How Women Write

This one is a full-circle conversation for me. Amber Heinrich and I met in corporate. We were in the same practice area, both in communications, and both vegan when that was a rare thing to find in a conference room. We've both since stepped away from the corporate consulting world, and now she's written a book. Debug Yourself: Reprogram Your Mind, Body & Spirit for Well-Being is the book Amber wishes she'd had when she was burned out. After 25 years of leading people through change, her own resets stopped working. So she collected the tools that helped, built a framework (she's a consultant, of course there was a framework), and five years later, it became a book. In this episode, you'll hear: How Amber went from "executive hippie" in corporate boardrooms to coach and author, and why she rebelled against her bohemian childhood by going to business school Why she drafted most of the book by hand, often rushing in the door after a morning walk because she couldn't hold the ideas any longer The 30,000 to 35,000 words of personal story she cut, and why she calls it memoir material for another book Her three proposals through a writing community: one that went nowhere, one that earned editorial feedback that reshaped everything, and one that won a publishing package How every section she revised seemed to bring a life challenge that tested the advice she was writing The moment her book went on sale while she was in Delphi, on a trip she'd promised herself she'd be fully present for Why her real voice came easily in the book, but the corporate voice creeps back in when she sits down to market it Her advice for the woman just out of corporate who thinks there's a book in her: start with your stories, and write down what each one taught you Meet Amber: Amber Heinrich is the author of Debug Yourself: Reprogram Your Mind, Body & Spirit for Well-Being — a science-informed, soul-rooted guide for changing the internal patterns that shape how you think, feel, work, and live. Drawing on neuroscience, ancient healing traditions, and lived expertise leading people and organizations through transformational changes, Amber offers a modern doorway into timeless wisdom. She is a life and business coach, author, certified hypnotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher, and a former corporate executive. Amber founded Spirit Stone Wellness to help people navigate change without stress and find joy, purpose, and energy in all areas of work and life. She is the creator of The PATH of Well-Being, a framework now used in coaching programs, online courses, immersive retreats, and Debug Yourself. Links Visit Amber's Website: https://spiritstonewellness.com/ Get Debug Yourself: https://bit.ly/debugyourselfbook Book a call with Amber: https://call.spiritstonewellness.com/scheduling Connect with Amber: https://spiritstonewellness.com/link-in-bio Connect with Jacqueline Fisch: Get Meet Your Book: The guided audio & workbook Work privately with Jacqueline The Studio Substack: Energy-First Writing Read The Billet Season LinkedIn Instagram

Joyce De Bakker has reinvented herself more times than she can count — international moves, relationship endings, a corporate career that looked successful but felt like someone else's life. In 2026, she stopped watching others succeed from the sidelines. She launched her coaching and mentoring business and gave herself a 30-day challenge: write and publish on Substack every single day — no topic list, no strategy, and no perfect plan. In this conversation, we talk about what actually happened during those 30 days — the article that took four hours (and how she kept going!), the deeply vulnerable piece that brought her the most DMs, and the moment she realized she had more to say than she ever thought possible. Joyce also opens up about growing up in a cult, learning to read as an act of rebellion, and how writing "like the Queen" — proper, performed, safe — kept her from hitting publish for years. She shares a couple of simple practices that changed everything: five minutes of breathing before writing, and the discipline of collapsing the time between finishing a piece and putting it out into the world before the inner critic could catch up. In this episode: Growing up in a cult, and what it meant to read outside its teachings Why her writing always came out sounding like "the Queen trying to write" — and what changed The friend, the deadline, and the fear of being left behind that sparked the 30-day challenge What almost made her quit the writing challenge Why she also challenged herself on Instagram video The five-minute breathing ritual before writing, and why it worked What daily writing surfaced about patterns she's still unlearning Finding — and losing, and refinding — her voice after starting a business Her advice for the woman who's mid-restart and doesn't trust herself to finish Meet Joyce De Bakker Joyce has likely reinvented herself more than Madonna. International relocations, relationship breakdowns, walking the path less travelled — change has been the red thread running through her life. She recently reached the end of the road in a successful corporate career, no longer recognising the woman looking back at her in the mirror. For years, fear held her back from starting a coaching business, even while she was unofficially doing the work anyway, working with many women transforming their lives through new careers, business start-ups, and gathering themselves after breakups and divorce. This year, she finally staked her claim and said no more. She started writing, launched her official coaching and mentoring business, and chose what matters most. Links: Read Joyce's writing on Substack Visit Joyce's website Read the article on the 5-minute landing practice before writing. Connect with Jacqueline Fisch: Work privately with Jacqueline The Studio Substack: Energy-First Writing LinkedIn Instagram

