Behind the Scenes. 12 Intimate Questions with Bestselling Author Emily Bauman
Book Title: Born to Write: Turn Your Wisdom Into a Bestseller in 90 Days
Author Name: Emily Bauman
QUESTION 1
What was the moment you knew you HAD to write this book?
QUESTION 2
If your book were a conversation with one person who desperately needed to hear it, who would that person be and what would you want them to walk away feeling?QUESTION 3
What's one story, lesson, or revelation in No Longer Her(e) that you were scared to share—and why did you share it anyway?QUESTION 4
Take us back to your writing process. Where did you write? What time of day? What rituals or conditions helped you access your deepest truth?QUESTION 5 Was there a moment (or two) during the writing process where you hit a wall or wanted to quit? What got you through it?QUESTION 6
Who or what were your greatest teachers while writing Born to Write?QUESTION 7
If readers take away only ONE thing from your book, what do you hope it is?
QUESTION 8 What surprised you most about yourself through the process of writing and publishing No Longer Her(e)?QUESTION 9
How has writing No Longer Her(e) changed you? Who were you when you started versus who you are now?
QUESTION 10
What's a question you wish someone would ask you about this book, but nobody has yet?
QUESTION 11
Beyond the book itself, what transformation or impact do you hope your work creates in the world?
QUESTION 12
What wisdom would you share with someone who has a book inside them but hasn't started writing yet?
The moment I knew I had to write Born to Write was the moment my son was placed in my arms and something ancient and electric lit up inside me that had nothing to do with logic or readiness. I was physically exhausted, tender, literally cracked open, and for the first time in my life…completely out of excuses. I could feel very clearly that if I did not finally do the one thing that had scared me my entire life, claiming myself publicly as an author and putting my own methods to the test, something in me would calcify for good. I had tried on so many lives by then, good lives, impressive lives as a diplomat, entrepreneur, fashion designer, United Nations communications lead, but they were all hovering around my edges of soul-essence. Holding my son, I understood that he did not need a mother who played the game of life well but avoided her true reason for coming here. He deserved a mother who trusted her Genius and moved from it without apology.
I also felt a very practical urgency. At age 37, I had already been teaching writers for years, helping them become bestselling authors, dissolving resistance, building marketing platforms, and yet I had not fully crossed that threshold myself in the boldest way possible. Writing and publishing my first book felt like stepping into integrity at the highest level. So all that to say, in order to step into my greatest service to others and inhabit my Genius, it was no longer optional. And I’ll say..what a relief when Born to Write hit bestseller status on Amazon! Pure euphoria.
This book is a conversation with the person who secretly knows they are meant to write but keeps finding very convincing reasons not to start. The one who has journals full of notes, half written Google Docs, voice memos recorded on walks, and a deep ache every time they see someone else publish a book and think, that should have been me. They are smart, soulful, capable, and often wildly accomplished in other areas of life, yet this one dream sits untouched because it feels too vulnerable, too exposing, or simply too big to figure out on their own.
If I could sit across from them with a cup of tea, I would want them to walk away feeling relief first. Relief that they are not broken, lazy, or behind. Relief that resistance is not a personal flaw but a predictable part of the creative path. I would want them to understand that writing a book is not just a craft problem, it is an inner world initiation, and both matter equally. That is why I created a proven system that addresses the inner path and the outer path of authorship. We work with mindset, fear, and identity just as much as structure, strategy, and publishing mechanics.
Most of all, I want them to feel emboldened and supported. Not alone at the edge of something scary, but walking alongside others who are doing it too, where growth can be meaningful, communal, and even fun, especially in the moments that feel tender or brave.
One revelation in my book I was terrified to write, let alone publish, was the truth that for many years I was helping other people become authors while secretly postponing my own full initiation into authorship. On the surface, I was successful. I had credentials, experience, published work, and a strong platform. But underneath that, there was a quiet split. Part of me knew I was living just shy of my true edge, staying in what felt respectable, competent, and service oriented, while avoiding the vulnerability of fully staking my name and nervous system on my own method in the public eye.
I was scared to share this because it dismantles the myth of the perfectly confident guide. It exposes that even teachers, mentors, and leaders wrestle with resistance, fear, and timing. I worried it might undermine my authority. What if people thought, who is she to teach this if she waited so long herself?
I shared it anyway because integrity matters more than polish. The moment I wrote that truth, the book deepened. It became honest instead of impressive. I wanted readers to see that resistance does not disqualify you. It initiates you. And that becoming an author is not about being fearless, but about telling the truth at the exact moment you are finally ready to stop hiding from it.
I wrote Born to Write almost entirely in the liminal in between spaces of early motherhood. There was no pristine desk, no aesthetic morning routine, no carefully protected writing block. I wrote one handed on my laptop while my newborn slept on my chest, at all hours of the day and night, often in low light, half awake, deeply open. Sometimes I typed. Sometimes I spoke chapters aloud into a transcription app because my body was too tired to keep my eyes open but my mind was on fire.
What helped me access my deepest truth was surrendering the idea that writing had to look a certain way to be valid. I stopped waiting to feel ready, polished, or uninterrupted. The ritual became presence instead of perfection. I trusted that the altered state of new motherhood was not an obstacle but a portal. My nervous system was raw, my heart was wide open, and I had no tolerance for bullshit, including my own.
The condition that mattered most was honesty. I did not edit as I went. I let the words come out alive and imperfect. I treated the process as a rhythmic devotion rather than a discipline. That trust made the book arrive quickly, coherently, and with a pulse that could not have been accessed any other way.
