Creative Clarity: Focus, Self-Care, And A Little Bit Of Tough Love

Summary

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Episode: Creative Clarity: Focus, Self-Care, And A Little Bit Of Tough Love
Host: Joanna Penn
Release Date: December 23, 2024

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Joanna Penn delves deep into the essential elements that foster creative clarity for writers in her episode titled Creative Clarity: Focus, Self-Care, And A Little Bit Of Tough Love. This comprehensive discussion intertwines insights from renowned guests with practical strategies to help authors navigate the often tumultuous landscape of writing and publishing. The episode is meticulously structured around six pivotal themes, each aimed at enhancing both the creative process and personal well-being.

1. Focus on Your Circle of Influence

Joanna begins by addressing the overwhelming nature of modern life for writers, juggling multiple responsibilities alongside the constant flux of political, technological, and economic changes. She references a previous discussion with poet and creative coach Mark McGinnis, who emphasizes the importance of focusing on one’s circle of influence to regain control and reduce anxiety.

Mark McGinnis [18:18]: "Covey encourages us to focus on the small circle of influence and ask, okay, what is in my small circle right now? What can I actually do that's going to make a positive difference?"

Mark elaborates on Stephen Covey's concept from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, illustrating a "fried egg" model where the smaller inner circle represents what one can directly control, and the larger outer circle encompasses broader concerns. By concentrating efforts on the inner circle—such as personal well-being, immediate work tasks, and close relationships—writers can feel more empowered and less overwhelmed.

Key Takeaway: Identify and prioritize actions within your immediate control to enhance productivity and maintain mental clarity.

2. Be Kinder to Yourself

Transitioning to self-care, Joanna shares insights from her conversation with author and consultant Ellen Bard. The discussion highlights the delicate balance between self-care and productivity, particularly relevant for indie authors who often juggle multiple roles.

Ellen Bard [21:56]: "Recognizing that the self-critic is not the reality, that's just a voice in your head... trying to reframe that critic as a best friend is a really great tip."

Ellen underscores the importance of addressing both physical and emotional well-being. She advises writers to maintain healthy habits such as adequate sleep, balanced nutrition, and mindful consumption of caffeine and sugar. More critically, she addresses the pervasive issue of the internal self-critic, encouraging authors to reframe negative self-talk by treating themselves with the same kindness they'd offer a friend. Additionally, Ellen advocates for "artist dates"—dedicated time for creative self-renewal—to keep the creative well filled and prevent burnout.

Key Takeaway: Cultivate a compassionate inner dialogue and prioritize regular self-care practices to sustain long-term creativity.

3. Sort Out Your Sleep

Sleep emerges as a fundamental component of creative health in Joanna’s discussion with Dr. Anne D. Bartolucci. Addressing insomnia and sleep deprivation, Dr. Bartolucci explains the critical role sleep plays in cognitive function and emotional regulation.

Anne D. Bartolucci [28:02]: "Giving ourselves at least an hour of no screen is essential because screens have that blue light that is activating to our brain... establish a routine to simplify the process of falling asleep."

Dr. Bartolucci highlights the detrimental effects of inadequate sleep, including impaired focus, increased anxiety, and reduced creative capacity. She offers practical advice on establishing healthy sleep habits, such as maintaining consistent wake-up times, limiting screen exposure before bedtime, and creating a calming pre-sleep routine. Emphasizing the importance of addressing sleep issues holistically, she advises against reliance on sleep medications and promotes natural methods for improving sleep quality.

Key Takeaway: Implement consistent sleep routines and minimize screen time before bed to enhance mental clarity and creative output.

4. Protect Your Private Creative Practice

In an age dominated by social media and constant connectivity, Joanna emphasizes the necessity of maintaining a private creative space. Drawing from her interview with Austin Kleon, she explores the tension between sharing work and preserving creative sanctity.

Austin Kleon [34:03]: "Having a private space where you can go and sort of be as weird as you want to be is crucial for exploring your deeper creative impulses."

Austin Kleon discusses the erosion of private creative zones due to the pervasive "share everything" culture. He advocates for the intentional creation of private spaces—be it a physical room, a private journal, or a secluded writing nook—where writers can freely explore and experiment without the pressure of immediate public scrutiny. Kleon underscores the importance of distinguishing between sharing work that is ready and allowing oneself the freedom to develop ideas privately before making them public.

Key Takeaway: Establish dedicated private spaces for creative exploration to nurture original ideas without external pressures.

5. Overcome Resistance and Adopt the Attitude of a Professional

Joanna introduces tough love into the conversation by referencing Steven Pressfield’s concept of Resistance, a central theme in his works The War of Art and Turning Pro. She underscores the necessity of adopting a professional mindset to combat the internal barriers that hinder creative progress.

Steven Pressfield [38:31]: "The writing is the easy part. The hard part is sitting down and actually starting to hit the keys."

Steven Pressfield elaborates on the idea that Resistance is an internal force manifesting as self-sabotage, procrastination, and fear. He likens the transition from amateur to professional to the discipline seen in athletes, who show up and perform despite physical discomfort. Pressfield emphasizes that professionalism in writing involves showing up consistently, regardless of mood or circumstances, and treating creative work with the same dedication as any other profession.

