Posts: Writing
Permission to Create Freely
Seeing writer’s block from a different angle
Jan 10, 2024
I have to say, I don’t always feel like being “self-aware” when I sit down to write. Sometimes I just want the ideas and words to flow without having to go to a deeper place within me. But Victoria argues that making art involves the whole person, all of me. No shortcuts, no sidestepping. This is indeed both a blessing and a curse.
A Welcome Landing Place
Revisiting the why behind our work
Apr 30, 2023
It’s the last full week of April. This is around the time of year where my motivation to keep going with my goals and resolutions that were set at the beginning of the year begins to take a deep dive. And it doesn’t help that Mercury is in retrograde. The old insidious questions I try hard to push to the back of my mind resurface—what is the point of all this? Why am I wasting my time?
The Alchemy of the Written Word
The sacred unity of writer and reader
Mar 11, 2023
I’ve been thinking a lot about “writer identity” lately. How we come to see ourselves as writers. What type of writers we think we are or are not. As much as I don’t want to be boxed in, I also understand that the whole point of branding and self-marketing is, by definition, putting ourselves into some type of recognizable box that readers can connect with.
A Force to Be Reckoned With
When resistance shows up in the creative process
Feb 25, 2023
It was when I found myself cleaning my vacuum filters in my kitchen sink that I knew something was definitely off. I had spent the last month deep cleaning, organizing, and decluttering every inch of our home. House projects typically reserved for once a year suddenly made their way to the top of my to-do list.
I have nothing to say.
Thoughts on finding our message and the journey to get there
Jan 13, 2020
There are many self-defeating thoughts artists and creators have over the span of their art-making journey. This must be among the top two.
Creating for Creating’s Sake
Would you keep making art if no one saw it?
Mar 05, 2019
I think the question all writers must ask themselves at some point in their writing journey is this: if no one read my work, would I still write? Would I still show up to the empty page and string words together for the mere pleasure of the act of writing itself? This defines the true artists from the ones doing it simply for profit, or fame, or some other external reward.
Keep Chasing Your Muse
Nov 07, 2016
Creativity happens in the pause between these two moments: feeling sorry for yourself and feeling proud of what you’ve made. And these alternate pretty regularly in the cycle of a creative’s life. Take the 37 minutes prior to me starting this post. They were filled with self-pity, confusion, tears, frustration, and fear of never measuring up.
An Experiment with Writer’s Block
Sep 21, 2016
This is what happens when nothing comes. Not one ounce of inspiration. Not one single idea to expand into a post. I’ve been sitting here staring at the blank screen for 31 full minutes, listening to the clock in my living room tick-tock away, taunting me. This is what it looks like to have nothing to say. Not. A. Single. Thing.
On Writing: Filling the Empty Spaces
Sep 12, 2016
There is a reason most writers love coffee shops. It is the perfect place to people watch. And by nature, us writers are people watchers, observers, gazers. We are hoarders of subtlety and nuance. Of movement and emotion. Much of what shows up in our writing we have taken from our environment, from direct experience.
Committing to the Creative Process
Aug 15, 2016
Maybe it is knowing that these words, by the mere act of being written down for others to read, are opening themselves up to judgment and scrutiny. Maybe it is the imposing Ms. Perfectionist within me with her unattainable expectations pointing her snarky finger at me. Or maybe it’s the feeling of having planted seed after creative seed and never seeing any of them bear fruit.