year,” with one saying, 

“I got no support and felt like a commodity, like the team had moved on completely to the next book.”

If an author is not successful enough, the next deal may be lower than the last, less effort is made with marketing, and they may be let go. 

In The Bookseller report, “six authors—debut and otherwise—cited being dropped by their publisher, some with no explanation.”

Even if everything goes well and an author is considered successful by others, they may experience imposter syndrome, feeling like a fraud when speaking at conferences or doing book signings.

And the list goes on … 

All these things can lead to feelings of shame, inadequacy, and embarrassment; loss of status in the eyes of peers; and a sense of failure if a publishing career is not successful enough. 

The author feels like it’s their fault, like they weren’t good enough — although, of course, the reality is that the conditions were not right at the time. A failure of a book is not a failure of the person, but it can certainly feel like it! 

When you acknowledge the Shadow, it loses its power

Despite all the potential negatives of traditional publishing, if you know what could happen, you can mitigate them. You can prepare yourself for various scenarios and protect yourself from potential fall-out. 

It’s clear from The Bookseller report that too many authors have unrealistic expectations of the industry.

But publishers are businesses, not charities. 

It’s not their job to make you feel good as an author. It’s their job to sell books and pay you. The best thing they can do is to continue to be a viable business so they can keep putting books on the shelves and keep paying authors, staff, and company shareholders. 

When you license your creative work to a publisher, you’re giving up control of your intellectual property in exchange for money and status. 

Bring your fears and issues out of the Shadow, acknowledge them, and deal with them early, so they do not get pushed down and re-emerge later in blame and bitterness.

Educate yourself on the business of publishing. Be clear on what you want to achieve with any deal. Empower yourself as an author, take responsibility for your career, and you will have a much better experience.

The Shadow in self-publishing or being an indie author

Self-publishing, or being an independent (indie) author, can be a fantastic, pro-active choice for getting your book into the world. Holding your first book in your hand and saying “I made this” is pretty exciting, and even after more than forty books, I still get excited about seeing ideas in my head turn into a physical product in the world. 

Self-publishing can give an author: 

• Creative control over what to write, editorial and cover design choices, when and how often to publish, and how to market
• Empowerment over your author career and the ability to make choices that impact success without asking for permission
• Ownership and control of intellectual property assets, resulting in increased opportunity around licensing and new markets
• Independence and the potential for recurring income for the long term
• Autonomy and flexibility around timelines, publishing options, and the ability to easily pivot into new genres and business models
• Validation based on positive reader reviews and money earned
• Personal growth and learning through the acquisition of new skills, resulting in a boost in confidence and self-esteem
• A sense of belonging to an active and vibrant community of indie authors around the world

Being an indie author can give you all this and more, but once again, there is a Shadow side and preparation can help you navigate potential issues.  

The myth of success… and the reality of experience

As with traditional publishing, the indie author world has perpetuated a myth of success in the example of the breakout indie author like E.L. James with Fifty Shades of Grey, Hugh Howey with Wool, or Andy Weir with The Martian.

The emphasis on financial success is also fuelled online by authors who share screenshots showing six-figure months or seven-figure years, without sharing marketing costs and other outgoings, or the amount of time spent on the business. 

Yes, these can inspire some, but it can also make others feel inadequate and potentially lead to bad choices about how to publish and market based on comparison. 

The indie author world is full of just as much ego and a desire for status and money as traditional publishing. 

This is not a surprise! 

Most authors, regardless of publishing choices, are a mix of massive ego and chronic self-doubt. We are human, so the same issues will re-occur. A different publishing method doesn’t cure all ills.

Some of the issues are as follows:

You learn everything you need to know about writing and editing, only to find that you need to learn a whole new set of skills in order to self-publish and market your book. This can take a lot of time and effort you did not expect, and things change all the time so you have to keep learning.

Being in control of every aspect of the publishing process, from writing to cover design to marketing, can be overwhelming, leading to indecision, perfectionism, stress, and even burnout as you try to do all the things. 

