My sister is a competitive cyclist, and we enjoy discussing the similarities between athletic practice and creative practice. The other day she was telling me about how she and the cyclists she coaches recognize, treat, and recover from physical injuries. It made me wonder: can creatives and artists suffer from injuries, too? If so, how do we recognize when we have one, and how do we treat it? What can a sports analogy teach us about our need as creatives and artists to rest and recover? Here is...
Feb 09, 2024•34 min
I credit my creative practice with helping me recover from my life-altering burnout at the end of my PhD. I've maintained from the beginning (and often talked about in this podcast) that creative work should feel good most of the time. For many years I've been gentle and compassionate with myself in both my creative practice and life, never pushing too hard and taking breaks of days or even weeks when I began to feel overwhelmed by anxiety. This is what helped me build a sustainable, fulfilling ...
Jan 19, 2024•24 min
Have you ever noticed that successful artists' backstories often sound like destined paths or hero's journeys? Learning how to tell your own mythologized origin story is an essential tool for any artist. Listen to this episode to find out why and how to do it. I am indebted to the podcast episode Infamous: Taylor Swift Before She Was Famous Part I for much of the information about Taylor Swift's early life. Please give it and its companion Part II a listen! Find out more about the writing progra...
Jan 05, 2024•48 min
I am a lifelong magical thinker, but in recent years have rejected it in favor of a more realistic (read: pessimistic/cynical haha) perspective. This holiday season, though, I have decided that I will once again let myself believe in magic. But am I ready to indulge in magical thinking in a responsible way? To find out, I compare my magical thinking or lack thereof during my two experiences of finishing a novel: one twenty years ago and one this year. In the first case, I used magical thinking i...
Dec 22, 2023•29 min
There's no question that setting and achieving goals is beneficial...right? But what about when it's not? Creativity requires us to become adept at allowing ourselves to be swept off course. In this episode I discuss why we struggle so much to deviate from plan, why this can harm our creative process, and why we may want to consider taking radical steps to connect with our intuitive creative mind.
Dec 08, 2023•34 min
In these final difficult months of getting my novel ready for agent submissions, thinking about my art's greater purpose is serving as an important motivator. In this episode I discuss why I think it's best to save contemplating your art's greater purpose for the later stages of creation, how to know if you even need a greater purpose for your art, and how to figure out what yours is. This discussion is part of a larger one I've been having on this podcast recently around contemplating audience ...
Nov 24, 2023•26 min
When life gets messy, it's tempting to put our creative work aside until we have the space and energy for inspiration again. But this is no good if you are trying to finish a project or if you are dedicated to maintaining a serious creative practice as an artist or a mental health practice. In this episode I talk about what I learned from a recent experience of upheaval in my own life, and give you some tips to help you when you encounter your own.
Nov 10, 2023•29 min
Sorry for the lateness of this episode, I'm dealing with some very noisy construction at my house that is interfering with my recording schedule. In this episode I provide a brief update on my novel polishing and throw out some thoughts I have on what artistic voice is and how to develop it.
Oct 27, 2023•24 min
What happens when someone who hates deadlines decides to try one out? Listen to hear all about my recent experience of setting a deadline for myself to finish my novel. Spoiler: I hit it! In this episode I talk about why I'm usually against deadlines, when they are useful, how to know if you are ready to take the next step in your project and set a big one for yourself, and how to set endogenous deadlines that serve YOU, rather than exogenous ones that serve the gods of toxic productivity....
Oct 06, 2023•34 min
Why is it that after all the work you've put into your creative project you hit your biggest resistance when you can finally see the finish line? This is what happened to me this summer when I was trying to finish my novel (which will be done next week!!!). Turns out this is totally normal, and in this episode I talk about why this happens and how to move through it. This episode marks a return to my regular programming after taking the summer to work through the above-mentioned resistance. If y...
Sep 22, 2023•46 min
This is my final update on this strange summer that was full of change, growth, and pure panic, if I'm honest! I'll be returning to my regular type of programming in a couple weeks, and in this episode I give you a taste of the episodes topics I'm planning. They are all based on my experiences this summer tackling draft 10 of my novel, The Gentle History: new challenges, lessons learned, and wisdom gained.
Sep 08, 2023•19 min
I finally have some excellent news to share! I've had a creative breakthrough on my novel and am on track to finish it by mid-September. In this episode I share what led to the breakthrough, what it feels like, and my tentative plans for when I'm done.
Aug 18, 2023•21 min
This is a grab bag of an episode in which I tell a long and rambling story about what getting my house tented for drywood termites has to do with the Empire State Building, share my thoughts on what I've learned about creative process as I've worked through my writer's block, give two examples of how I've humbled myself to art recently, and declare a new creative identity for myself. Here is the episode of the podcast Bewildered I mention....
Jul 28, 2023•34 min
In which I talk about how I'm working through my current writer's block and the importance of surrendering to the ebb and flow of creativity. Here is the newsletter by Nick Cave that I discuss in this episode.
Jul 07, 2023•21 min
In which I discuss some recent developments in my life and the steps I am taking to deal with the circumstances.
Jun 16, 2023•15 min
Many creatives and artists have a bit of the lone wolf in them. But generally speaking, being a lone wolf is looked down on in society. In this episode I mount a defense of this personality type and discuss some of the things that make lone wolves awesome human beings worthy of understanding, love, and admiration.