Jennifer Ciaramello is the author of Quiet Boil and founder of Quiet Boil Project, a faith-based ministry for women learning to notice the slow-building heat in their lives and step out of it. She's also a licensed aesthetician with 26 years in the beauty industry. In this episode, Jennifer shares how her book began as a box of handwritten notes. She also shares how that box sat untouched for fifteen years before COVID boredom brought her back to it. We talk about the difference between writing to process and writing to publish, why the ending was harder to write than the trauma itself, and the new moon ritual she used to release the manuscript once it was done. This was a first! In this episode: Why the box became her earliest writing tool, and how this process can work for your own memories The difference between writing from the wound and writing from the scar Why the hardest chapter to write was the one she tried to force What it meant to burn her own book — and why she's done the same ritual with other physical reminders of her past Letting go of control over how (and whether) a book performs Her next three projects — these are so fun! Connect with Jennifer: The book links below are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Quiet Boil Project Jennifer's Book: Quiet Boil: Simmering in the Pot: A True Story of Sin, Survival, and Salvation Jennifer M. Ciaramello is a licensed esthetician, entrepreneur, singer, writer, photographer, and follower of Christ who lives in Florida with her husband, Sway. For twenty-seven years, she has helped women care for their outward beauty through her business, Skin Chic, LLC. In her memoir Quiet Boil, she shares a much deeper story: a journey through trauma, abuse, abandonment, addiction, and loss to redemption and God's faithfulness. Through the Quiet Boil Project, Jennifer writes, speaks, and prays with women trapped in unhealthy or abusive situations, encouraging them to recognize their worth, find their voice, and take steps toward safety, healing, and restoration. Connect with Jacqueline Fisch: Work privately with Jacqueline The Studio Substack: Energy-First Writing LinkedIn Instagram

When Cara Chace was a teenager sitting in a Denny's with her dad, she told him, "I want to be a writer." He shot it down before she could finish her Grand Slam. How on earth would she make a living doing that? It took her 30 years to come back around. Today, she calls herself a writer. In between, Cara became a federal special agent, then the social media manager for Megadeth, and then founded a digital marketing agency. She knows how to do social media well — except it made her sick. After three years of healing, she took a two-week break over the holidays in 2025 and felt better than she had in years. The day she switched back into content calendars and platform strategy, however, her body reacted to everything she ate. That was the spark for her book The Social Media Burnout Cure, out now. In this conversation, we talk about what happens when you catch yourself composing a caption in your brain in the middle of a moment where real life is happening. Cara's answer to what to do with "caption brain" is so simple it gave me goosebumps: don't post it. Put it in a Google Doc. And that's exactly how she wrote her book — in just three months. The best parts? She did it without burning out and says that the process was the easiest thing she's ever done. You'll hear how she mined 10 years of her own blogs and talks for material she didn't know she'd already written, why she works from a "morning menu" instead of a word count or to-do list, and why she fired her first cover designer even with a deadline looming. Plus — her favorite Megadeth song and what's in her mug when she writes. You know, all the things we writers want to know. If you've ever said "If it weren't for my business, I'd never be on social media again," this one's for you. What you'll discover: Thinking in captions? Write it down instead. Every time a gold nugget bubbled up, Cara put it in a messy working Google Doc instead of an Instagram reel or story. Mine your own archive. A decade of blogs, talks, and course scripts delivered more of her book content than she expected. She'd been circling this theme for years. Try a morning menu, not a checklist. Cara rebels against her own routines, so she lets each morning decide for itself based on her season, her cycle, and what feels right that day. The hard part isn't always the writing. For Cara, the messy middle was organizing everything. And the moment she thought she was done, she realized she had half a book. A moment so many authors can relate to. Trust your gut, even with a deadline. She knew right away her first cover designer wasn't a fit. This time, she didn't let sunk cost make the call. Writing how you speak takes repetition. Readers tell Cara they can hear her voice on the page. That came from 10 years of blogging, emails, and scripting. Signposts, not stages. You don't have to delete your social media profiles. Set them up to point people to where you actually show up — your email list, your podcast — and post when you have something to say. The Instagram experiment. Cara stopped posting to her feed in January. By March, her website traffic from Instagram hadn't dropped — and her engagement went up. Meet Cara Cara Chace is an author and burnout coach helping women entrepreneurs build sustainable, anti-hustle businesses without trashing their nervous systems. She built what she wishes she'd had when she burned out — when the planners, the productivity hacks, and the color-coded calendars left her more exhausted, more behind, and more resentful than when she started. Through Chaos Detox, her signature course, and her forthcoming book on social media burnout, Cara teaches women how to stop white-knuckling their way through the week and start building a business that fits the life they're actually living. She's the host of the Ditch the Chaos podcast, a 10-year entrepreneur, and a former Special Agent. She lives in Idaho with her family and runs her business with margin, intention, and a deep aversion to hustle culture. Connect with Cara: Get The Social Media Burnout Cure Listen to the Ditch the Chaos podcast Connect with Jacqueline Fisch: Hire Jacqueline for private Intuitive Writing Mentoring The Intuitive Writing Studio Substack: Energy-First Writing LinkedIn Instagram Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome And Cara Chace Intro 01:32 Authors And Social Media 02:35 Early Writing Roots 03:47 Denny's Dream Detour 05:58 Becoming A Writer Again 08:02 From Anthropology To Special Agent 09:57 Burnout And Career Pivot 13:23 Agency Life And Health Crash 17:34 Marketing Mode Trigger 21:20 Social Media Colonized Brain 22:39 Spark And Writing The Book 24:46 Capture Ideas In Google Docs 26:25 Escape the Algorithm Trap 26:41 Reclaim Stillness and Autonomy 28:32 How the Book Began 29:48 Messy Middle and Structure 31:24 Writing Without Routines 33:50 Trusting Intuition in Publishing 35:36 Why the Draft Came Quickly 37:58 Metalhead Detour and Focus 39:36 Writing Soundtrack and Coffee 41:44 Signposts Not Stages Strategy 43:47 Instagram Experiment and Wrap Up

