Creative Clarity: Focus, Self-Care, And A Little Bit Of Tough Love
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Joanna Penn
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2024
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How can you create when there's an overwhelming list of things to do and too many competing priorities? How can you balance self-care with achieving your creative goals.
In this episode, 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 list.
In the intro, Author branding [Self-Publishing Advice Podcast]; Example prompts if you want to explore your author brand; Google Gemini Advanced with Deep Research; How to Write Non-Fiction Second Edition; Tips for writing non-fiction, I'm on The Biz Book Broadcast with Liz Scully; Q&A on how to write non-fiction [Apex Author]; 7 Steps to Write Your Non-Fiction Book in 2025 — me on Reedsy Live, 15 Jan.
This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com
This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Show Notes
* (1) Tackle overwhelm by focusing on your ‘circle of influence' — with Mark McGuinness
* (2) Be kinder to yourself — with Ellen Bard
* (3) Sort out your sleep — with Dr Anne D. Bartolucci
* (4) Protect your private creative practice — with Austin Kleon
* (5) Overcome Resistance and adopt the attitude of a professional — with Steve Pressfield
* (6) Make the most of the limited time you have — with Todd Henry
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 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,
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, |
| 0:08.0 | bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing craft and creative business. |
| 0:14.6 | You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint, and lots more at the creative pen.com. And that's |
| 0:22.9 | Penn with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives, I'm Joanna Penn. And this is |
| 0:29.8 | episode number 786 of the podcast, and it is Saturday the 21st of December, 24 as I record this. In today's show, I'll share some |
| 0:41.0 | tips from previous podcast guests to help you step back, reassess your priorities and hopefully |
| 0:47.4 | help you let go of at least some of the things on your to-do list. We'll balance self-care with |
| 0:53.3 | some tough love so you can give yourself a hug |
| 0:55.9 | and then rev yourself up again by the end of the show. There are tips from Stephen Pressfield, |
| 1:01.6 | Austin Cleon, Ellen Bard and more. So that's coming up in the main section. |
| 1:10.8 | 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 DeWord discuss what branding is and how to make it cohesive across your entire ecosystem from your |
| 1:30.1 | website and your books and your social media and how you have to take control of your author brand |
| 1:35.4 | because even though you might think you don't have one your brand exists as soon as you publish |
| 1:41.1 | anything the low-hanging fruit of branding includes claiming and updating your |
| 1:46.9 | profiles on things like Goodreads and Bookbub and Amazon and your main website, obviously, for your |
| 1:53.3 | author name and what you include there. Picking one social media platform and making sure you're active around your author name and brand |
| 2:03.2 | is a good idea you don't have to do it all which is i think is even more important in this age |
| 2:09.1 | of splintering social media you can also invest in in-person interaction if you prefer so there's |
| 2:15.1 | some good tips around book marketing, but it got me thinking about |
| 2:19.1 | my author brands. And so this is why I've brought it up because I feel like author brand is something |
| 2:24.7 | that is worth thinking about as we go into 2025. And it's important because we want people to have |
| 2:32.1 | some idea in mind when they think of us. |
... |
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