In all creative endeavours it is best to be honest. Sometimes honesty feels like the only space I can create from. Dishonesty in creation feels like dragging my feet, swimming up against a current going the other way. Dishonesty isn’t really lying, but more that tug at the centre of you that knows that something is not quite right, not all the way true in the moment. So, I want to be as honest as possible, especially here.
This is my first paid newsletter! It feels very exciting and also it makes me feel very nervous and very unsure. Doubt is something to negotiate with when it isn’t treated like the enemy. Last year I spent a lot of time talking to my doubt. One day, I woke up and found that before doubt was an authority figure in my life and now it was just a small voice dripping like a faucet that won’t close all the way. I don’t think I will ever rid myself of it, nor do I think I want to. Instead, I allow it to play its little role. I allow it to try to keep me safe, even as I remind it that it is I who truly knows best. The truth is, I want to make money doing what I love, and this is the readily available path, the next step that makes sense, that feels right. Like everything, sometimes it’s best to go for it. No one else is going to do it for you.
If you have been reading and enjoying it, consider going paid. If not, no hard feelings. I'll see you once a month. :)
A little behind the scenes workings of this newsletter. To start it, I need an in. A little clue. This is essential and serious though it needs to be approached with a complete lack of seriousness and a sense of humour. Depending on my mood, being in the waiting room, waiting for it to present itself can be wonderful and exciting, or terribly boring and frustrating. The clue can be anything, an event, an encounter, a thought, a breakdown, a realization, an omen, in the case of this newsletter it was a book. The only requirement is there is ample room for a thesis to form. Sometimes it requires a few red herrings and many false starts before I find something that has enough space inside it for something to grow all its own. Sometimes, it is a waterfall gushing out of me faster than I can catch the words and type them out. Other times, it is a modest stream slowly and surely getting me to where I need to be.
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