Virtual Memories Show 440:
Ron Hogan
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“I feel like you’re writing because you have something to say, something that you’re trying to figure out, and I wanted to put my emphasis on that part of the process.”
Practice makes person! With his new book, Our Endless and Proper Work: Starting (and Sticking to) Your Writing Practice (Belt Publishing), Ron Hogan explores how writing can be the process of becoming who you are, the importance of attention & focus and a regular writing practice, and why process is more important than product. We get into his sensation of receiving a Calling a few years ago and how he’s carried that experience in his day-to-day life, the challenge of making your day job feed your inner life, the ways we can try to carve out time for that writing practice (and the ways to keep from beating yourself up when you don’t stick to it), and why letting go of competitive goals can be a boon for a writer. We also talk about what he learned during the pandemic, how the realness of our virtual selves has evolved along with the internet, what he gets from returning to Robert Anton Wilson’s memoir over the years, the misuses of Stoicism, and why he didn’t use the title of his great writing e-mail, Destroy Your Safe & Happy Lives, for the book. Give it a listen! And go read Our Endless And Proper Work!
(Also, subscribe to Ron’s e-mail, and listen to our 2015 podcast and our COVID Check-In!)
“If we have more attention & focus, if we step back from the routines that we’ve developed and that society has developed for us, and put our conscious attention into something else, the more capacity we develop.”
“I use ‘practice’ deliberately, to link it up with meditation, sitting with your thoughts, and sifting through them, and recognizing which ones are just passing and which actually speak to something you care about, and want not to keep inside, but want to share.”
“I think there’s a lot more to be said about the process of becoming, the process of finding yourself.”
TUNEIN PLAYER TK
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About our Guest
Ron Hogan has been an industry analyst for a media website, a digital marketing director for a publishing house, a freelance book reviewer, and an acquiring editor for a startup book publisher. He is the founder of the literary site Beatrice, and creator of a popular newsletter about developing your writing practice, Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives.
There’s a more extensive bio at Ron’s site.
Follow Ron on Twitter and Instagram.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Chez Virtual Memories on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones
