two questions to help you get unstuck
sharing the video from our creative urgency in dark times workshop + help me figure out what's next!
Welcome to Be Less Careful, the newsletter for people who still look around sometimes and are surprised to find that they’re the grownup. Subscribe to join us as we figure it out—and upgrade to a paid subscription to get access to monthly zoom workshops and subscriber-only chats. This month, we’re talking about creative urgency in dark times. I’d love for you to join us.
This past Sunday’s zoom workshop on creative urgency in dark times was honestly so wonderful and energizing. We talked about how to pick what project to work on next, how to connect with the deep why of a project, and what’s been getting in our way. In just one hour, lots of us made significant progress on projects where we’d been stuck. And I’ve gotten lovely messages all week from writers who are keeping up that momentum!
Inspired by our hour together, I just finished putting together a draft of a piece I’ve been thinking about for—ahem—several years. It might be terrible! It might be fine. I’m going to let it settle for a few days before I decide. I’ve been thinking of this section from The Writing Life:
There is neither a proportional relationship, nor an inverse one, between a writer’s estimation of a work in progress and its actual quality. The feeling that the work is magnificent, and the feeling that it is abominable, are both mosquitoes to be repelled, ignored, or killed, but not indulged.
One of the things we talked about in the workshop was defining what it means to be finished with a given project, as well as figuring out the next finishable step. I really believe that’s what creates urgency and momentum for creative work—being able to see both the finish line and the immediate milestone ahead of you.
I’d been working on—meaning, thinking about, making notes toward, poking at but feeling stymied by—this essay about boredom forever and ever. This past Sunday, I committed to two next steps: getting all those handwritten notes into one typed document, then shaping those notes into a complete, beginning to end, essay. Lo and behold, that’s what I finished just before starting this!
two questions to help you get unstuck
So if you’ve been feeling similarly stuck, you might try picking just one thing and answering those two questions:
what does finished mean for this project?
what milestone or next step can you finish soon? (as in, within a week or so)
two pieces on time and creative urgency, for inspiration
help me plan what’s next
Our next zoom workshop will be Sunday, December 7th at noon eastern. I’ve got a bunch of ideas, and I’d love to know what speaks to you.
become a paid member and join us below the paywall for the recording plus written highlights and an invitation to the FINISH IT FRIDAYS! subscriber-only chat
To protect people’s privacy when they were talking about their own work, I didn’t record the conversation among participants, so the video may feel a little jumpy. If you just want to see the slides, which include questions and prompts, you can find them here.
If you’d like some gentle accountability for your creative practice, come join us in the chat, where we’re talking about what we’ve finished this week and how we’re going to keep going.
Thank you again for this practical and inspiring conversation!