The Process is a weekly newsletter for paid subscribers where you will get access to creative prompts, writing reflections, the Seasonal Writing Retreat and guidance on creating and writing as a quiet creative.
Welcome back to The Process, quiet creative!
This is my second Process letter, and I’m feeling both invigorated and inspired to share more of my creative processes and writing reflections with you.
A quick bit of housekeeping. From February, the writing reflections and creative exercises on The Process will only be available to paid subscribers. So if you are a quiet creative, seeking community and a place to nurture your writing, I encourage you to subscribe. You can learn more about what paid subscribers receive on this page. Thank you for being here :)
“Your passion is waiting for your courage to catch up.”
Isabelle Lafleche
This week’s letter has been sitting in my drafts for weeks. The topic has been feeling alive within me, yet the words felt stuck. It has taken its time to work through me—but patience is a virtue. It was when I was in the shower (why is it always the shower?)that the layout and voice for this letter took shape.
This week’s letter is all about courage. It’s for the community of quiet creatives who are yearning to share their creative work with the world, yet are coming up against the long list of things which tell us we can’t write. It takes courage to share our words and hearts with the world. Writing can be deeply personal, so sharing our work can be a vulnerable process. For creatives who lean more on the sensitive and introverted side, this process can feel even more raw.
That’s why today, I wanted to enter into a conversation with courage and bring you with me.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of courage? Do you imagine courageous acts of service? Do you think of a person in your life? Or imagine a character from a book or show?
The Oxford Language defines courage as:
the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery.
Courage is the ability to take a leap of faith, putting our trust in the unknown. I had originally written, “Courage is having the confidence that we will ultimately land on our two feet, regardless of the outcome.” But, I don’t believe this to be true. I believe courage is taking action knowing that we might ultimately fail—for me, that is true bravery. It’s accepting that the unknown is part of the process. Creative writing—or any kind of writing—from the work we share with the world, to the writing we keep for ourselves, requires firstly bravery, and secondly bracing for some kind of failure.
In our journey of courage, we may not always know the exact outcome. The creative process should not be a clear-cut pathway. It must meander, turn back on itself, and take a sharp left because we are following something exciting. However, it’s this uncertainty and fear of the unknown which stops many creatives before they’ve even begun.
I want to explore the different ways creating and sharing our work can feel challenging, but also an essential part of the process of bringing ideas to life. It’s the friction which brings us into contact with our inner creative wellspring. What are the barriers which stop you before you even start? How can you overcome these roadblocks and choose to write courageously? After exploring these questions, I will offer a re-frame of things that have served me, and I hope you, too.
Resistance
I want to start with resistance.
Resistance may be stopping you from sharing or writing that Substack post which has been on your heart for more weeks than you’d like to count. Resistance tells you, wait, you can do it tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. Resistance stops you from sharing your words with the world because they aren’t quite right.
The thing about Resistance is it’s not tangible; it’s not something you can tuck away or hide. It’s felt and within us, as Steven Pressfield shared in The War of Art, "Resistance can not be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential," and there’s something far more challenging about an experience being more of a feeling, rather than something we can simply turn away from.
A part of this resistance often stems from the plight of the creative—perfectionism. Even as I write this now, the little voice in my head keeps whispering, ‘This isn’t good enough’ ‘Why are you even bothering?’ ‘You have nothing new to say’. Maybe that’s true, but I keep writing anyway…because that takes courage. As Pressfield writes, ‘Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it's the easiest to rationalize. We don't tell ourselves, 'I'm never going to write my symphony.' Instead, we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I'm just going to start tomorrow.’
Reframe
Instead of believing we need to show up as perfect writers, what if we loosened our grip on perfection, and welcomed the necessary moments of failure? What if we softened into the unknown part of the creative process? Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but think about how much more fearless you would become with your writing. As I write this now, I am trying to embody the words I am sharing; leaning into the discomfort, but trusting that the words I am sharing will reach those it is supposed to.
The Unknown
For the next barrier, I want to start with this quote:
The door is ever so slightly ajar, and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling light. Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas that we consider too far out for us, and so we keep them out there. The ideas we are comfortable with are in the room with us. The other ideas are out, and we keep them out.
When I first read this, I felt a chill wash over me. It felt all too familiar. This quote is from The Artists Way, by Julia Cameron. I am currently moving through the book for a third time, and each time I read it and participate in the exercises, I come face-to-face with the shame I carry as a creative. When I reflect on this passage, I immediately resonate with this analogy. In my creative practice—my own life—I was keeping the door closed, knowing full well the possibilities that lay beyond that crack of light. I just had to be open to it. Writing this letter, one could argue, is opening that door ever so slightly.
Reframe
Open the door to the ideas that are alive within you. What’s on the other side of the door which is yearning to be written. Can you have the courage to begin?
Doubt
As I mentioned when sharing about resistance, there is a profound shift once we accept that we will create bad work. We cannot always control the outcomes of our creative practice, especially when we are in the beginning phases of our creative explorations. I love this quote by Ira Glass, which I think sums up the creative experience perfectly:
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
―Ira Glass
In her article, Writing with Courage and Conviction,
shares about the need to be clear and courageous with our writing.I find myself thinking more and more about courage and how we writers must write with power and conviction. Now more than ever, it's important to say what we mean and mean what we say. We must bring authenticity to our work. Commit to what we're here to express. This is what gains our reader's trust and keeps them reading. Writing with conviction forces us to weigh the importance of our words and makes us better thinkers, if not better humans.
Reading Kathy’s work, I was reminded of the importance of why we write. To write and speak with conviction can feel confronting, but it’s essential to what we put out into the world. It can leave us raw and open to criticism, but I guess that is the work, right? It’s having faith in the conviction of our words. That is the practice.
Reframe
When doubt in the process kicks in, lean into the process as a journey. Our journey as creatives does not stop when we publish one Substack article; it’s an ever-evolving process. It will be something, hopefully, you tend to for the rest of your life. Like a garden moving through the seasons, we may experience fallow periods and dormancy; then at other moments, we will bloom and reap the bounty of what we have sowed.
To hold myself accountable, next week I will be sharing a piece of flash fiction for my paid subscribers. A practice of not only doing the work but also having the courage to share my work—even though there’s room for more growth.
Journal Prompts and Creative Exercise
Creative Exercise:
Open the door to the ideas that are alive within you. What’s on the other side of the door which is yearning to be written. Can you have the courage to begin? Write out all the creative ideas that lay beyond the door—what is yearning to be explored? Write them all out. Then, choose one that feels most alive and exciting for you. Free write on this topic. Don’t worry about the outcome, just write. Learn to trust what comes onto the page. Editing can come later, the initial step is just beginning. You might be surprised by the truths that form on the page.
Journal Prompts
“Plunge into the sea. The sun. An old city. Silence.” — Susan Sontag.
When was a time you took a courageous act? How did it feel? How can you apply this to your creative work?
If you haven’t already please do consider subscribing to By Hannah. I would love to hear your reflections from today’s letter in a comment, or a restack.
We will be journeying together, tending to our creative gardens. The next Process letter will be about writing landscapes—something I am very passionate about!
Hannah x
This piece resonated with me on so many levels. Loved the Ira Glass quote. The courage section reminded me of the Roosevelt quote about being in the arena that Brene Brown cites. Thank you for sharing, and I’m subscribing.
Wonderful piece! Very inspiring.