It's my birthday, so I'm doing something a little different. There's no guest today, just me, some gifted Tom Ford Lost Cherry perfume I just spritzed on, me, my mic, and a mascara-free, honest catch-up. You'll hear how I'm spending the day, what this year actually felt like, and the decisions I've made that I'm sharing out loud with you today. You're hearing them here first. I walked away from some things with no regrets, and even though I'm nervous, I'm saying yes to some others. And much of it is thanks to a single book that I haven't even finished yet. You'll also hear about how I started books five and six, but book seven was actually next. And I'm not writing it for my business. I'm following God's lead. Which doesn't fit neatly into any kind of book marketing funnel. If you're a woman writing something that lights you up, this one's for you. Takeaways: Choosing a path on purpose means naming what you're letting go of, not only what you're adding. Some books don't fit the funnel. Write them anyway. Walking away from work you're good at can be the right move. You can teach writing and still be a student of it. A milestone is a good excuse to ask what you thought you were walking toward and what showed up instead. Say the risky thing out loud. It's usually the thing someone else needed to hear. A question for you: What are you writing, or avoiding writing, right now? Send me a message at hi [at] jacquelinefisch.com. I read every one (except if you write the whole thing with Claude … I talk about that too). Links from this episode: Some of these are affiliate links. If you click one and make a purchase, I might earn a commission. The Threshold Session — live Friday, Sept 25 The Living Draft — now enrolling until spots are filled. Starts Oct. 9. Writing with the Moon, May 2026 The Studio The Billet Year Book Outwitting the Devil: The Secrets to Freedom and Success (Official Publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation) Connect with Jacqueline Fisch: Hire Jacqueline for private Intuitive Writing Mentoring The Intuitive Writing Studio Substack: Energy-First Writing LinkedIn Instagram Timestamps: 00:00 Birthday Intro and Astrology 01:16 How I'm Celebrating Today 02:54 Year in Review Milestones 03:38 Studio Evolution and Curriculum 06:19 Writing Books in Public 07:29 The Billet Season Story 10:35 Teaching Wins and Networking Lessons 13:12 In-Person Connection in the AI Age 16:24 Birthday Wishes and a Life-Changing Book 19:44 Free Threshold Session and Living Draft 25:15 Wrap-Up and Stay in Touch