Time to stop starving your creativity?
You probably know I start every week with The Writing Room. Anyone on my mailing list (that’s you), any friend, anyone in my community is welcome to join for the full two hours or just a few minutes and write together. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. There are no ‘have to’s at all. It’s time for you to do whatever you want and need to do. We unmute for a chat at the end – and today the subject of notebooks came up. Specifically, what does and doesn’t go into them.
I’m not the only person in the Writing Room who’s caught themselves starving their notebook. Today I heard all the usual reasons I’ve so often given myself – like how beautiful the notebook is, how we don’t want to diminish it, how we want what we finally write to be worthy. So today I compared that beautiful notebook to a friendship, a relationship, a pet, a sibling: to anyone and everyone you love.
“I didn’t want to bother you…” or “I know how busy you are”… might have good intentions. But however good the intentions, the truth is that it’s starving – instead of feeding – the relationship.
The offer I made today is this:
See your notebook as a Tamagotchi. One of those digital dog or cat programmes you keep alive by remembering to feed, and stroke, and do all the things it needs. It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about showing up.
What happens if we don’t show up for our Tamagotchi? The same things happens with the non-biological creature as would happen with the biological one. RIP.
Tamagotchi’s aren’t really alive. Neither, necessarily, are notebooks. We can’t kill something in the literal sense by not showing up for them. But there are deeper truths than the literal, and creative confidence is all about working out the courage and specificity of what you want to create in order to begin creating it. Which, on the page and in the world, starts with a first draft. Not a perfect thing in your head, but an imperfect thing in the world.
Our notebooks, like our relationships, are healthier for being fed and stroked than being held back from – however good we think our intentions are in holding back. The braver thing, the thing the world outside our head gets more out of, is us daring to show up.
A Creative I-Dare-You: What if my notebook or computer is my Tamagotchi?
It’s not about how much or how perfectly you show up for it. It’s just about showing up.