You try to find people to help, but building your team is a challenge, and working with others has its own difficulties. 

People say negative things about self-publishing that may arouse feelings of embarrassment or shame. These might be little niggles, but they needle you, nonetheless. You wonder whether you made the right choice.

You struggle with self-doubt and if you go to an event with traditional published authors, you compare yourself to them and feel like an imposter. 

Are you good enough to be an author if a traditional publisher hasn’t chosen you? 

Is it just vanity to self-publish? 

Are your books unworthy? 

Even though you worked with a professional editor, you still get one-star reviews and you hate criticism from readers. You wonder whether you’re wasting your time.

You might be ripped off by an author services company who promise the world, only to leave you with a pile of printed books in your garage and no way to sell them. 

When you finally publish your book, it languishes at the bottom of the charts while other authors hit the top of the list over and over, raking in the cash while you are left out of pocket. 

You don’t admit to over-spending on marketing as it makes you ashamed. 

You resist book marketing and make critical comments about writers who embrace it. You believe that quality rises to the top and if a book is good enough, people will buy it anyway. This can lead to disappointment and disillusionment when you launch your book and it doesn’t sell many copies because nobody knows about it. 

You try to do what everyone advises, but you still can’t make decent money as an author. 

You’re jealous of other authors’ success and put it down to them ‘selling out’ or writing things you can’t or ‘using AI’ or ‘using a ghostwriter’ or having a specific business model you consider impossible to replicate.

And the list goes on… 

When you acknowledge the Shadow, it loses its power

Being in control of your books and your author career is a double-edged sword. 

Traditionally published authors can criticise their publishers or agents or the marketing team or the bookstores or the media, but indie authors have to take responsibility for it all. 

Sure, we can blame ‘the algorithms’ or social media platforms, or criticise other authors for having more experience or more money to invest in marketing, or attribute their success to writing in a more popular genre — but we also know there are always people who do well regardless of the challenges.

Once more, we’re back to acknowledging and integrating the Shadow side of our choices. We are flawed humans. There will always be good times and bad, and difficulties to offset the high points. This too shall pass, as the old saying goes.

I know that being an indie author has plenty of Shadow. I’ve been doing this since 2008 and despite the hard times, I’m still here. 

I’m still writing. I’m still publishing. 

This life is not for everyone, but it’s my choice. You must make yours.

The Shadow in work

You work hard. You make a living.

Nothing wrong with that attitude, right?

It’s what we’re taught from an early age and, like so much of life, it’s not a problem until it goes to extremes.

Not achieving what you want to? Work harder. Can’t get ahead? Work harder. Not making a good enough living? Work harder.

People who don’t work hard are lazy. They don’t deserve handouts or benefits. People who don’t work hard aren’t useful, so they are not valued members of our culture and community.

But what about the old or the sick, the mentally ill, or those with disabilities? What about children?

What about the unemployed? The under-employed?

What about those who are — or will be — displaced by technology, those called “the useless class” by historian Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus?

What if we become one of these in the future?

Who am I if I cannot work?

The Shadow side of my attitude to work became clear when I caught COVID in the summer of 2021. 

I was the sickest I’d ever been. I spent two weeks in bed unable to even think properly, and six weeks after that, I was barely able to work more than an hour a day before lying in the dark and waiting for my energy to return. I was limited in what I could do for another six months after that. At times, I wondered if I would ever get better.

Jonathan kept urging me to be patient and rest. 

But I don’t know how to rest. I know how to work and how to sleep.

I can do ‘active rest,’ which usually involves walking a long way or traveling somewhere interesting, but those require a stronger mind and body than I had during those months.

It struck me that even if I recovered from the virus, I had glimpsed my future self. 

One day, I will be weak in body and mind. 

If I’m lucky, that will be many years away and hopefully for a short time before I die — but it will happen. 

