I must have started this month’s post over a dozen times in my head, thinking of an idea, turning it around a few times in my mind, and then dismissing it, the flash of inspiration extinguished by the desire to get it right.
Because January brings with it a particular pressure—even if what we’re trying to do is resist the pressure of resolutions, and life-changing hacks, and the idea of January 1st ushering in a whole new you.
And so even though I told myself, this month’s blog can be about anything, there was another voice inside that said, It’s January. It’s got to be significant.
New beginnings, I thought. Or maybe re-connection, re-commitment. Beginning again. Or maybe reframing resolution for your writing, talking about them as commitments or intentions instead.
That’s a bit…expected? Too on the nose?
The voice was equally dismissive of a post about my favourite craft books (Useful but maybe not for January?), how my enneagram type influences my writing process (Would anyone else find that as interesting as you?), and the dangers of expectations (Didn’t you already write about that?).
I considered writing about stuckness, but the idea barely flashed into my mind before the voice piped up asking how I thought myself capable of advising anyone on that topic when I’d only just—barely—dragged myself out of that stodgy, clinging muck and back to the page.
I thought about writing about grief, something that’s been very much on mind as I return to my novel, which is about loss, the anticipation and resistance of it and the survival of it.
Grief? the voice said. Isn’t that a bit morbid for the new year?
Maybe you have some version of that voice inside your head too. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? All that questioning, all that undermining (done in that slightly tentative but still insidious tone), all that wasted time and energy spent on wondering whether something is right. How many sentences or scene ideas or whole stories have I lost to that smothering voice because I gave it more power than that initial spark of a new idea?
And yet as much as I wish I could banish that particular voice, it’s stayed fairly constant—it might actually be one of the most constant things about my creative process. If I’m going to show up and do my work, that voice—and the fear that's motivating it—is going to be there, sometimes just a glimmer of worry I catch out of the corner of my eye and sometimes the loudest voice in the room.
As Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic, the solution isn’t ignoring, banishing or killing off the fear that arises alongside our creativity, but instead recognizing it, acknowledging it’s there and why, and she uses the image of inviting fear along with her and creativity on a road trip, stressing “[t]here is plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us,” but also being very clear that fear is “absolutely forbidden to drive.”
Sharon Salzberg has written and spoken about something similar, describing how she recognizes, witnesses, even befriends that critical voice because her awareness of that voice is what makes her stronger than it.
“The moment that we realize our attention has wandered is the magic moment of the practice, because that's the moment we have the chance to be really different. Instead of judging ourselves, and berating ourselves, and condemning ourselves, we can be gentle with ourselves.” - Sharon Salzberg
We do this work with all the parts of ourself, the courageous and curious, but also the tentative and fearful parts. Sometimes the work happens in spite of some parts, but that feels like when the work is the most exhausting, when we’re fighting ourselves.
I’m not really one for setting resolutions, but my intention for myself and my wish for you and your creative process in 2023 is less division and more embracing of the whole, fewer battles and more journeys where all parts of you are welcome—though creativity, curiosity and trust are always the ones in charge of the destination.
