What happens when your creative dreams collide with the demands of caregiving? How do you keep writing when you're caring for someone full-time? Can you still be a creative person when traditional productivity advice simply doesn't work? With Donn King.

In the intro, Agatha Christie meets Mr Men [BBC]; Podcast guesting and co-writing [Stark Reflections]; thoughts on pushing your comfort zone; Disrupt Everything and Win – James Patterson.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

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Donn King is a nonfiction author, college professor, pastor, speaker, and podcast host at The Alignment Show. His latest book is Creating While Caring: Practical Tips to Keep Creating While Caring for a Loved One.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Why traditional writing advice (block time, dedicated space, write daily) doesn't work for caregivers and what to do instead





• How emotional fatigue whispers “why bother?” and the philosophy that helps push through when writing seems pointless





• Practical tools and techniques for capturing ideas in stolen moments—from hospital chapels to 7-second voice recordings





• The painful truth about letting go of deadlines, perfect book launches, and achieving your full potential while caregiving





• The transition after 22 years: moving Hannah to full-time care and reclaiming creative time while managing complex emotions

You can find Donn at DonnKing.com or TheAlignmentShow.com.

Transcript of interview with Donn King

Joanna: Donn King is a nonfiction author, college professor, pastor, speaker, and podcast host at The Alignment Show, which I've been on twice, which was fantastic. His latest book is Creating While Caring: Practical Tips to Keep Creating While Caring for a Loved One. So welcome to the show, Donn.

Donn: Thank you very much, Joanna. It's an honor to be on with you.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk about this. Now, first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing.

Donn: Well, the short version is that I've always been a writer. People aren't seeing me, but I turned 70 this year. My first story, I think I wrote when I was about 12 years old.

I remember writing a science fiction story and I got the characters in such a situation I couldn't figure out what to do with them, and so I wrote, “and then the spaceship blew up. The end.” Not an auspicious start.

Then in eighth grade I started working at a newspaper, and in the early years, most of it was newspapers. So that's where I developed, I guess you would say, some discipline. You know, you can't wait on the muse. You've got a three o'clock deadline every day.

I did that for a few years. I worked in radio for a few years. I helped to launch one of the first electronic magazines. A lot of people know America Online. I was working with a parallel service that was known as Genie. They published a member's magazine, and I wound up as associate editor for that. We launched electronically as well as in print.

Let's see, what else. In the old days I co-authored a textbook. I still have to say traditional publishing, I think of them as third party publishers, but you know, the old fashioned way of doing things. So three books there, one of which is still in print, I think.

Then in those early days of blogging and electronic magazines, I wrote freelance for some business magazines, some local publications. It was almost always short form except for that textbook.

Then I worked in advertising. I worked for Walmart stores and helped to launch the first five Sam's Wholesale Clubs. So that was with copywriting and such.

Then in the most recent years, I have scratched that writing itch quite a bit through blogging and academic writing, helping other people to write.

As I mentioned in the current book, I did hit a space of about 10 years there when it was like the well went dry. I think this is worthwhile mentioning for folks out there—there's a difference between writer's block and what I was experiencing. It was just that there was nothing there and I really thought my writing days had ended.

Then a friend pushed me to write what became the first book in The Spark Life Chronicles, which is a business parable. It was like the floodgates had opened again after 10 years. What I realized was—I think this is the important part to say for maybe others—I thought that I wasn't writing because I was depressed. It turned out I was depressed because I wasn't writing.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that all you have to do to get over depression is to write. I think it more has to do with respecting your core values and what's important to you. Writing has always been so important to me in so many ways that when I wasn't doing that, it wasn't feeding my soul. So that's what led to the depression.

So I hope that's helpful. Maybe for somebody out there, they kind of go together, depression and not being able to do anything. But the making yourself take those steps can very well be the first step towards coming out of the depression. I found that to be the case with writing.

Joanna: Yes, and I think you're right. I mean, there are seasons of our life. Let's talk about a big season of your life, which is the caregiving.

So why write this book about caregiving?

And just tell us more about your experience and why this matters to you?

Donn: Okay, so a real quick context. Our daughter, who is now 22, she has a very rare chromosomal disorder. It's trisomy 14, mosaic partial. And any medical folks out there are going to be saying, I never heard of that.

The one study we could find about it said there were 15 to 20 like her known in the world at any given time. Probably more in third world countries, maybe where they don't have genetic testing available, but it's just very rare.

The way it manifests with her is, I guess we would say extreme cerebral palsy. She does not even close her epiglottis when she swallows, for instance. So we were older parents when she came along and I had figured I could change diapers for a couple of years. Well, I've been changing diapers for 22 years, which kind of changed things. So that's where the caregiving came in.

Now the why write this book? Honestly, I had been writing—I mentioned the Spark Life Chronicles. I've got two books out in that series, and a third one that was about two thirds of the way through.

Then you came on my podcast, and thank you. You're an excellent guest, unsurprisingly. I think it was after we had turned off the recording, we were just talking about my situation and you said, well, that sounds like something that would be useful to talk about on the creative end.

In the United States alone, there are 50 million caregivers, unpaid caregivers. Now, I don't know what it is in the rest of the world, but with that many, there must be people who are in a similar situation to me in the sense that they already had some success as a writer or a painter, a sculptor, musician, whatever creative field it might be, and then they suddenly find themselves in this caregiving role.

So, yes, that sounds great, we should have a conversation about that. It wasn't until we got off of our conversation that I thought, if we're going to be talking about this on The Creative Penn, and I think there are people out there who need this, I should write a book about it.