I am an animal. I will die. My body and mind will pass on and I will be no more.

Before then I will be weak. 

Before then, I will be useless. 

Before then, I will be a burden. 

I will not be able to work… But who am I if I cannot work? What is the point of me?

I can’t answer these questions right now, because although I recognise them as part of my Shadow, I’ve not progressed far enough to have dealt with them entirely.

My months of COVID gave me some much-needed empathy for those who cannot work, even if they want to. We need to reframe what work is as a society, and value humans for different things, especially as technology changes what work even means. That starts with each of us.

“Illness, affliction of body and soul, can be life-altering. It has the potential to reveal the most fundamental conflict of the human condition: the tension between our infinite, glorious dreams and desires and our limited, vulnerable, decaying physicality.” —Connie Zweig, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul

The Shadow in money

In the Greek myth, King Midas was a wealthy ruler who loved gold above all else. His palace was adorned with golden sculptures and furniture, and he took immense pleasure in his riches. Yet, despite his vast wealth, he yearned for more.

After doing a favour for Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, Midas was granted a single wish. Intoxicated by greed, he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold — and it was so.

At first, it was a lot of fun. 

Midas turned everything else in his palace to gold, even the trees and stones of his estate. After a morning of turning things to gold, he fancied a spot of lunch.

But when he tried to eat, the food and drink turned to gold in his mouth. He became thirsty and hungry — and increasingly desperate.

As he sat in despair on his golden throne, his beloved young daughter ran to comfort him. For a moment, he forgot his wish — and as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, she turned into a golden statue, frozen in precious metal. 

King Midas cried out to the gods to forgive him, to reverse the wish. 

He renounced his greed and gave away all his wealth, and his daughter was returned to life.

The moral of the story: Wealth and greed are bad.

In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is described as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner.” He’s wealthy but does not share, considering Christmas spending to be frivolous and giving to charity to be worthless. He’s saved by a confrontation with his lonely future and becomes a generous man and benefactor of the poor.

Wealth is good if you share it with others.

The gospel of Matthew, chapter 25: 14-30, tells the parable of the bags of gold, in which a rich man goes on a journey and entrusts his servants with varying amounts of gold. On his return, the servants who multiplied the gold through their efforts and investments are rewarded, while the one who merely returned the gold with no interest is punished: 

“For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Making money is good, making more money is even better. If you can’t make any money, you don’t deserve to have any.

Within the same gospel, in Matthew 19:24, Jesus encounters a wealthy man and tells him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, which the man is unable to do. Jesus says, 

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Wealth is bad. Give it all away and you’ll go to heaven.

With all these contradictory messages, no wonder we’re so conflicted about money!

How do you think and feel about money?

While money is mostly tied to our work, it’s far more than just a transactional object for most people. It’s loaded with complex symbolism and judgment handed down by family, religion, and culture.

You are likely to find elements of Shadow by examining your attitudes around money. 

Consider which of the following statements resonate with you or write your own.

• Money stresses me out. I don’t want to talk about it or think about it.
• Some people hoard money, so there is inequality. Rich people are bad and we should take away their wealth and give it to the poor. 
• I can never make enough money to pay the bills, or to give my family what I want to provide.
• Money doesn’t grow on trees. 
• It’s wasteful to spend money as you might need it later, so I’m frugal and don’t spend money unless absolutely necessary.
• It is better and more ethical to be poor than to be rich.
• I want more money. I read books and watch TV shows about rich people because I want to live like that. Sometimes I spend too much on things for a glimpse of what that might be like. 
• I buy lottery tickets and dream of winning all that money. 
• I’m jealous of people who have money. I want more of it and I resent those who have it.
• I’m no good with money. I don’t like to look at my bank statement or credit card statement. I live off my overdraft and I’m in debt. I will never earn enough to get out of debt and start saving, so I don’t think too much about it.
• I don’t know enough about money. Talking about it makes me feel stupid, so I just ignore it. People like me aren’t educated about money. 
• I need to make more money. If I can make lots of money, then people will look up to me. If I make lots of money, I will be secure, nothing can touch me, I will be safe. 
• I never want to be poor. I would be ashamed to be poor. I will never go on benefits. My net worth is my self worth.
• Money is good. We have the best standard of living in history because of the increase in wealth over time. Even the richest kings of the past didn’t have what many middle-class people have today in terms of access to food, water, technology, healthcare, education, and more.
• The richest people give the most money to the poor through taxation and charity, as well as through building companies that employ people and invent new things. The very richest give away much of their fortunes. They provide far more benefit to the world than the poor. 
• I love money. Money loves me. Money comes easily and quickly to me. I attract money in multiple streams of income. It flows to me in so many ways. I spend money. I invest money. I give money. I’m happy and grateful for all that I receive.