Key Takeaway: Embrace a disciplined, professional approach to writing to effectively overcome internal obstacles and sustain creative momentum.

6. Make the Most of the Limited Time You Have

Closing the episode, Joanna reflects on the philosophy of Memento Mori, the reminder of mortality to inspire meaningful action. She shares insights from her interview with Todd Henry, who advocates for intentional use of time to prevent the regret of unfulfilled creative potential.

Todd Henry [43:25]: "Die empty means you want to know at the end of your life, when you reach that bookend of your life, I can die empty of regret about where I put my focus, my assets, my time and my energy."

Todd Henry discusses the finite nature of time and resources, urging writers to proactively engage in their creative endeavors to avoid leaving valuable work unrealized. He introduces the concept of "die empty," encouraging authors to exhaust their creative potential regularly to build a body of work they can be proud of. Henry emphasizes strategic time management and intentional focus on meaningful projects to ensure that one’s creative legacy is fully realized.

Key Takeaway: Prioritize meaningful creative activities and manage time effectively to leave a lasting, regret-free legacy.

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Conclusion

Joanna Penn’s episode on Creative Clarity serves as a vital guide for writers seeking to harmonize focus, self-care, and disciplined work ethics. By integrating expert insights and practical advice, she provides a roadmap for authors to enhance their creative processes, maintain personal well-being, and achieve sustained productivity. The episode not only addresses the common challenges faced by writers but also empowers them with strategies to overcome these obstacles, fostering a balanced and fulfilling creative life.

Final Reflections: Joanna encourages listeners to reflect on their personal practices and consider incorporating the discussed strategies into their routines for the upcoming year. She hints at future content exploring her extensive podcast archive, leveraging AI tools to unearth hidden gems of wisdom, further supporting writers in their creative journeys.

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Notable Resources Mentioned:

• Claude 3.5 Sonnet: AI tool used for brand assessment.
• Google Gemini Advanced with Deep Research: Recommended AI for research purposes.
• Books & Authors:
  • The War of Art and Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield
  • Keep Going by Austin Kleon
  • Die Empty by Todd Henry
  • 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• Websites & Contact Information:
  • The Creative Penn
  • Mark McGinnis: podcasts and poetry
  • Ellen Bard: [e-mail]
  • Austin Kleon: [e-mail]
  • Steven Pressfield: stevenpressfield.com
  • Todd Henry: toddhenry.com

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Engage with Joanna Penn: Listeners are invited to connect via the show's website, social media platforms, or through her Patreon community for deeper engagement and access to exclusive content.

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Timestamp Highlights:

• Mark McGinnis on Circle of Influence [18:18]
• Ellen Bard on Self-Care vs. Productivity [21:56]
• Anne D. Bartolucci on Sleep [28:02]
• Austin Kleon on Private Creative Spaces [34:03]
• Steven Pressfield on Resistance [38:31]
• Todd Henry on Making the Most of Time [43:25]

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This episode is a treasure trove for writers striving to achieve creative clarity amidst the myriad demands of modern life, offering actionable insights and inspirational guidance to foster both personal well-being and professional success.

Transcript

[Joanna Penn]

