Are you a quiet creative?

The Process: How do we share our work when we are sensitive creatives?

Jan 08, 2024

The Process will be a monthly post for paid subscribers. However, for the first edition, this letter will be made open to all free subscribers. Enjoy!

Happy New Year! This is my first Substack piece of 2024 — I hope you had a restful end of the year and feel energised healing into 2024.

Welcome to The Process, Edition 1. Yay! I’m so excited for this edition of the newsletter. The Process is a monthly letter that explores the inner world of being a quiet creative, and having the courage to share our work and projects with the world.

The phrase ‘quiet creative’ rang so true for me when it first landed. I was trying to narrow down a concise bio to provide my readers with the general theme of what this newsletter will be. I was thinking about myself as a creative, and sometimes the challenges I experience from being someone introverted and sensitive, and how this impacts my writing and how I share my work. That’s when it came to me. A whisper that felt so rooted in what I want this newsletter to be.

So, welcome all my quiet creatives to The Process, where I’ll be sharing my journey as an introvert who loves to write, move, and create.

Share By Hannah

For our first edition, I want to speak more to this theme of being a quiet creative — a sensitive being who wants to share their creative expressions with the world but often feels held back by their empathetic nature and quietness. To be introverted, sensitive, and quiet means to be highly attuned to the emotions of others and the world around us. This fine-tuning to the world can often make it hard to open up to it. But quiet creatives have so much to offer the world by way of creative expression. You may find yourself writing poetry in your journals late into the night by candlelight but never bring such work into the light of day, or you may pour your heart out into a poem, but never feel courageous enough to share your work with the people you love.

In her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain speaks to the creative well-spring that is the highly sensitive individual:

“The highly sensitive [introverted] tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive. They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions--sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments--both physical and emotional--unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss--another person's shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly.”

There’s the common narrative that to make it in the writing world, creative world or just life in general, you have to have thick skin. But, what about all the extraordinary, sensitive, quiet creatives and writers? Surely there is a place for us, too? Something I like to remind myself of is the phrase ‘strong spine, soft heart’. What I mean by this is the ability to go out into the world with sensitivity and compassion, while remaining rooted in our truth and values. This can be hard. However, I believe that quiet, sensitive and introverted creatives have a wealth of attention, creativity and compassion to share with the world.

Here are some things which have supported me on my journey as a quiet creative.

Trust

Once I accepted my sensitivity, I chose to see it not as a hindrance (which is a daily practice), but as a doorway to knowing and experiencing the world more deeply. Trust that this gift you have will only inform your writing practice.

Listen

Introverts and sensitive people need time to themselves, to rejuvenate and to fill their cups. Listening to your inner guidance system will be the greatest gift you can give yourself. It’s so easy to be swept along the current of what other people are doing, or how they’re working. But this only does a disservice to our writing practices.

Honour

Honour the ebbs and flows of your creative energy. As an introvert, I am particularly prone to feeling tired and needing rest frequently. Although I have what feels like unending creative ideas and energy, sometimes this energy needs to be channelled into rest. I believe this to be the case for all creatives, not just quiet ones, who need these periods of slowness to lie fallow, to build our reserves, and to generate more energy into our season of gestating our creative ideas into fruition.

Keep paying attention

Jeannine Ouellette

shares in her newsletter, ‘Mary Oliver wasn’t kidding when she implored us, in her “instructions for living a life” from her poem “Sometimes,” to pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it’. I think quiet, creative types are at a unique position, as our default is paying attention and being acutely aware of our surroundings. I guess the ‘tell about it’ is the challenge. But this is something we will explore more as a community. As Susan Cain shared, although we may process information about our environments deeply, this depth of subtleties is what makes the quiet creative so unique.

Writing Practise and Journal Prompt

Writing practise

Drawing inspiration from Jeannine Ouellette, your practice for this week is to pay attention. Keep a journal close and take time to notice your surroundings. Rather than the internal dialogue in your head, pay attention to what is true around you. Using your senses, document. What comes alive when you pay attention?

Question: How do you hope to nourish your creativity and writing as a quiet creative?

Perhaps it’s through sticking to a regular writing routine; sharing more of your work with people you trust; keeping a notebook to jot your daily observations.

If you feel called, do share your answer in the comments. If someone has shared something that you resonate with, please connect and interact.