We live in a world of distraction. Distraction is an enormous challenge for almost all of us, rearing its shiny head to peel us away from the work we care about or need to do. We recently talked about active and reactive work, but no matter our best intentions, distractions all-too-frequently take us away from accomplishing either. How do you fight distractions? Recommendations from the episode: Forest App for iOS, Android, and Google Chrome; Focus App for Mac; F.B. Purity and News Feed Eradicator, for removing or altering the newsfeed in Facebook; This one weird trick will save your attention span! article on Medium.com; Recommended reading: Deep Work - Cal Newport

2.25 - Fighting Distractions

Your weekly pep talk on living the writing life.

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Visual Arts

In a world as overwhelming as ours is, what does self-care look like? What is “escape,” and how does it compare? How do you balance self-care with remaining connected and productive?
Episode recommendation: Visit Tara Brach’s website at www.tarabrach.com for some excellent guided meditations. Her meditations are also available on the Insight Timer app.

Episode 3.14 – On Self Care

Attentive listeners may have noticed that we disappeared for three months. What happened? What do we do, as writers, when life gets in the way and we finally decide/have time to return? How do we reintegrate into our own lives? How do we catch up on everything?


Episode recommendation: 
Try John’s sticky note method, wherein you make a small list of which things you’d like to get done on a given day, and try to figure out how to align your chosen tasks/goals with 20-25 minute blocks of time, giving yourself time to rest.

Episode 3.13 – Returning after a long absence

The idea of “breaking in” has changed completely since the rise of digital publishing. In the “old world,” authors built a reputation with short fiction in monthly publications, after which point they’d have a better chance of getting agented representation and full-length book deals from publishers. The world’s different now. How are we planning to break in? Is there merit to the old ways? Have things really changed all that much? 

Episode 3.12 – Breaking In: Short Stories vs. Novels

Each of us defines success differently, and our definitions aren’t set in stone. How do we maintain our momentum while adjusting our direction mid-flight? 

Episode 3.11 – Success is a Moving Target

After a very long (unplanned) absence, Write Right is back! Keep an eye out for the next two episodes, which will be available on Friday, June 29. After that, we’ll be back to our regular weekly programming. Thanks for sticking with us.
There are many avenues to building a writing career. Fortunately, a few of them are represented in this podcast.
There are as many ways to make it as a writer as there are writers in the world, but there are a few paths to a writing career that are more thoroughly trodden than others. In this episode, the gang talks about their experiences in the various stages of career building and, as usual, meander off topic for a little while.

2.25 - Fighting Distractions

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