Growing Your Soul
A personal detour into creativity
If you’re new here, welcome to Kindling! I’m glad you took the time to explore this space. Today, I write about my personal struggles with slowing down, and the effect that finally doing so is having on my creative life, but usually, I write about books, stories, and dark fiction.
I like to read about creative people’s processes, and because I write, I’m particularly drawn to writers. I know I’m not alone here. In interview after interview, authors are asked the question: where do you get your ideas? Followed by questions about routines and methods for dealing with writer’s block. I’m endlessly fascinated by the answers, but deep down I think I know what I’m doing. I’m hoping that if I arrange my desk just like Ray Bradbury, or wake up at 2 a.m. like Octavia Butler, or write six pages a day like Stephen King, I too will be a writer.
Of course we know I’m already a writer, because while unpublished save Substack, and despite the fact that I have yet to finish any of my novels, I do indeed write. Almost everyday. For years, I simply wanted to be a writer. I thought about how my life would look when I was one. I pictured endless hours of inspired typing or scribbling in journals. One day. When life slowed down.
News flash. It doesn’t. As it turns out, writing is as much spiritual practice, discipline, work, as anything else in life. Given the option, I nearly always choose Netflix or chatting with my mom or cleaning the house. So a couple of years ago, I removed the option. Told myself that the nagging urge I have to write is more important than a perfectly clean house or that pointless show I won’t remember in two weeks.
And it worked. I started setting aside time to work on my stories. I picked up my journal and started scribbling down thoughts instead of just grocery lists. In the paraphrased words of Kurt Vonnegut, I started growing my soul.
Then I started to do what I always do. The thing that the Internet is primed to do with creative people. I started to treat my writing like content instead of that soul growing exercise. The truth is, I’ve been getting exhausted with writing here, wondering if I’m boring all of you as much as I’m boring myself, and it all has to do with going paid. Worrying about this newsletter and if it’s providing value to you readers.
And all that worrying has got me treating writing like an endless to-do list. Funny how sometimes the vehicle for escape can morph into the very thing you were running away from. The addict gives up drinking and takes up running, only to end up just as addicted and disillusioned (but with a healthier heart) at the end of their 20th marathon.
I’ve been feeling off for a couple of months, but sharply so in the last couple of weeks. It got to the point that I wondered if I was on the wrong track altogether, if maybe I shouldn’t have turned on paid subscriptions after all. I wanted to retreat back into my pre-Substack writing days to capture those first couple of years I had writing for no one but myself. So I considered it. I would just refund the money to my precious few paying subscribers, and keep Substack as my every-once-in-a-while outlet, a place where I can connect with people and share thoughts and stories whenever I felt like.
I almost committed to that. And then, I wrote out what was really bothering me.
As it turns out, what is REALLY bothering me is that I have seven nagging novel ideas. Seven. Two of them I started, but ended up halfway through with no idea where the story should go, so I abandoned them both. Since then, five others have popped up and won’t let go. The idea that I am spending time creating content rather than writing (and I do think there is a big difference by the way) got to me. I didn’t start this newsletter to be another content creator (and I have to say I love content creators and consume it happily and regularly. I just don’t enjoy the process of doing it myself). I started it to write. And not to write just anything. Since I’m not getting paid for this by some big company or magazine, I started this to grow my freaking soul, and to meet like-minded individuals.
So last week, I decided to do something I never do. I decided to work on an outline for my novel. I got a sketchbook and read through that first novel that I started over two years ago now. There are some good bones, but it’s missing a lot. I needed to think it through.
I grabbed a sharpie, a symbol of commitment, permanency, writing without fear. If I was going to outline, I was going to do it my way, which means blabbering on down each story trail to see where each one leads, putting down the questions and arguments in favor. I have always been somewhat repulsed by the idea of planning a story, preferring the nervous excitement I get when I sit down and start. Why, you ask? Because I’m impatient. I am the person who, rather than sharpening the ax to chop down the tree, would rather get to work swinging that dull thing until it falls, even if it takes me five times as long. Idiotic, I know.
I am a picture of the always-in-a-rush American, the person who accomplishes much at the cost of my happiness. Part of that stems from having kids and a job and dogs, but part of that is embedded in our culture. If you are not doing, producing, making money, then your venture is not worth it. We don’t do soul growing in America. Look at the meditation and yoga industries to see what I mean. Constant competition. Constant growth. Money baby. Money.
Taking the time to work through my novel this week has gone like this:
I decided to work at night, after my family is in bed. It is the only guaranteed time I have to work everyday. I decided that I would enjoy it. I put on music, make a cup of tea, look out the window, think. If it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come. But it has been, slowly. I’m only a week in, and I’m starting to feel that familiar pull again. I’m remembering what made me want to start this newsletter again. And I’m realizing that what made me want to stop has nothing to do with the commitment or the writing. It has to do with thinking of this work as a product.
That’s not to say that thinking about it that way is bad, only that it was bad for me. It’s self-defeating to my own process and creativity. I have to prioritize the journey to get the kind of writing I’m looking for, not the other way around.
Today I bought a fountain pen, another protest to my productivity obsessed brain, a reminder to slow down and think. Play. Muddle around like we did as kids when we first experienced creating something and thought that maybe we could one day be writers. Or artists. Dancers. Business owners. Veterinarians. The world as we know it would like to convince us that we always have to be on. Producing. Getting results. Maybe at work you do. But when you come to the page, you come just as you are. You open your heart to the world, put the pen to paper, and write.
In celebration of my newfound routine, I want to extend an invitation to you. To relax more. Get quiet. Listen to music. Read. Sit outside. Drink something nice. Spend a ridiculous amount of time making a good meal. These are the moments we can’t get back, the ones we are missing by being so busy. The ones you have to catch, dig into, burn into your memory, so you can write it on a page and remind someone else that life is more than endless tasks. Go against the grain. Get happy. Lord knows we aren’t going to get rich ;)
Do you make time for creating in your life? Do you prioritize reading or music? How do you enjoy life despite the busyness?
The substack manifesto everyone wanted but no one knew the words for. Thank you for this.
I finished a novel in 2016, got a good agent quickly, which misled me into thinking all would go smoothly. The novel didn't sell. I revised and revised until my agent retired. I couldn't find another agent for the book so I put it aside. Writing that novel was really hard and emotionally draining. I started writing on Substack about 18 months ago and find it a source of real joy. I like the finality of a post. And I think I'm writing with greater confidence as the months roll on.
I'm scared of re-entering the world of fiction, especially a novel. I may have Post Novel Stress Disorder. That said, I'm tempted to start with a short story sometime before year end. This doesn't answer your question. But I thought it might be useful to you, nevertheless. I hope you continue this substack and I'd be eager to read a novel that you wrote.