Welcome to the Creative Penn Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots [e-mail] and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show Hello Creatives, I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 786 of the podcast and it is Saturday 21st December 2024. As I record this in today's show, I'll share some tips from previous podcast guests to help you step back, reassess your priorities and hopefully help you let go of at least some of the things on your to do list will balance self care with some tough love so you can give yourself a hug and then rev yourself up again by the end of the show. There are tips from Steven Pressfield, Austin Kleon, Ellen Bard and more. So that's coming up in the main section in Writing and Publishing Things. There was an interesting author branding episode on the Self Publishing Advice podcast from the alliance of Independent Authors this week where Dale Roberts and Andrea Jo Dew discuss what branding is and how to make it cohesive across your entire ecosystem from your website and your books and your social media and how you have to take control of your author brand because even though you might think you don't have one, your brand exists as soon as you publish anything. The low hanging fruit of branding includes claiming and updating your profiles on things like Goodreads and bookbub and Amazon and your main website obviously for your author name and what you include there. Picking one social media platform and making sure you're active around your author name and brand is a good idea. You don't have to do it all, which is I think is even more important in this age of splintering social media. You can also invest in in person interaction if you prefer. So there's some good tips around book marketing, but it got me thinking about my author brands and so this is why I've brought it up because I feel like author brand is something that is worth thinking about as we go into 2025 and it's important because we want people to have some idea in mind when they think of us. Now I think my Joanna Pen brand is pretty clear. My books and this show and my website I have a clear target audience. I deliver on a specific promise. I tend to stay in my lane and really am quite specific around delivering things for authors. But my JF Penn brand is still difficult, even after 15 years of writing novels and short stories and a memoir under J.F. penn. And I've written in many genres, across many themes, many topics, and I've really just delved into things I've been fascinated with and I still struggle to encapsulate my brand. And I thought some of you might feel the same way. It's one of these things that I kind of. I've had a look at multiple times I've had a go at crafting something and then have just given up. So when this post came up, I thought I would do a check on Claude and chatgpt, because I thought this might help you as well. Now remember ChatGPT and Claude, they don't need our books. They don't need my books to do a brand assessment. They have access to my website, social media book reviews, which are publicly available on Goodreads, Amazon, all the other sites. So if you want to try this at home, my prompt was as I'm struggling to comprehend and clarify my own Author brand as J.F. penn, as a brand strategist, what can you tell me about it? Can you give me a pithy two to three lines and then an expansion? So I'm not going to go into all the details since that would take time, but I did that on both ChatGPT, the 01 model and Claude 3.5 sonnet. Here is what I liked the best, which was Claude's short answer to my brand as J.F. penn. Dark Psychological thrillers and supernatural mysteries that explore the shadows of the human psyche and ancient mysteries written by a curious traveller who finds story inspiration in forgotten places and arcane history. Now, I really like that. I like that a lot. It does repeat the word mysteries twice, but I can get it to rewrite that. It gave me a lot to think about. So I did this, as I said, on a couple of different models. And then I went deeper and said what can I do to increase awareness around my brand in 2025? Help me with a content strategy and all that kind of thing. So something for you to consider as we go forward. It certainly gave me a lot to think about, so I thought you might like to give it a try as well. Also, in AI things, there has been a continued flurry of AI releases in the last week before the hol holiday season. It looks like everyone's just been chucking out new models left, right and center. But as I mentioned last week, we don't need to know all the stuff. What we want to know is what is useful for Us. So I wanted to mention Google Gemini Advanced with deep research. I started using this just a couple of days ago and it's immediately gone onto my list as definitely use this. Super, super fun. Now firstly, I do love research. If you're someone who's not into research, I get it. My top five Clifton strengths are learner. Like I'm number one learner, so I love research. So yes, learner, intellection, strategic input and futuristic. So for me, learning and inputting and intellection thinking about these things are very interesting. So if you're not someone who has these kind of top strengths, don't worry about it. If you are someone who loves learning, if you have these endless questions and curiosity and you do book research for your own books, this might be for you. It's also the first glimpse of an agent in that you give it a much bigger. It's not a small prompt, you give it a massive prompt. You kind of treat it like a research assistant and set it off to research a whole area and it makes a plan, which is where I think it looks more like an agent. So you don't have to tell it what to do, you just tell it what you want. Then it goes and makes a plan and says are you happy with this plan? And you can edit that plan. You can essentially say no, include this, include that. Then it goes off and does the plan and it really doesn't take very long and it importantly it brings back citations. So I've already done a whole load of stuff which I've shared on my patreon, but one I'll share with you, one of my favorites. I wanted a character dossier for a prepper and if you don't know, a prepper is someone who is preparing for a coming apocalypse or a war or something. And people who go off grid or who want to go off grid and who learn how to use weapons and how to grow food and all that stuff and fight. Yes. So, and there are particular places in the USA where there are these preppers and I wanted a character like that. Now this report that it did on my prepper character, this kind of made up prepper character, I said just tell me all about the things that they would know, the skills they'd have, any catchphrases they might have, just everything about them. And it researched around 50 websites. And this is a time when I'm actually glad I didn't have to click into many of these websites myself. Because you know what happens when you click on websites and you get cookied and then you start getting ads and there are some definitely disturbing things. So that was brilliant. I also had IT do an analysis of the themes and symbolism in Thomas Hardy's work. If you're British, you probably know Thomas hardy, Tessa, the d'Urbervilles and stories like that. I'm looking at Hardy's work for a short story I am noodling about. And the deep research is just great. It is in Gemini Advanced with Deep Research. So it is paid after a month, but you can try it for free for a month. And then it's like under £20amonth. So I figured, okay, let's try this out and see what happens. And I already think it's probably going to stay on my list. So there are many things that I think we'll be able to do with a tool like this. But as I said, there's no point getting excited about things or worried about things until you actually try it out. So this will suit some of you and others of you will not find it useful at all. But for me, this definitely