Two Pen Names, One Hard Truth

About this video

At the Author Nation conference in Vegas this past November, Dale interviews Katie, an author of about 5 years who writes under two pen names — introduced as CJR Eley and CL West — covering low fantasy for young adults and contemporary romance respectively. Katie says writing has always been her escape when overwhelmed, and she wrote the full young adult series between the ages of 12 and 17 before letting it sit. She learned most things faster by doing than by studying, and her one regret is diving straight in: she self-published about a month after discovering self-publishing without realizing how many helpful resources existed, which she calls a terrible idea. Her habit is making herself write even on days she does not want to, guided by the best advice she acted on: you can edit really terrible writing, but you cannot edit a blank page. She says authors overthink their rough draft most — get it on paper and fix it later. The worst advice she received was to kill all her Amazon ads. Her biggest fear is the pitfalls after doing well, and her greatest excitement is doing well again. She relies on the tool Story Origin, engages with her readers more when motivation drops, describes her style with the single word ‘pantser,’ and resets creativity by going to read something. The journey has taught her she can be resilient even on days it does not feel like it; she wants readers to feel a little homesick when they close her books. The action that moved her progress most was ignoring people who told her her niche genre would not make it, and the belief she proved by acting is that her niche genre could make profit pretty well.

Key takeaways

• Katie writes under two pen names for two genres — low fantasy for young adults and contemporary romance — and has been publishing for about 5 years
• Her core writing advice: you can edit terrible writing but not a blank page, so make yourself write even on days you do not want to
• She regrets self-publishing about a month after discovering it without first finding the many resources available, calling it a terrible idea
• Authors overthink the rough draft most, she says; get it on paper and fix it later, and reset creativity by reading something
• Ignoring people who said her niche genre would not make it was her biggest progress driver, and she proved that niche could profit pretty well

Episode details: published January 12, 2026 · 3:05 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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