Talking anxiety and creativity with Tim Clare

During my burnout episode, I lay in bed reading Coward by Tim Clare. It’s a big book, but from the very first page I felt welcomed in, like it was a big hug. Like he was saying to me: come in reader, you’re feeling anxious, let’s talk about it. It’s a really brilliant book about anxiety (also ‘GAD’ generalised anxiety disorder) from someone who knows what it’s like to suffer from living in the grips of it. My burnout manifested in different ways, exhaustion mainly followed by crippling anxiety. It’s full of incredible eye-opening research, anecdotes and also a lot of humour. He interviews lots of different experts and becomes a guinea pig himself, testing their methods out and reporting back. It really comforted me at a time I needed it.

So, as you know, to accompany the launch of this new book, I have interviewed some of my favourite thinkers on the topic of success, failure and creativity for The Success Myth Diaries — and I had to speak to Tim. (FYI my next and final guest of the series is one of my favourite writers Aminatou Sow.)

Tim is a performance poet and author of two fantasy novels and nonfiction books including We Can’t All Be Astronauts, which won Best Biography/Memoir at the East Anglian Book Awards and Coward a brilliant book about why we get anxious and what we can do about it. His podcast Death Of 1000 Cuts is a podcast for readers, writers, and anyone who fancies being a little bit happier while they do those things. In this episode, we discuss his three success myths around anxiety, achievement and the myth of the finish line. Hope you enjoy listening to the episode! It's a good'n.