How To Get In The Zone And Stay In It With Tom Evans

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Tom Evans helped me get over my creative block around writing fiction several years ago (right here on the podcast!), and today he's talking about his new book, The Zone: How to get in it and stay in it.

In the intro, I talk about my trip to Berlin (photos here) and the positivity of the German market for ebooks in the coming year. I also talk about my renewed focus on the iBookstore based on Mark Coker's presentation to the Alliance of Independent Authors. I also have a print giveaway for ‘One Day In Budapest' on Goodreads – click here to enter before Nov 14th.

We also have a message from podcast sponsors Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system.

Tom Evans is an author, inspirational speaker and creative catalyst. His latest book is The Zone – How to get in it and stay in it. Tom has also been on the podcast before talking about unblocking writer's block. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

In the interview, Tom and I discuss:

• What is “the zone” anyway? It's not actually just one zone, there are lots of different ones. So you can interchange this with the word ‘state'.

• The difference between the Creative Zone and the Busy Zone. Techniques to enter the Creative Zone and how that ‘bends time' including meditation and dreaming. There are also different parts of the creative process and sometimes the various parts can be collaborative. On completion and knowing when to stop as a critical aspect of the Creative Zone.

• How the Fear Zone can stop you from completing your creative project. What that fear is specifically and where it comes from. You can listen to the podcast with me and Tom on writer's block here.

• The entrepreneurial zone and the skill of following your ‘gut' as well as the ability to actually produce. Each book is its own project, its own product and has its own life in the world. Tom and I talk about how our first books didn't exactly set the world alight but were responsible for changing our own lives. How ‘failure' in one regard can be true success from another perspective.

• On balancing your time and the ‘Time Zone'. Tom has a course on Bending Time and he's pretty metaphysical about the qualities of time. It's fascinating stuff! We talk about getting in tune with your own creative cycles, which might relate to nature. Tom is creative in spring and finds a moon-thly rhythm, as well as making appointments with his book when he is most creative – in the morning. Tomorrow's physics is yesterday's magic/metaphysics – like Skype video interviews across the world!

• Identifying and combating the Danger Zones – on frustration at not achieving more, faster; jealousy and comparisonitis. We need to realize why it happens, and also that we all face them. They are places to learn, but the aim is to move through into healing. It's a cyclical process. On kindness to self and why authors need to remember it. On the cumulative effect of combining the zones.

You can find Tom at TomEvans.co and ‘The Zone” buy links and details here. He is on twitter @thebookwright

Please do leave your questions and comments below.