has a use case. So have fun playing with that if you have time over the holiday season. That's Gemini Advanced with Deep research. In personal news, I finished the narration of the audiobook of how to Write Non Fiction, the second edition. I am so pleased for those of you who have done audiobook narration. You know, it is a lot of work and it's surprisingly tiring. You'd think standing here in my audio booth just reciting my work would be easy, but no, the type of thing I do here, as in my podcast, is much more. I mean, I've got notes and I can read it. You can probably tell when I'm reading it versus whether when I go off piste as such. But with audiobook narration, obviously you're narrating a book and it's a slightly different voice you'll tell that I'm reading as opposed opposed to making it up as I go along. But yes. So the final AudioBook is around six hours, but that takes three, I would say three or four times as long in order to narrate. And of course there's lots of mouth noises that you need to get rid of. You need lots of mistakes. So even with as much experience as I have. And then of course you have to edit the files, master the files and yeah. So I am really glad it's done. I love having finished an audiobook. It's one of those tasks where I love having the final product and I love uploading it to all the places and I love having it out in the world. But the process of actually doing it, I would say is one of those tasks that I don't love. I do enjoy finishing, but I still don't want to outsource it. I do want to narrate my own books. Also, I don't want to use an AI voice. As I've said to you, when I use an AI voice, I will tell you this is still human. Joe so how to Write Non Fiction the pre orders are up on my store for the 1st of January for the ebook Audiobook Digital bundles. I've also now enabled the print books for sale because they're print on demand. Even if you buy them like today, as this goes out, you're not going to get them until the new year anyway. So I wanted to have that ready for order so you can get that [e-mail] write nonfiction two that's the number two. Write nonfiction two or just go to creativepenbooks.com so 1st of January 2025 will be my store 31st of January 2025 everywhere else. So I'm also doing a flurry of content marketing for the new book I'm on the Biz Book Broadcast with Liz Scully and that's biz spelt B I Z. The Biz Book Broadcast with Liz Scully, which is aimed at small business owners, really. And great discussions around books. I'm talking about how to write nonfiction. What a surprise. And it was a great discussion. One particular funny bit, I think, and Liz is very funny too. So we had a great chat. She's also British. She was skeptical about how you can make money with non fiction. She was kind of like, the only reason you'd write something is as a business card for a business. And I'm like, no, you can make money with non fiction too. So I decided it was my mission to change her mind. So we had a good chat. That is the Biz Book broadcast. Wherever you're listening to this. If you'd prefer to watch a video of me talking about the book, I'm [e-mail] where I did a Q and A. An hour Q and A with a live audience. We went into why I wrote a second edition and when it's worth doing as opposed to just updating an older book. The Challenges and Benefits of Writing Memoir since memoir is in this edition, since I've written a memoir since the last edition came out, we also talk about common mistakes non fiction authors make, business models, changes in the industry and more. You can find [e-mail] and finally I am doing a free live webinar hosted by Reedsy on 7 Steps to Write your Non Fiction Book in 2025 that is on the 15th of January 3pm US Eastern 8pm UK. You can register for that at thecreativepen.com Reedsy25 all the links are in the Show Notes. As ever, that's thecreativepenn.com so as ever I love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel. Message me on X at the Creative Pen, email me, send me pictures of where you're listening and your thoughts. Joannathecreativepenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation Today's show is sponsored by Publisher Rocket which helps you with keyword and category research on Amazon which you need for your metadata when self publish publishing as well as generating lists of keywords for your Amazon ads. You can do this manually on Amazon, but it takes a lot more time and you have to think of all the different permutations to search for. And I found that Publisher Rocket saves me so much time and frustration that I use it for every book in every genre that I publish, fiction and nonfiction. It makes the process easy which let's face it, is what we all need so we can get back to writing. You can use it to find keywords that readers actually type into Amazon search. You can also learn about other authors sales with the Competitor analysis which I use to find categories I want my book to appear in. Plus you can discover best selling book categories and niche categories which you can then use to write to market if that's your thing. And you can find profitable keywords for Amazon ads and easily export them. You can search separately for the us, UK and German stores for ebooks, audiobooks or print and in English or German. Publisher Rocket is constantly adding new features and capabilities and it's always a free upgrade if you own the software. The latest update is the reverse ASIN which makes finding excellent keywords incredibly simple. Enter the Books asin, the alphanumeric code that identifies the book on Amazon and Rocket will tell you all the keywords that book has ranked for. No more hunting or guessing. Instead you can quickly see what keywords actually help other similar books make sales on Amazon super useful and quick. So you can get back to writing. It is a one time payment and you get 30 days money back guarantee. You can start researching keywords, categories and competition right away you can also check out the handy tutorials. Publisher Rocket is one of my must use tools as part of my publishing process and it is very reasonably priced. Go check it [e-mail] that's publisherrocket.com this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my [e-mail] thecreativepenn thanks to the four new patrons who've joined this week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my Backlash videos and audio and articles covering creativity, writing, craft, AI, business marketing, publishing mindset, and much more. And my Q and A solo episodes and office hours. Last week I put out a Back to Basics presentation and audio on how I wrote and published how to Write Nonfiction, the second edition with all the tools I use and the sites I use, as well as my marketing plans. So while I do cover things like AI tutorials in the Patreon, I also go through the mainstream stuff. Two as in all the things we need to do as indie authors, the Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. You get access to everything, all the backlist content. So if you get value from the show and you want more in 2025, then come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePen Right, let's get into the show. Creative clarity, Focus, Self care and letting go. 1. If you're struggling, focus on your circle of influence. Life can be overwhelming with work and family commitments and health concerns even as the waves of change grow ever higher with political shifts, technological change with generative AI, financial changes, and of course, all the things we have to do as authors if we want to get our books finished and published and out into the world and reaching readers. It's easy to feel overwhelmed with everything, especially in difficult times. In April 2020, back in pandemic times, if you can remember that, I talked to poet and creative coach Mark McGinnis about how stay creative in difficult times. He reminds us of how to keep things in perspective and why focusing on your circle of influence is the way forward.

[Mark McGinnis]

There's another thing that I'm using a lot with clients and remembering to use myself is Stephen Covey's Circles of Influence and Concern. Imagine a big circle, right? And in this circle is Everything that affects you and the people that you care about in your life includes the economy, includes the weather, the environment, it includes what other people are up to, it includes, I don't know, your sports team. And of course, it includes all the stream of news and information that's coming at us. Now, we need to be aware of this because by definition, it's a circle of concern, it affects us. But now I want you to imagine inside of that there's a smaller circle. So it looks like a fried egg. And Covey points out this is in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He says the circle of influence will always be the smaller circle. In other words, there's always more stuff happening in your life that affects you than vice versa. But here's how we use it. Because the more time and attention you give to that big circle, the more anxious and disempowered and frustrated and overwhelmed you will feel. And also the smaller the inner circle gets because you're not taking action on it. Now, we need to be aware of it. But I would say definitely ration that and ration social media because there's so much anxiety coming at you from that. And beyond a certain point, you've got the information and you're just mainlining anxiety. Covey encourages us to focus on the small circle, the circle of influence, and ask, okay, what is in my small circle right now? What can I actually do that's going to make positive difference? So stuff to take care of yourself, the restorative practice, stuff to take care of your family, people you care about, stuff that will take care of your work and your business. And the idea is that the more time you spend in this circle of influence, the more empowered you feel, and in fact, the more empowered you are because you're doing stuff that makes a difference. So that small circle can get quite a bit bigger. You can have a fried egg with a really big yolk in it relative to the other one. So I would say definitely keep that image in mind. Sketch it on a post it and stick it up above your desk. And keep asking yourself, particularly when you feel overwhelmed, say, well, what is in my small circle here? If there's nothing, it's just a news item you're worrying about, then distract yourself from it, go and do something else. But ideally you want to find something, okay, I can go and do that right now. And then I will feel that I'm making the difference that I can.

[Joanna Penn]

The question for you here is, how are you getting derailed by things that are out of your control, what is in your circle of influence and how can you focus on that? Instead, you can find Mark on his podcasts the 21st Century Creative and his poetry show A Mouthful of Air, as well as in his books 2. Be kinder to yourself Back in 2016, I talked to author and consultant Ellen Bard about balancing self care and productivity, something I struggle with and I know many of you do too. Too much self care feels lazy and too much productivity can burn you out. So how do we balance it all?

[Ellen Bard]

I think that we can be very tough on ourselves as indies and you only have to look at the kind of popular books around 5000 words and which, you know, I own all those books and I love them because I love productivity stuff. But sometimes I do step back and think, whoa, just relax. It's all good. For writers in particular, I think there's a few different aspects where we can definitely be kinder to ourselves. The first one, and the most obvious one in many ways is the physical. So often as writers we see ourselves as as a brain, you know, maybe a brain with a pair of hands. If we're on a good day, do we remember that actually that brain comes in a body and there's a whole load of other stuff around the brain that needs looking after. And so the basic stuff around getting enough sleep, eating the right foods, not over caffeinating or over sugaring in your day when you've got the cookies or the biscuits down there, keeping an eye on them and balancing them out. So caffeine alone isn't going to get any of us to write more words. It should be an enjoyable thing that we enjoy and we love drinking rather than something that is a crutch to make sure we hit that word count. So the physical is the first thing, but for me it's the emotional piece for writers that is more pervasive and probably more of an issue that we don't even see. For example, this idea of the self critic. All of us have in our head a kind of constant in the background narrative that goes on. And for indies it might say, you don't do enough, you haven't done enough words. Your work is rubbish. You need to do more. Why didn't you do your marketing today? You should have been doing your twitter and doing your words and doing this and doing that, etc, etc, your plot is terrible. No one's going to read this rubbish. I imagine some of us can resonate with that. But recognizing that that self critic is not the reality, that's just a voice in your head. It doesn't mean anything. It comes from your environment or the influences around you. There's no particular tip that I can give to people is to try and reframe that voice. So all notice the voice and whether that means jotting down when you hear something that that voice says or just kind of keeping an eye on it and seeing what the themes are, just recognize that that voice exists. Then try and reframe that voice. The best way for most of us to do it is to imagine that instead of a critic, it's our best friend. Because all of us talk to our best friend in a much nicer way than we talk to ourselves. Without question. So trying to reframe that voice to say, okay, wait a minute, I've written two and a half thousand words, I'm tired, I need a break. What would my best friend say to me right now? Would she say, well those 2,000 words were rubbish, you need to do them again and do an extra? Probably she wouldn't say that. So just trying to reframe that critic as a best friend is a really great tip. Taking breaks is also really important. So one of the things that the artist Wei talks about I think is very beautiful is this idea of filling the creative well. She uses artist data. You can do that in any way, whether that's reading a book, whether that's on a walk, whether that's taking photos. We all have different ways of filling the creative well. But I think it's critical for Indies. If we don't have something inside us to draw upon, then our writing becomes much, much harder because the wells dry.