The Shadow around money for authors in particular

Many writers and other creatives have issues around money and wealth. How often have you heard the following, and which do you agree with?

• You can’t make money with your writing. You’ll be a poor author in a garret, a starving artist. 
• You can’t write ‘good quality’ books and make money.
• If you make money writing, you’re a hack, you’re selling out. You are less worthy than someone who writes only for the Muse. Your books are commercial, not artistic.
• If you spend money on marketing, then your books are clearly not good enough to sell on their own.
• My agent / publisher / accountant / partner deals with the money side. I like to focus on the creative side of things.

My money story

Note: This is not financial or investment advice. Please talk to a professional about your situation.

I’ve had money issues over the years — haven’t we all! But I have been through a (long) process to bring money out of my Shadow and into the light. There will always be more to discover, but hopefully my money story will help you, or at least give you an opportunity to reflect.

Like most people, I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. My parents started out as teachers, but later my mum — who I lived with, along with my brother — became a change management consultant, moving to the USA and earning a lot more. I’m grateful that she moved into business because her example changed the way I saw money and provided some valuable lessons.

(1) You can change your circumstances by learning more and then applying that to leverage opportunity into a new job or career

Mum taught English at a school in Bristol when we moved back from Malawi, Africa, in the mid ’80s but I remember how stressful it was for her, and how little money she made. She wanted a better future for us all, so she took a year out to do a master’s degree in management.

In the same way, when I wanted to change careers and leave consulting to become an author, I spent time and money learning about the writing craft and the business of publishing. I still invest a considerable chunk on continuous learning, as this industry changes all the time.

(2) You might have to downsize in order to leap forward

The year my mum did her degree, we lived in the attic of another family’s house; we ate a lot of one-pot casserole and our treat was having a Yorkie bar on the walk back from the museum. 

We wore hand-me-down clothes, and I remember one day at school when another girl said I was wearing her dress. I denied it, of course, but there in back of the dress was her name tag. I still remember her name and I can still feel that flush of shame and embarrassment. I was determined to never feel like that again. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that I was also learning the power of downsizing.

Mum got her degree and then a new job in management in Bristol. She bought a house, and we settled for a few years. I had lots of different jobs as a teenager. My favourite was working in the delicatessen because we got a free lunch made from delicious produce. After I finished A-levels, I went to the University of Oxford, and my mum and brother moved to the USA for further opportunities.

I’ve downsized multiple times over the years, taking a step back in order to take a step forward. The biggest was in 2010 when I decided to leave consulting. Jonathan and I sold our three-bedroom house and investments in Brisbane, Australia, and rented a one-bedroom flat in London, so we could be debt-free and live on less while I built up a new career. It was a decade before we bought another house.

(3) Comparison can be deadly: there will always be people with more money than you

Oxford was an education in many ways and relevant to this chapter is how much I didn’t know about things people with money took for granted.

I learned about formal hall and wine pairings, and how to make a perfect gin and tonic. I ate smoked salmon for the first time. I learned how to fit in with people who had a lot more money than I did, and I definitely wanted to have money of my own to play with.

