How do you get out of your own way?
on letting it sing to you, learning to allow, and becoming overjoyed by rejection (!)
Hi loves,
Of course, the moment when I choose to shut my eyes and attempt to acquiesce to slumber is also when inspiration flutters in on winged sandals, Hermes-like. It’s become a funny little idiosyncrasy, a source of persistent amusement, a regular inside joke with myself. I can spend all day ruminating on what I’d like to go into the newsletter this week, or where I should be submitting to next, or what topic to broach out of the many ideas and thought starters and notes app confessions spilling every which way, in every realm of my life.
And I do think that the writing-but-not-writing we do in preparation for the sitting down with the blank page is just as integral a part of the process as the writing itself. Most of the time, at least.
That said, it’s often that my writing brain does not want to turn on, or at least all the way UP, until sometime around 9pm. It’s been this way for my entire life, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon1, no matter how structured I attempt to be in my creative routines. And I’ve learned to be diligent when it comes to creating systems to capture those errant jolts of inspiration. The stray 1am thought or phrase, for example, which if paid special attention in the light of day, may bloom into a poem, or essay, or project.
And all that to say—I get so excited to write these, now that I’m in a flow with them, now that I’m in a flow with all of you, my lovely readers! There are days when I literally run to my laptop as soon as I get home from work and whip it open with the utmost quickness, poised to let fly my fingers. And there are others when I’m rapidly typing the above-mentioned 1am thoughts in one of my many notes and to-do list apps, so that I can store them away for later.
During my MFA program, our thesis classes were split up into two—Thesis I the summer after our first year, Thesis II during our last semester. I’ll never forget what my Thesis I advisor told me that summer, when I showed up sloppy drafts in hand, the first iterations strewn with a truly embarrassing amount of em dashes, even for me:
“You have to let it sing to you!”
Well, it’s humming along now. The pipes on this thing are gorgeous, honey. GAWJUSS. And by that I mean the flow, the inspiration… but hopefully the words, too. 🙃
My “theme” word for this year has been Allow. I landed on it a day or two into January, when 2022 felt brand new. Another year of hoping for the best—or at least some semblance of it, another year of telling myself inane catchphrases like: staying positive, testing negative!2
Allow yourself to rest when you need to.
Allow others to lean on you. Allow yourself to lean on others.
Allow yourself to know that everything is going to be okay. Allow yourself to trust that it’s all unfolding for you.
Allow yourself to remember that feeling good is a priority.
Allow yourself to not take things so personally, so seriously.
Allow yourself to make bad art. Allow yourself to keep going, so that you can get to the good stuff.
Allow the blessings you’ve been dreaming of to show up in your life, because you’ve relinquished the attempt to control the “how” or the “when.”
Allow yourself to appreciate every little step of the way.
So how do we go about practically enacting that, at least in the creative sense?
I’ve found that the following 3 steps have helped me move forward:
Experimentation. I’m still feeling my way into this one. It’s a learning curve after all, isn’t it? Roxane Gay recently shared that her own Substack is “a place for experimentation,” and that really struck me. Am I experimenting enough? Am I throwing enough at the wall to see what sticks?
Engaging in self-trust. The undertaking of a large, ongoing, and entirely in-depth writing project—of any immersive body of creative work, really—requires building a certain level of trust in yourself. Trust that you’ll be able to finish it. Trusting that it is or will be good enough, that you are good enough, and that ultimately you will figure out how to get out of your own way—whatever that means for you. Did I mention it takes a certain amount of unpacking your own bullshit, too?
Turning the pressure valve off—or at least down. Last week, I wrote about my process of learning that I don’t have to put myself through the emotional wringer in order to make good art. I want to expand on that now with the reminder that you don’t always have to make good art—or what others would deem as good art.
This also, inherently, translates as not being too precious with your words. If it’s not obvious, I am absolutely yelling this at myself as well! Good writing will unassumingly convince the right reader to fall in love with it. It isn’t required to bloat on infatuation with itself (although no one ever told Donna Tartt this, or about the em dashes either. No hate intended toward Donna Tartt, she’s unequivocally brilliant, but once you notice you simply can’t stop seeing them, in The Goldfinch especially. Her editor really said, “Not today!”).
I came across a video on TikTok that brought up an illuminating thought experiment. In it, the creator poses the following: What if the thing you want most is on the other side of your next 50 rejections? How quickly would you want to tunnel through these rejections, then? How overjoyed would you be to receive them, knowing they are putting you on the path toward what your greatest desire?
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Lastly, before I am jettisoned from your inbox: is there anything more satisfying than a good deep clean of your apartment, followed by a ritual cleansing of the space? I probably let way too much time pass between cleansings of my altar in particular (sorry guides! Sorry ancestors!). That said the requisite clearing is going down TODAY, and I just know it is going to feel so damn refreshing.
I’ll be adorning my autumnal altar with candy-colorful baby gourds, ritual candles, my tarot card pulls for the season (more on this soon), a few of those cute little mini cinnamon broomsticks from Trader Joe’s, and more.
Happy Libra season! Happy fall equinox and Mabon if you celebrate! 🍂🖤
xx
Kimia
Here, the age-old Q: morning or night person? In all honesty, I identify as a night person who struggles not to constantly glamorize nocturnal activities, at least on the weekdays. This is mostly so that I can engage in productive morning person behaviors such as carving out time to pursue my passion projects before I have to sign in to my full-time tech role at 9am, or else make an appearance at the office, which I do several times a week (thanks, capitalism). That doesn’t change my brain chemistry though, which continues, ever so deliciously, to light the fuck up the instant I see the moon rising on the horizon. There’s just something so enticing about dusk, about nightfall, about the witching hour—even the names humans have assigned to these transitional modes are more alluring than their cousins of morning. (Never said the struggle not to romanticize the slanting dark of evening was working.)
This is probably annoying, but hey, it works for me.