How important is solitude for the creative process, and how can you balance finding solitude for your creative work with everything else that's going on in your busy life? In this week's episode, I catch up with Bryan Crosson. He's the author of the Lonesome Thread, and his book is all about creativity, solitude for creatives, and why it's so important. In his book, Bryan draws on his experiences when he was serving in Afghanistan, and he relates that to creative work and writing. The book particularly resonated with me because I believe in having time and space for writing and creative work each day.These days, I have enough time to write full time, but when I first started Become a Writer Today and taking writing a bit more seriously, I used to get up early in the morning and write for an hour or more before the kids got up. I particularly liked writing early in the morning because it was quiet, and I didn't have to check email or worry about work meetings or phone calls, or daily life, and that's a theme that Bryan, this week's interviewee, also talks about. In fact, his mantra is if you win the morning, you can win the day. Now I try to write for an hour or two in the morning before moving on with the rest of the tasks related to the business. I'm telling you this because even if you have a full-time job, you can still consider how you can find a little bit of time for writing in the morning or writing in the evening after work. And writers who work full time still have to balance writing with all of the other things they have to do to earn a living. In this episode, we discuss:Bryan's role as an adviser in AfghanistanThe evolution of his creative journeyWriting a book in lockdownBryan's creative process as a sporadic writerHow to deal with boredom as a creativeMeditation and his many other interests and hobbiesResources:Website: https://www.lonesomethread.com/Support the show