[Joanna Penn]

You can find [e-mail] and she has books on self care. Going on artists dates is a critical part of my own creative self care. In fact, just last week as I record this, I was in London and I went to the British Museum to the Silk Roads exhibition and then to Foyle's bookshop which is quite close by. Both of which make me think differently as I open my mind to different perspectives. I always love going to the British Museum exhibitions. So there were some in particular, there were some ancient manuscripts and some books in Arabic in the exhibition. And I love Arabic calligraphy. It looks so much like spells because I can't read it. And there were maps of the ancient Silk Roads and how ideas moved along them even over a thousand years ago. And that set me off thinking about new story ideas. And then there was a stone angel from Lichfield Cathedral and I remembered that I wanted to visit it. So that's back on my list for 2025, and all of that just from getting out the house for a day on an artist's date. And I take my journal and I hand write and I drink coffee and just really important. So the question for you here is, how can you look after yourself physically and emotionally? And how can you incorporate some kind of artist date into the next month or so, put it in your calendar, book the time for yourself and make sure you go. And of course, the idea of the artist date comes from Julia Cameron's the Artist's Way, a classic three. Sort out your sleep One of the biggest things that derailed my life in so many ways a few years back was difficulty sleeping and various kinds of insomnia. For me, it was hormonal and I sorted it out with HRT after about 18 months trying to figure it out. But if you're struggling, the important thing is sorting it out. If you're not sleeping well, it's going to affect everything. And it might take a while, as it did, for me, to figure out what's going on, but it's worth the effort. In January 2022, Dr. Anne D. Bartolucci came on the show to talk about improving your slee and how it impacts creativity. First of all, why do we even need sleep? And then later in the interview, Ann gave some tips for going to sleep, which might help you if this is an area where you need to get back to basics.

[Anne D. Bartolucci]

We know a lot of why we need sleep because of what happens when we don't sleep. So if you're not sleeping or if you've had a rough night, we notice that we're not as sharp the next day. We notice that it's a lot harder to communicate. Maybe it's harder to focus on things. And we're grumpy. And it's really hard to be creative when you're in this foggy, grumpy, irritable state, especially if that's your normal state, because you haven't been getting good sleep for a long time. It was interesting. I was at a convention this past weekend here in Atlanta, and I heard at least two people talk about how when they come to a thorny problem in their writing, in their manuscript, they will think about it before they go to bed. And then often when they wake up, they'll have a solution. And so we have all these interesting mental processes that happen when we sleep. Like our brain doesn't just shut off. No, it is working through the night and it's able to work in different ways. While we sleep than it does during the day. If people aren't getting enough sleep, they're more likely to develop anxiety or they're more likely to have relapses back into depression. If you think about this part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which basically helps the executive of the brain know what to pay attention to. If your frontal lobes are your executive, the prefrontal cortex are the administrative assistant sitting outside the executive office saying, okay, pay attention to this, don't pay attention to that. And when we are sleep deprived, the prefrontal cortex actually is less active. The secretary is just letting everything through, including the emotions from the more primitive part of the brain. I don't like calling it the primitive part of the brain because it's still very necessary, but let's just say the older, more mature part of the brain is letting everything through. It's a lot harder for our brain brains to sort out what's important, what should we react to, what should we not react to? Which leads to more experiences of negative emotion and with anxiety, more focusing on things that make us anxious and worried. We are behavioral creatures. Even though we have evolved, we are still very behavioral creatures. And our bodies and our minds like our routines. One big way to improve falling asleep is to give yourself adequate time and space to wind down. So think about those computers back in the 90s. Remember, they took such a long time to shut down all of their various processes that we chose a song to play while they did that. Our brains are kind of like that. So giving ourselves at least an hour of no screen, because screens have that blue light that is activating to our brain. And also a lot of the content on screens, even though we might tell ourselves is relaxing, it can be activating.

[Joanna Penn]

Especially in the pandemic like the doom scrolling. Oh, just check it, check it one more time.

[Anne D. Bartolucci]

Yes, I would have to say that's probably the biggest piece of advice that I've been giving since, oh, about, say, 2016 in this country, which is to really limit your news exposure. Otherwise, we try to make sleep as simple as possible. And so we try to not have too much extraneous things that need to happen in order for somebody to sleep. Which is also another reason why we recommend that people not use sleep medication. When you're taking something, you're giving yourself the signal that, hey, I can't sleep on my own. I would say the only hard and fast rules for sleep. If you want to know where to start with the basics, try to wake up at around the same time every day because we have these circadian rhythms, these internal clocks that tell us when to be awake, when to be asleep, when to be hungry. And if you want your body to know when it's supposed to be asleep, it needs to know when it's supposed to wake up. And so that's why they say get up at the same time every single day. It's just not just to torture you on weekends like a lot of people think. And then on the other end, don't go to bed until you're sleepy. And then, yes, cut out screens an hour before bedtime and have a routine. I would say those are the basics.

[Joanna Penn]

So the question for you here is, what can you do to sort out your sleep if it's something that's not working well right now? Anne has a book called Better Sleep for the Overachiever, and I also recommend why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. There are more specific tips around physical and mental health in the Healthy Writer, which I co wrote with Dr. Ewan Lawson, and also in the Relaxed Author, which I co wrote with Mark Leslie Lefebvre. They're on all the usual stores and you can get them in a healthy bundle along with the successful Author mindset on creativepennbooks.com 4. Protect your private creative practice I've not been using social media much lately, and especially in the winter months, I feel like going inwards more than I feel like being online. It makes me feel that perhaps I need to keep that process going over the rest of the year as well. We don't need to put everything out into the world. We don't need to share everything in order to validate that we're actually doing something. And yes, it works well for book marketing for some people, but sometimes we have to protect our own creativity and our mindset. In March 2020, I did an interview with Austin Kleon on his book Keep Going, and in this excerpt he talks about the importance of having a private creative practice.

[Austin Kleon]

I think what's really important is to have some kind of private practice. For a long time. Artists, part of the joy of making art was you could sort of shut yourself away in a room or like with a sketchbook or with your typewriter and let that kind of darkness and weirdness come out. And I think now we're in this sort of share everything culture where I think people don't feel like they can be as private. I feel like private space is disappearing in a lot of ways. Like I feel like when people make things, they're very like Oh, I should share this on Instagram right after I make it. So there's this feeling that you should share immediately after making things. And I think that in some ways, I feel a little bit. I don't know that I feel responsible for that as much as I think my second book, show youw Work, which was all about sharing your stuff before you have a perfect finished product. I think that got misinterpreted by a lot of people in that they felt like they needed to always share. And I thought the essential point of that book was you only share things that you want to share that you think are ready. I just feel like people are like, oh, I made this thing. I should share it. And they're not putting in time in between when something is created and when it's shared. And so I really think that one of the key elements for me, as far as, like, exploring my darker stuff and figuring out, like, what's bothering me, what's itching at me, is to have a private place that I can go to do work. And so that's why I keep a diary and a sketchbook. Is that a diary or a sketchbook is like, a good place to have bad ideas? It's a good place to let those sort of demons come out and to see what you're dealing with, and no one ever has to see it. I just think that our private lives are disappearing, and privacy used to be the place that we would work on some of these things. You know, just think about, where are the private spaces that you occupy? Like, where are the safe zones where you can go and sort of be as weird as you want to be? And then the question of having the courage or the whatnot to actually share the work, that's like a whole separate issue. But for me, like, having a private space, because I'm such a public person now, it's been really helpful to have private zones where I work. And I think privacy is important for everyone to have that kind of space, to let things exist.

[Joanna Penn]

The question for you here is, how can you keep a part of your creative practice for yourself in the year ahead? How can you protect that side of you that might want to experiment and won't do so if others know about it and you share everything, perhaps that means starting a new pen name or experimenting with a different genre or finally writing that memoir or taking a lot more time with a book because you don't know what the hell it is. And I have a feeling that my Gothic Cathedral book might be this for me, which, again, is a bit like my shadow book, which I talked about on and off for years as I figured out what it was and it definitely took me a long time. But what is that for you? You can find [e-mail] and I recommend his book keep 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad 5. Overcome Resistance and Adopt the Attitude of a Professional OK, enough self care and being kind to ourselves. It's time for some tough love. One of the books I return to almost every new year is Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. It helps me recommit to the creative life. It has some serious tough love in it and will get you back to the page when you're struggling. I've interviewed Steve several times over the years and he was kind enough to blurb writing the Shadow as he also references Jungian psychology in his work. In an interview from 2014 we talked about his book the Lion's Gate and also about how resistance tries to stop us creating and then how we can overcome that with an attitude of turning pro, deciding why writing is important to us, and not letting anything get in the way of our creative goals.

[Steven Pressfield]

This comes from a book of mine called the War of Art and I talk about a force that I call resistance with a capital R. Like right now as we're talking, here's my keyboard right here in front of me and when I sit down in the morning I feel like this negative force radiating off that keyboard that's trying to keep me from doing my work. And to me I consider it's all self generated. I don't think it comes from out there, but it's why we buy a treadmill and bring it home and then we never use it right? Anytime we're trying to access a higher part of ourselves, I think this shadow element enters the picture like an equal and opposite force to the force of creation. Another analogy I use is we have a tree and that's our dream, our novel or whatever creative thing. That tree casts a shadow and as soon as that tree goes up, the shadow appears. And that shadow is self sabotage, procrastination, stubbornness, arrogance, fear, fear of failure, fear of success. All of those things that we as writers know. And so to me, a big part of being a writer is learning to deal with that and everyone finds their own way to deal with it. To me, I've said this many times, the writing is the easy part. The hard part is sitting down and actually starting to hit the keys. So I'm a big believer in professionalism and being a pro and in the sense that a pro doesn't allow those negative things to stop her, she sits down and does her work. I think anytime we're trying to move from a lower level to a higher level, capital R resistance will kick in and try to keep us on that low level. When I was trying to learn to be a writer and was falling on my face over and over and over, the reason I decided finally was that I was an amateur and I had amateur habits and I thought like an amateur. And what sort of turned the corner for me was just a simple sort of turning a switch where I just kind of decided, I'm going to turn pro, I'm going to think like a pro. And a lot of times I think of athletes are great models for this. One of the things about a professional athlete is they will play hurt, right? Whereas an amateur, you sprain your ankle or something's wrong, you say, ah, well, I won't do it today. But a pro goes every day. And I think that a lot of times the model for being a pro is just what we do in our jobs, like in our day jobs. We show up every day whether we want to or not, right? We have to get a paycheck, right? And we stay on the job all day, every day. We don't go home, we don't just say, it's 10 o'clock, I'm tired of this, I'm going home. But yet, yet when we go into our works of passion, our novels, our books or whatever, we suddenly become amateurs and we think, wow, this is really hard, I'm gonna go to the beach. And we don't have that kind of hardcore professional attitude. Courage plays a lot. Takes a lot of guts to do this. Patience is also very important. To be patient with ourselves, allow ourselves to fall off the wagon sometimes. And to taking the long view is another aspect of it. Not imagining we can write our novel in a week and a half. And also I like to think of it as a lifelong practice that it's not just one book, it's not three books. This is what we're going to do for the rest of our lives. This is what we do. This is who we are.