Jun 09, 2023•28 min
What do you do when you lose steam with your creative projects or practice? Nothing will block you faster than feeling bored with your work. When your inspiration and motivation go missing, though, there are some simple remedies that can get you back on track. In this episode I discuss the three levels of creative boredom, how to recognize them, and what to do when they happen.
Jun 02, 2023•35 min
I've never been able to figure out if I'm a highly ambitious person or not ambitious enough. What I've settled on is that while my culture tells me I should be ambitious, at heart I'm just not. When I start getting ambitious about my work, my stress levels rise and my burnout is triggered again. In this episode I discuss ambition in reference to creative work and how we can have goals for ourselves while avoiding the negative impact of ambition. Honest Rox's newsletter about the impact of US cul...
May 26, 2023•28 min
Will AI-created art change the way we view art and our relationship with it as consumers and creators? I contemplate this question in light of Frank Ocean's ostensibly disastrous but possibly brilliant performance at Coachella this year and the viral hit song featuring Drake and the Weeknd that turned out to be fake. My Instagram Article on Frank Ocean in the Ringer (by Jeff Weiss). Article on Frank Ocean in GQ (by Eileen Cartter). Switched On Pop episode on the Drake/Weeknd AI song...
May 05, 2023•24 min
Following your intuition when you are being nudged off course is a vital creative skill, but many of us are held hostage by plans and struggle to accept interruptions as positive. We feel derailed and like we're losing control. But creativity requires interruption, because it opens space for something new and unexpected to arise. In this episode I discuss how to facilitate constructive use of interruptions in your life and creative practice by listening to your intuition. Intuition doesn't show ...
Apr 28, 2023•23 min
Lately I've been struggling with a growing awareness of pessimism and negativity around me in the world. It seems we are in an age of insecurity, fear, and suspicion. Then the other day I read about the Spiral Jetty , a work of land art on the edge of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and it got me thinking about what art can teach us about dealing with the inevitability of change, struggle, and entropy. Ultimately the way we perceive the world is up to us, and greeting all its sham, drudgery, and br...
Apr 21, 2023•25 min
When we get stuck in life we can easily find reasons why we can't make the changes we need to make. But those aren't the real reasons we remain stuck. It's our feelings of powerlessness over our circumstances that really hold us back. In this episode I talk about different ways we give away our power to effect change in our lives and practices we can use to get it back.
Apr 14, 2023•28 min
Do you ever feel like you have lost your creative inspiration, or worse, that you don't have enough to begin with? In this episode I talk about how to cultivate inspiration by doing the opposite of what our instincts tell us. We're socialized to believe that if we want something, we need to aggressively go after it, even "attack" it. But when it comes to creative inspiration, this will only make it harder to come by. So what can you do instead? Listen to find out!
Apr 07, 2023•30 min
It's a common assumption that highly creative people are more prone to mental illness. Van Gogh is perhaps one of the most famous examples of the mad creative genius archetype. But is there a scientifically verifiable link between creativity and mental illness? This is part of a recent research-based bonus episode I did for my Patreon subscribers at the $5 tier. Here is the Scientific American article I cite My episode on the Default Mode Network and creativity is #89....
Mar 31, 2023•32 min
I recently saw a play called Women Playing Hamlet (by William Missouri Downs) that explores the idea of playing roles others cast us in versus choosing the roles we play and inhabiting them fully through full knowledge of the self. In this episode I ask the question, why do we hesitate to cast ourselves in the roles of our choosing? Why do so many of us continue to play it safe by not stepping into our identities as writer/musician/artist/etc.? How long are we going to continue on playing the ro...
Mar 24, 2023•25 min
Creatives are often told they need to take risks in order to reach their full potential, but what does that mean, exactly, and how does one do it? If you google creative risk you'll find tons of resources on the why of risk but not the what kind and how. In this episode I seek to fill some of those gaps of knowledge. I explore three types of creative risk and discuss how you can approach them through process rather than big, scary leaps.
Mar 17, 2023•34 min
There is no question that we are now in the era of AI, and everyone is talking about what AI-generated art means for the art industry and individual artists. In this episode I talk about how creatives and artists can handle our anxieties around what the future holds as AI-generated art gluts up the system and decreases space for our own art. I include some thoughts on what we as real humans can offer that AI can't, and how that will change what we view as art and the location of where we find va...
Mar 03, 2023•30 min
Why does the magic disappear from our lives as we grow up and mature, and how can we get it back? In this episode I contemplate what we mean when we talk about magic, why as adults it is required that we find a way to allow it back into our lives, and how we can do that. I also discuss the links between magic and creativity, and why it's especially important for us creatives and artists to believe in magic. Here are some episodes I've done on creativity and happiness + the one on irrationality: ...
Feb 24, 2023•34 min
For my birthday weekend I decided to re-release one of my favorite previous episodes as a way of giving myself both a break and boost! This episode was previously released in March 2022 (E66). I'll be back next week! My Instagram (Grandma's xmas 1990 note) When You Don't Have the Privilege of Mental Health (blog post)...
Feb 17, 2023•25 min
How do we know when we've finished a creative project? Sometimes we know because we have deadlines or explicit, concrete goals to work toward, but what about long-term and fairly open-ended projects like novels, where it is up to us and us alone to judge whether it's done? Especially if we have any perfectionist tendencies, we may feel confused about what indicators tell us a project is ready to put out into the world. In this episode I discuss a way of understanding done that is based on your o...
Feb 10, 2023•29 min