(4) Income is not wealth

You can earn lots but have nothing to show for it after years of working. I learned this in my first few years of IT consulting after university. I earned a great salary and then went contracting, earning even more money at a daily rate.

I had a wonderful time. I traveled, ate and drank and generally made merry, but I always had to go back to the day job when the money ran out. I couldn’t work out how I could ever stop this cycle.

Then I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, a book I still recommend, especially if you’re from a family that values academic over financial education. I learned how to escape the rat race by building and/or accumulating assets that pay even when you’re not working. It was a revelation!

The ‘poor dad’ in the book is a university professor. He knows so much about so many things, but he ends up poor as he did not educate himself about money. The ‘rich dad’ has little formal education, but he knows about money and wealth because he learned about it, as we can do at any stage in our lives. 

(5) Not all investments suit every person, so find the right one for you

Once I discovered the world of investing, I read all the books and did courses and in-person events. I joined communities and I up-skilled big time.

Of course, I made mistakes and learned lots along the way. 

I tried property investing and renovated a couple of houses for rental (with more practical partners and skilled contractors). But while I could see that property investing might work for some people, I did not care enough about the details to make it work for me, and it was certainly not passive income.

I tried other things. 

My first husband was a boat skipper and scuba diving instructor, so we started a charter. With the variable costs of fuel, the vagaries of New Zealand weather — and our divorce — it didn’t last long!

From all these experiments, I learned I wanted to run a business, but it needed to be online and not based on a physical location, physical premises, or other people. 

That was 2006, around the time that blogging started taking off and it became possible to make a living online. I could see the potential and a year later, the iPhone and the Amazon Kindle launched, which became the basis of my business as an author. 

(6) Boring, automatic saving and investing works best

Between 2007 and 2011, I contracted in Australia, where they have compulsory superannuation contributions, meaning you have to save and invest a percentage of your salary or self-employed income. 

I’d never done that before, because I didn’t understand it. I’d ploughed all my excess income into property or the business instead. But in Australia I didn’t notice the money going out because it was automatic. I chose a particular fund and it auto-invested every month. The pot grew pretty fast since I didn’t touch it, and years later, it’s still growing. 

I discovered the power of compound interest and time in the market, both of which are super boring. This type of investing is not a get rich quick scheme. It’s a slow process of automatically putting money into boring investments and doing that month in, month out, year in, year out, automatically for decades while you get on with your life. 

I still do this. I earn money as an author entrepreneur and I put a percentage of that into boring investments automatically every month. I also have a small amount which is for fun and higher risk investments, but mostly I’m a conservative, risk-averse investor planning ahead for the future.

This is not financial advice, so I’m not giving any specifics. I have a list of recommended money books at www.TheCreativePenn.com/moneybooks if you want to learn more.

Learning from the Shadow

When I look back, my Shadow side around money eventually drove me to learn more and resulted in a better outcome (so far!).

I was ashamed of being poor when I had to wear hand-me-down clothes at school. That drove a fear of not having any money, which partially explains my workaholism. I was embarrassed at Oxford because I didn’t know how to behave in certain settings, and I wanted to be like the rich people I saw there. 

I spent too much money in my early years as a consultant because I wanted to experience a “rich” life and didn’t understand saving and investing would lead to better things in the future. 

I invested too much in the wrong things because I didn’t know myself well enough and I was trying to get rich quick so I could leave my job and ‘be happy.’

But eventually, I discovered that I could grow my net worth with boring, long-term investments while doing a job I loved as an author entrepreneur. 

My only regret is that I didn’t discover this earlier and put a percentage of my income into investments as soon as I started work. It took several decades to get started, but at least I did (eventually) start. 

My money story isn’t over yet, and I keep learning new things, but hopefully my experience will help you reflect on your own and avoid the issue if it’s still in Shadow.

These chapters are excerpted from Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words by Joanna Penn

 

The post Writing The Shadow: The Creative Wound, Publishing, And Money, With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.