Bore Yourself!
I don’t usually send out two things in a week, but then again…I don’t usually follow a set pattern of any sort sooo….here’s my best creative advice free of charge: go be bored.
I mean catastrophically bored. Sit on your couch and stare at the wall until you feel a little unhinged. And don’t ya dare journal about it afterwards!
Every writer I know is drowning in inputs. Podcasts while cooking. Newsletters on the train. Someone else’s gorgeous sentences at bedtime. We consume craft content about writing with the same compulsive energy we bring to everything else, and then we sit down at the desk and all that comes out is a vague echo of someone more interesting. Of course it does. Your brain will not give you anything new if you never shut up at it.
(I include myself in this, obviously. I have seven tabs open right now. One of them is a craft essay I saved three weeks ago and will never read. It’s fine. We’re all doing this.)
That’s where the weird stuff lives, though — in the sweet dull dark nothing of it all. It’s a thing you’d never find on a “best of” list because it came from your specific, unrepeatable boredom as opposed to someone else’s curated inspiration (no matter how tasteful and elegant.).
So! Please give yourselves like 15 MINUTES OF NOTHING so brutally dull that your imagination has no choice but to save you from it.
Byeee!
S 💙
Such great advice. Maybe it's like compulsively doing barbell curls all day. Your arms are going to be jelly, useless if you keep using them over and over and over again without rest.
wise words with spunk--and this sentence I'd like not to forget: "That’s where the weird stuff lives, though — in the sweet dull dark nothing of it all."