Coaxing The Creativity Out
When writing is the only thing that makes life feel better, how do you keep it going?
I have spent the morning knitting, my hands slick from holding the wool for hours. The scent lingers on my fingertips. A small piece of hay sits beside me on the couch, untouched after finding it caught between the fuzzy plies.
I took up knitting two months ago. I was suddenly aware of how much there was to learn and how little I knew. I considered quitting for a few days.
Instead, I carried on and chose smaller, more boring projects. When I finally felt ready enough to make my first sweater, I decided I’d only use natural fibers with no Superwash processing, the chemical treatment that strips wool of its scales to prevent shrinkage and make it machine-washable. My attention turned toward woolen-spun yarns, the kind Ravelry users describe as “toothy” and “rustic.”
Working with this yarn is a labor of love. Its grittiness can irritate the hands, and the finished sweater requires a T-shirt underneath and careful handwashing afterward. But it’s durable and supremely warm. The stitches, the toiling, the doing and undoing. Hard work accumulates and morphs into something deeply your own.
Life feels a bit toothy right now. But unlike the knitting process, there is no tested pattern. No schematic to anticipate the promised outcome. No guarantee that the labor will amount to anything.
Even in this liminal stretch, I keep stitching together more words to make better sense of what I’m feeling. The more I do, the clearer it becomes: writing is the only thing that makes life feel less toothy. Not a complete overhaul. Just creating something inside it, stepping back to see what’s going on through the lens of my work, and identifying the systems that allow me to keep on doing that.
Writing mainly about fashion and culture, I tricked myself into believing that I have to be on Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok to stay connected. But the more time I spent on those platforms, the less I wrote and the more discouraged I felt to publish. I always knew it was that damn phone!
Recently, I was introduced to the concept of ambient systems through 𝚃𝙰𝚂𝙷𝙰 𝚈𝙾𝚄𝙽𝙶’s research work. To quote Young, ambient systems can be described as:
systems [that] support agency and creative emergence by respecting the needs and conditions of the human user, rather than seeking to exploit them.
After reading her write-up (I highly recommend you do the same, she dives deeper into the differences between ambient vs. algorithmic systems), I found it the perfect launching point to take a closer look at my digital ecosystem and its effect on my creative practice.
I’d been eagerly following the launch of her web app, œvra. The platform launched in beta this past December and has a number of features rooted in neuroscience that promote creative thinking. I use the ambient music player every morning to help drop into a flow state when reading, writing, or mapping out ideas for future newsletters and pitches. The “Get Unblocked” section is a nice companion to my meditation practice, and I use it to overcome creative hurdles like perfectionism and self-doubt.
Other platforms part of my ambient ecosystem alongside œvra include:
NTS Radio - For background music while researching and writing. My favorite program is The Early Bird Show w/ Maria Somerville.
are.na - I like that I can find creative inspiration and resources on workshops and residencies without seeing the same photos repeatedly like on Pinterest. You can explore when you want to, or stick to users and channels on your following feed. Plus, there are no comments like “Where are these sunglasses from? <3” under a photo of Joan Didion.
Obsidian - A personal knowledge base app that helps me organize my creative work, fleeting thoughts, and original source material for deeper analysis and connection between topics.
When I had the desire to write a newsletter or an article pitch, I could never get past the initial idea phase. I could not, and would not, actually sit down to research or piece together fragments from my journal or Notes app. I was always trying to get the conditions just right. I’m not in the right place. I have no inspiration. Let me get my head on straight first. Should I make a coffee? There’s no way I can write because somebody is gonna read this and This sweater is so itchy I should have put a T-shirt on underneath like they said on Ravelry. These were the pointless ruminations that I convinced myself I needed to do in order to produce acceptable writing. I became more involved in the barrier-creating process than the actual craft itself.
When I finally had enough of the inaction, I remembered I had a copy of Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. I love her essay titled “Shitty First Drafts,” and it lives alone in a file on my computer titled “IMPORTANT.” But this time I decided I’d read the book in full. No excerpts or singling out. Lamott is funny and real. I felt comforted to know I was not the only one being driven to both madness and delight by writing.
Two years ago, I wrote a sticky note that still lives on my desk now saying, “Just write the sentence. Then write the next one.” It echoes Lamott’s “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
I wish I could give you some magical advice or practice that made me a better writer. The truth is that all there is is writing and reading every day. Write shitty first drafts. Check your notes to see what you missed. Pull up a passage from a favorite author. Have a hysterical outburst in your bed for one minute and wonder if your upstairs neighbor of the same age heard it. Then do it all over again.
If you liked this newsletter, you may also enjoy reading:
