marriedpodcasters Archives - Carrie Jones Books

Passive Aggressive Much? And How to Become More Awesome in Just 30 Minutes a Day

Over on the random thought part of the podcast, we hear about Carrie being passive-aggressive at the campground bathroom, Shaun sing, and random people at Smokey’s Barbecue and Lobster.

But here is the more intellectual stuff. Um. Slightly more intellectual stuff?

This guy Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book Outliers and in it he outlines his belief that if you practice something for 10,000 hours and do that in a deliberate way, then you’ll become a top performer.

Who are the outliers? They are the best and the brightest.

We don’t want you to freak out over that 10,000 hours bit because that’s like saying, “Hey Shaun, I know you can’t run more than 60 seconds right now, but this Friday you’re going to run for 93 minutes.”

Spoiler alert: Shaun ran for 93-minutes straight on Friday. Carrie did too.

Anyway, this guy named Danny Forest who writes on Medium breaks it down to something that feels a bit more doable. He says that he can learn soft skills in about eight hours and breaks it into working 30 minutes each day on those skills.

That seems a lot better than 10,000 hours, right?

There’s a difference between competence and brilliance, but that half-hour concentrated focus is how so many of us build our skills. Even dogs.

So, inspired by Mr. Forest, the Farrar has three things he wants to learn:

Make movies on Adobe Premiere
Spanish
Stained glass stuff
How to be a better parent

And Carrie also made a list:

Make movies on Adobe Premiere
Make felted paintings
How to self publish
How to draw
How to write travel stories
How to be Anthony Boudrain
Spanish
How to cook in the French style, but also to make kick-butt saltanas and samosas and all things in pockets, basically.

What do you want to learn? To do?

For writing, focusing on writing or reading about writing for a half hour a day is really an essential tip to becoming a better storyteller. You see that advice everywhere and you see other people countering that advice saying to ‘ignore all advice,’ which is also actually advice.

Yes, do your own thing and do what works for you. That should be obvious. But don’t forget that you can’t become a brilliant guitar player if you’ve never picked up a guitar. You have to put in the time.

Writing Tip of the Pod

Practice what you want to be good at. Do it in small bites. You’ve got this.

Dog Tip for Life

Dogs are good at sleeping and practicing that. Be like a dog.

SHOUT OUT

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.

WRITING NEWS

IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, ORDER NOW!

My new book, IN THE WOODS, is out!

Gasp!

It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!

You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?

ART NEWS

You can buy limited-edition prints and learn more about my art here on my site.

PATREON OF AWESOME

You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).

Check it out here.

WHAT IS PATREON?

A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.

Dead Butt Syndrome

People, you have got to get your butts out of the chair, or the bed, or whatever. Seriously.

Your butt is breaking! Sorry Dying. Your butt is dying!

According to a Huffington Post article by Nicole Pajer, “Americans are sitting so long that their butts are literally falling asleep. “Dead butt syndrome,” or gluteal amnesia, is a condition that occurs when your gluteus medius gets inflamed and forgets to function normally.”

Pajer’s article, ‘Dead Butt Syndrome’ Is A Real Thing. Here’s How To Tell If You Have It” was a big deal back in 2018, but I swear, we are not listening and our bottoms and our entire bodies are paying the price.

Yes, writers, I know that you’re thinking, “Isn’t the whole point of being a writer about making up imaginary worlds, sitting all day, and putting your butt in the chair?”

Spoiler:

There are a lot of writer quotes expressly about how you have to put your ‘butt in the chair’ to get your writing done.

Tangent:

Writers, there are actual books call “BUTT IN CHAIR!”

Second tangent:

Putting your butt in the chair, doesn’t make you an awesome writer. It just means you’ve put in some time with your bottom in a chair, typing. Writing is about craft, understanding humans, understanding language, and story.

Back to Butts

An article by Anthea Levi, entitled “Dead Butt Syndrome Is One More Reason You Shouldn’t Sit All Day” stresses that sitting all day isn’t good for anyone’s butt, not even a writer’s.

Sitting all day is not good for your bottom.

She quote says chiropractor Andrew Bang, who works at Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute.

Dead butt syndrome has to do with reciprocal inhibition—the process that describes the give-and-take relationship between muscles on either side of a joint. “In general, when one muscle contracts, a nerve signal is sent to its opposing muscle to relax,” says Bang.
Levi

Give-and-take relationships aren’t just the talk of couples therapy for writers who are having a hard time. It’s also about the body and the self. Our muscles work together but sometimes, they don’t.

When we sit down too long, our butts get out of shape. The main muscles do a lot of beneficial things and when it’s dead or not strong? Our pelvis isn’t as stable. We can get pain in our back and hips. Our knees and ankles act up.

It all can go bad.

Levi’s article talks all about the health dynamics and causes of that and you should check it out. Pajer’s article talks about the signs of dead butt syndrome.

Writer’s Tip OF THE POD

Sitting in your chair all day is putting in the time, but crafting great writing is about more than that. It’s about understanding people, story, life. It’s about living. It’s hard to live in one place, sitting down.

Keep your butt healthy, your heart healthy and your writing healthy.