The Riff

One of the many laments in my journal is about my chronic inability to focus for long periods of time. And by long, I mean maybe just 30-45 minutes. I’m not talking hours here.

It’s something I’ve been well aware of for years, and it’s no surprise that it’s because of the phone. Just looking at it triggers me. I’m a lab rat jonesin’ for coke. One day I opened the Digital Shame, sorry, Digital Wellbeing app on my Pixel 6 and toggled to “times opened” for various apps, let’s look at the numbers:

• Monday, June 9: 54 unlocks, opened Gmail 41 times (8 minutes), Instagram 38 times (71 minutes)

• Tuesday June 10: 35 unlocks, opened Gmail 39 times (16 minutes), Instagram 27 times (41 minutes)

• Wednesday June 11: 40 unlocks, opened Gmail 27 times (9 minutes), Instagram 27 times (45 minutes)

• Thursday June 12: 50 unlocks, opened Gmail 29 times (7 minutes), Instagram 33 times (40 minutes)

• Friday June 13: 33 unlocks, opened Gmail 27 times (5 minutes), Instagram 27 times (40 minutes)

Much of this is just habit. I’m pulling the little lever every time I pick up my phone. As with email, I’m just flicking it on and off. With IG, maybe I’m posting audiograms and quote cards, but I get sucked into something, like everyone. And if you happen to post something, as I often do for promotional purposes, there’s the constant itch to see if it got any reaction.

So, is it any wonder focus is a problem? The problem is that the phone has all our entertainment. The nourishing kind: podcasts, music. The junk food, too: social media, email.

The phone is the disease. So what’s the vaccine?

The obvious answer is deleting the toxic apps from the phone. But it’s challenging if you’re doing book promo and the desktop version of Instagram doesn’t allow for sharing things to stories. I see very few of the notifications upon opening the app on the computer vs. the phone. Once the glut of book promo is done, I’ll likely delete it from my phone for a long time. I’ve taken to deleting it for four days and installing it for three, but this gets tedious.

Just during that one time window above, I spent 4 hours on Instagram during that week. Sure, some of that was needed for book and pod stuff. But four hours? FOUR FUCKING HOURS! That’s two movies. That’s maybe reading half a book. I can edit and package a podcast in about four hours. I could call a couple friends and just shoot the shit about work or whatever else. I COULD BE GETTING MY NEXT BOOK OFF THE GROUND (to be fair, I AM doing this, but I could be hours and hours and hours farther along).

All of this is to say, we must vaccinate ourselves and build antibodies against the attention virus and the vector that is this thing in our pockets morning, noon, and night.

A small solution? Putting it out of sight but within earshot should you receive a phone call or text from someone important (a custom ringtone works wonders here).

Ok, enough of this nonsense, some events, a sweepstakes and, as you know, this newsletters starts here and goes up to 11!

July Front Runner Events and Such

A Sweepstakes!

Enter by July 10 for a chance to win a ball cap, t-shirt, a keychain, a sweet poster, and a sweeter book. Follow this link, friend.

Pitch Club with Rhana Natour

Pitch Club Issue 2 is live, this with Rhana Natour. I’m telling you … Pitch Club is gonna be a thing. If you teach journalism, you need to have your students subscribe. It will forever be free. Subscribing is a kind of currency, platform currency that I can leverage to book contracts. And that’s how I get paid.

The Books

1. Sloppy: Or: Doing It All Wrong, Essays by Rax King. Great read. I blew through this book. Range of topics from addiction to exotic dancing to working in restaurants.

2. We Contain Landscapes: Poems by Patrycja Humienik. Poetry is a nice breath of fresh air.

3. Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery by Mallary Tenore Tarpley. Looking forward to diving into this one. I’m someone with debilitating body-image issues, so I’m interested to read Mallary’s journey here.

4. Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp by Tracy Slater. A necessary and important history that sadly feels “of the moment.”

The Other Stuff

5. I wrote a little essay over at Lit Hub about unauthorized biography.

6. I have strong feelings about Marc Maron sunsetting WTF this fall. This Defector piece by Diana Moskovitz sums it up pretty damn well. I’ll have a parting shot about it soon.

7. On the joy — and necessity — of leaving Amazon reviews

8. A little questionnaire-type-thingy-interview-doo-hickey over at Writer’s Digest.com. It me.

9. The features editor for Runner’s World, Pavlina Cerna, wrote a great essay on her Substack about always being asked about her accent. Please read it.

10. “Tape recorders should be tools not crutches.” The great debate continues!

11. “Writing is thinking; writing is a form of thought. It’s difficult for me to believe that real thought is possible without writing.” The longform journo William Langewiesche passed away. I was never familiar with his work. But I plan on reading some of the articles cited in this obit.

That should wrap it up. If you want other ways to support me or the podcast you can consider leaving ratings and reviews for The Front Runner and/or the podcast. There’s also Patreon, which can earn you face time with me to talk some things out. That’s at patreon.com/cnfpod.

As always, keep writing, keep reporting, keep researching, and stay wild, friend,

b.r.o