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Writing Excuses

Writing Excuses 8.8: Writing and Personal Health

Writing Excuses

Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

Business, Careers, Fiction

4.61.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2013

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Robison Wells joins us again to talk about personal health, and his brother Dan joins us from the couch where (as of this recording session) he's suffering from the recent removal of a body part. Eeew!

We start by talking with Rob about his well-chronicled mental health issues, how he dealt with them, and how he used them to inform his writing. We ask the obvious question -- are there more mental illnesses to be found among creative folk, or are we all under confirmation bias?

Mary and Howard chime in with their own mental wellness struggles, and we talk about the importance of letting other people know how we're feeling, and why we might be feeling that way. We also talk about our physical health, and how important it is for us as writers to keep track of that. Dan, Brandon, and Mary all have standing desks, and Brandon's is affixed to a treadmill (and as a result of this 'cast, Howard tried a standing desk for a month and but then gave up on it.)

This episode doesn't offer much in the way of crunchy, nuts-and-bolts writing advice, but hopefully it helps some of you deal with the issues that you now know some of the professionals suffer from as well.

Those Pictures You Wanted: Howard promised to get pictures of Brandon's tread-desk. He lied, or at least cannot find the pictures anywhere. As a consolation prize, here is a link to Robison's blog post about mental health. Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe and use my code homeserve.com/excuses for a great deal: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out Talkiatry and use my code Talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This year my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner.

0:04.8

It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me.

0:08.8

The entire family shows up.

0:11.8

I'm talking fourth cousins once removed and this is not an

0:15.1

exaggeration which means that during the lead up I don't have time to menu plan or

0:20.0

cook anything else. That's when I turn to prepared meals like Factor, America's

0:26.0

number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Factor can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietition approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door.

0:37.0

It allows me to save time and not eat garbage while tackling all my holiday to-do's.

0:42.0

So if you want to cross meal prepping... while tackling all my holiday to-do's.

0:42.6

So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list

0:45.8

this holiday season, consider factor.

0:48.4

You can skip the meal planning, grocery shopping,

0:50.9

shopping, shopping, prepping, and cleaning up, and get factors fresh never frozen meals delivered

0:55.8

to your door.

0:56.8

They're ready in just two minutes, which my dad says is the appropriate amount of time to cook

1:01.4

a meal.

1:02.4

He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy.

1:07.0

And if you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor isn't just for dinner.

1:15.1

Count on extra convenience any time of the day with an assortment of 55-plus add-ons to suit various

1:20.8

preferences and tastes.

1:22.8

So you can carve out some writing time in the morning by choosing quick breakfast items,

1:27.2

lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat cold-pressed juices, shakes, and smoothies.

...

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