[Joanna Penn]

The question for you here is how is resistance appearing for you? And is it time for you to adopt a pro attitude to your writing? In 2025, you can find Steve at stevenpressfield.com and he has a new ish book, the Daily 365 Days, plus a bonus week of motivation, inspiration and encouragement. And he also narrates the audiobook. If you'd like to listen to more of his voice. 6. Make the most of the limited time you have. Regular listeners will know how much I love the idea of Memento Mori. Remember, you will die, which is why I love to get the photos of cemeteries and graveyards that you all send to me. It is not morbid. It's more about focusing on making the most of the time we have because we don't really have much time at all. Back in 2014, I interviewed Todd Henry about his book Die Empty. And in this clip, he explains why it's so important to be intentional about how you spend your time.

[Todd Henry]

We all have a finite amount of time on Earth, and we all have a finite amount of resources to spend in the pursuit of whatever it is we want to do. So if we're writing books, we have a finite amount of time to get those books out of us, get them into the world, and provide value to those around. And several years ago, a friend of mine was leading a meeting and he asked this kind of out of the blue question in the meeting. He said, what do you think is the most valuable land in the world? We're all thinking, that's a weird question. I don't know. He said, well, I think the most valuable land in the world is the graveyard. It's the cemetery. Because in the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, all of the unlaunched businesses, all of the unexecuted ideas, all of the things that people carried around with them their entire life. And they thought, well, I'll get around to that tomorrow. I'll start that tomorrow. And they pushed it, and they pushed into the future until one day they reached the end of their life and all of that value was buried with them, dead in the ground, never to be seen by human eyes. That day I wrote down two words. I put them on the wall of my office. I put them in my notebook. And those two words were, die empty. Because I want to know at the end of my life, when I reach that bookend of my life, I'm not taking my best work to the grave with me. I've done everything I can on a daily basis to empty myself of whatever's in me, to provide value to people around me. If it's something I need to write, something I need to say to someone, a loop I need to close, I want to make sure I'm doing whatever I can on a daily basis to get that out of me so that when I reach the end of my life, I can die empty of regret about where I put my focus, my assets, my time and my energy that I've spent myself in the pursuit of something worthy. I've built a body of work that I can be proud of. That's really what die empty means. It's not collapse, exhausted across the finish line. It's no you want to be able to die empty of regret about where you put your most valuable resources. And unfortunately for a lot of people, Joanna, they're not as intentional as they should be about how they spend those finite resources. And they look back on their life and they realize they made decisions out of fear. They made decisions out of comfort. They made decisions that weren't really in the pursuit of something they knew was the right thing. Instead, they chose a different path and they end up regretting that deeply. And so what I wanted to do is articulate some of the ways that we can be intentional about spending our resources in the pursuit of what matters most to us.

[Joanna Penn]

You can find Todd at his site, toddhenry.com and he has a podcast, Daily Creative and a book of the same name. The final questions for you what matters most to you? How can you be intentional about how you spend your time in 2025? So I hope you found this episode interesting today and I might do more of these kinds of episodes mining the backlist of the podcast since there are so many hundreds of episodes and so much wisdom buried there. And now I can use AI tools to help me surface much more of this content, which I'm super excited about because these are things I've wanted to do, but it's been it's so intensive to do it manually but now I've got the tools. I might do more of these if you find it useful. So I love to hear your thoughts about the main content or anything I talk about in the introduction. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel channel or email me joannathecreativepenn.com send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next week I'm doing my end of year roundup, swiftly followed by my creative and business goals for 2025. I hope you have some time for reflection as this year comes to an end. Happy Christmas to you and your family or Happy Holidays, depending on what you celebrate at this time. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show [e-mail] podcast and you can get your free author [e-mail] blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X hecreative pen or on Instagram and Facebook @jfpenauthor. Happy writing and I'll see you next time.