There were definitely moments where I hit a wall, but they did not look like dramatic breakdowns or throwing the laptop across the room. They were quieter and more insidious, even sneaky like those inner gremlins know how to be. Moments where a voice whispered that this was irresponsible, that new motherhood was not the time to attempt something this ambitious, that I should slow down, wait, be practical and just bask in pure presence with my little babe, or save this dream for later when life felt more stable. The wall was not exhaustion, though exhaustion was certainly present, I think it was self doubt dressed up as reason.
What got me through was remembering that waiting had already cost me years. I had lived inside “later” long enough to know it was a seductive lie. Holding my son, I could feel very clearly that postponing my creative truth would teach him the wrong lesson. I did not want to model a life where genius is deferred indefinitely in the name of safety.
I also leaned heavily on my own BOSS writing and publishing system. I did not try to push through resistance by force. I worked with it and recognized each and every gremlin and shadow for what it was. I kept the steps small, the rhythm consistent, and the inner dialogue compassionate. I reminded myself that finishing the book was not about proving anything. It was about staying in motion. Momentum, not motivation, carried me through, and once I crossed the halfway point, the book itself began pulling me forward.
My greatest teacher while writing Born to Write was initiation itself. New motherhood stripped me of performative identities and forced me into radical honesty. There was no room for pretending, no excess energy to posture or impress. I shared about my book writing on Instagram from that place too and could feel people responding to the primal rawness. That state taught me how to write from essence instead of effort. My son was an unspoken teacher too. His presence reminded me that creation does not ask permission or wait until conditions are perfect. Life arrives, and voila, you respond!
Spiritually, my practices around meditation, somatic awareness, and working with resistance as an intelligent signal rather than an enemy shaped everything. I listened to fear instead of fighting it, and it showed me where the work wanted to go deeper.
If readers take away only one thing from Born to Write, I hope it is the deep, embodied knowing that they are not broken for struggling to start or finish a book. Nothing is wrong with them. Resistance is not a flaw in their character or a lack of discipline. It is a threshold. Writing a book stretches identity, visibility, and self trust, and the nervous system reacts to that stretch every single time.
I want readers to understand that becoming an author is not about talent alone, and it is not about grinding harder or forcing productivity. It is about learning how to work with your inner world as skillfully as you work with structure, craft, and strategy. When you do that, the process becomes humane, sustainable, and even enjoyable.
Most of all, I want them to leave with permission. Permission to take their voice seriously. Permission to move before they feel ready. Permission to treat their book not as a side project but as a living transmission of their wisdom and lived experience. If they close the book believing that their story matters and that there is a clear, doable path to bring it into the world, then the book has done its job for the author’s evolution!
What surprised me most was how natural the process felt once I stopped trying to make it impressive. I had spent years imagining that writing and publishing a book would require a very specific version of me, more organized, more disciplined, more polished, more resourced. Instead, the book arrived through me in one of the most raw and unstructured seasons of my life. That surprised me deeply.
Also, I was surprised by how much someone’s identity shifts through completion and by officially becoming a book author. There’s nothing like it. I had always thought confidence came before action. What I learned in a whole new way is that confidence is a byproduct of follow through. Something quiet but irreversible changed inside me as a woman and as a creative once the book was finished and out in the world. I celebrated so much because I had trusted my voice (that it mattered!) and I had honoured it all the way to the end. If you think you trust your voice and self-worth, I dare you to hit “Publish” on Amazon, and release a deeply personal story to the world. What a litmus test!
When I started writing Born to Write, I was still standing on the edge of my own authority like someone waiting to jump off a cliff into deliciously fresh water below; still holding parts of myself back out of habit more than fear. I knew my work as a writing coach was effective. I had helped countless others write and publish powerful books. But there was a subtle line I had not fully crossed yet, the line where you stop teaching from experience alone and start teaching from embodied proof. Writing this book was me stepping over that line.
I began the process as a woman freshly initiated into motherhood, cracked open, deeply intuitive, and aware that life was asking more honesty from me than ever before. It was deeply uncomfortable but satisfying too, and I finished it as someone who no longer questioned whether writing was my zone of genius or whether I was allowed to build a world around it. The doubt did not vanish, but it lost its authority for sure.
I wish someone would ask me whether writing Born to Write was more about building a business or becoming myself more fully. The answer is that the business growth was a side effect, not the point. The real transformation was learning how to stay with my own voice long enough for it to change me, and everything that grew from the book, like our BOSS Books Writer’s Collective and boutique publishing house, followed naturally from that.
My deepest hope is that in the next three to five years at least one thousand authors use the framework in Born to Write to bring their soul’s wisdom into physical form through books that actually reach people. I want those books on my office bookshelf (groaning under the weight!) and out in the world doing quiet, steady work, changing conversations, healing blind spots, and offering guidance where it is genuinely needed.
I imagine a future where there is a whole lineage of authors who did not write from ego or trend chasing, but from lived experience, devotion to the collective, and artfully-honed craft. Writers who understand that the inner work and the outer work belong together, and that integrity is as important as marketing, and books written from the heart LAND in others’ hearts. If my work helps make that possible, then it has done exactly what it came here to do!
I would say, hey friend, you do not need more clarity, confidence, professional accolades, followers or time in the day to begin. You just need to make a sacred choice and honor it with forward movement. Writing a book is not something you figure out in your head first and then execute perfectly, it is something that reveals itself through action!
So please give yourself permission to start before you feel ready to declare yourself “an author” and let the process of the book writing journey shape you. Get support, follow a system - ideally one that has a strategy for both your inner and outer processes, and please stop trying to do it alone. Ultimately your book is not asking for perfection, and you aren’t writing it for the benefit of your peers (they probably aren’t the ones who need to hear your message most, right?) Your book is asking for presence, for daily connection to it and follow through, and that is something you can offer starting today.
Born to Write
Transform Your Wisdom into a Bestseller in 90 Days
by Emily D. Bauman
