Thank you for this, Rachel! I totally relate right now. Same happened with Jacob's post! To me, there are two really hard moments when making a book. The first one, is right at the start: you have to define everything, and it's scary to go in the wrong direction. The second one is when I've already spent a great amount of time in the book, and I want to finish! But the book is not ready yet! And I keep getting corrections, and I don't know if I'll ever finish! And I'm tired, and I want to work on something else... That's where my personal drowning goes wild. I'm right there, using discipline as my life saver to keep myself afloat.
YES!!! Oh my goodness, same -- I’m at the beginningish of the second book where the possibilities are open. Which is exciting and terrifying. Decision fatigue is at its highest at this point for me. And it can be frustrating and scary to go down one road and then realize it sucks 😂 I’m trying to get better at telling myself it is all part of the process and just because it sucks doesn’t mean I suck. Once I get my expectations in the right place, this phase of the process can be so fun. The trick is getting there haha
I know!!! This book has been just like that! I'd been trying out different ideas for books to show to editors in the States. My agent wasn't convinced by any of them... so I kept on working on possible books that didn't stick for a while. Until the idea for this book came to me as I worked on another one. I've redrawn, and redirected it many times (6!). I can now see every try and error was necessary for the book to be better. But I'm truly tired!
I’m so honored to be a part of this newsletter and more importantly that some of the thoughts rattling around in my brain helped spur you on. I am digging where you ended up on trusting yourself. Good stuff! And good luck with that 2nd book. Rooting you on!!
Thank you so much, Jacob! I appreciated your newsletter a lot because I’m grappling with that part of the creative process. Though I am so grateful for my book deals, I wasn’t anticipating how much the added pressure would affect my creative process 😛 Previously, I’ve learned to use anxiety as fuel for my creativity and I think now I’m learning how pressure can enhance the process as well. And your post helped me see that — the idea that the flailing is good for pushing our brains out of their normal patterns. So I guess I’m trying to learn how to embrace the uncomfortable as an essential part of the process instead of resist it. Which takes a lot of self analysis and processing 😂 Anyway, my point is — thanks for sharing your experience! It helped me with mine.
I hear you 💯... I’m with you on it being a sign of being in uncharted waters and learning to live with it while we kind of stretch our creative muscles. I think just knowing that it’s stressful is kinda helpful too. The outside expectation of creative stuff is that it’s fun and zen or something. 😂
Yes! That is so true -- it is very romanticized. That might be why I’m thinking “am I drowning?” Because my expectations of what the process “should” be are off. So like you said, even knowing it is stressful helps!
"What if I only feel like I’m drowning because when I jump into the risky deep end of creativity, I forget that I can actually swim?" Great article, Rachel!
This is the HARDEST thing to do—trusting and training ourselves to flounder, find, collect, and swim. It's like those pool games where you dive to the bottom to collect different colored rings. ha!
Yes!! That’s a great analogy -- and sometimes as I’m swimming, I’m like, “shouldn’t I be able to retrieve the thing faster? Shouldn’t I be better?” And then I stress myself out 😂 If i can just train myself to be like, “I will retrieve the thing at the bottom of the pool eventually.” Trust man, it’s hard 😂
Thank you for this, Rachel! I totally relate right now. Same happened with Jacob's post! To me, there are two really hard moments when making a book. The first one, is right at the start: you have to define everything, and it's scary to go in the wrong direction. The second one is when I've already spent a great amount of time in the book, and I want to finish! But the book is not ready yet! And I keep getting corrections, and I don't know if I'll ever finish! And I'm tired, and I want to work on something else... That's where my personal drowning goes wild. I'm right there, using discipline as my life saver to keep myself afloat.
YES!!! Oh my goodness, same -- I’m at the beginningish of the second book where the possibilities are open. Which is exciting and terrifying. Decision fatigue is at its highest at this point for me. And it can be frustrating and scary to go down one road and then realize it sucks 😂 I’m trying to get better at telling myself it is all part of the process and just because it sucks doesn’t mean I suck. Once I get my expectations in the right place, this phase of the process can be so fun. The trick is getting there haha
I know!!! This book has been just like that! I'd been trying out different ideas for books to show to editors in the States. My agent wasn't convinced by any of them... so I kept on working on possible books that didn't stick for a while. Until the idea for this book came to me as I worked on another one. I've redrawn, and redirected it many times (6!). I can now see every try and error was necessary for the book to be better. But I'm truly tired!
Congrats on enduring! It really is a marathon 😂
😂 it is!
I’m so honored to be a part of this newsletter and more importantly that some of the thoughts rattling around in my brain helped spur you on. I am digging where you ended up on trusting yourself. Good stuff! And good luck with that 2nd book. Rooting you on!!
Thank you so much, Jacob! I appreciated your newsletter a lot because I’m grappling with that part of the creative process. Though I am so grateful for my book deals, I wasn’t anticipating how much the added pressure would affect my creative process 😛 Previously, I’ve learned to use anxiety as fuel for my creativity and I think now I’m learning how pressure can enhance the process as well. And your post helped me see that — the idea that the flailing is good for pushing our brains out of their normal patterns. So I guess I’m trying to learn how to embrace the uncomfortable as an essential part of the process instead of resist it. Which takes a lot of self analysis and processing 😂 Anyway, my point is — thanks for sharing your experience! It helped me with mine.
I hear you 💯... I’m with you on it being a sign of being in uncharted waters and learning to live with it while we kind of stretch our creative muscles. I think just knowing that it’s stressful is kinda helpful too. The outside expectation of creative stuff is that it’s fun and zen or something. 😂
Yes! That is so true -- it is very romanticized. That might be why I’m thinking “am I drowning?” Because my expectations of what the process “should” be are off. So like you said, even knowing it is stressful helps!
"What if I only feel like I’m drowning because when I jump into the risky deep end of creativity, I forget that I can actually swim?" Great article, Rachel!
Thank you so much, Taylor!
This is the HARDEST thing to do—trusting and training ourselves to flounder, find, collect, and swim. It's like those pool games where you dive to the bottom to collect different colored rings. ha!
Yes!! That’s a great analogy -- and sometimes as I’m swimming, I’m like, “shouldn’t I be able to retrieve the thing faster? Shouldn’t I be better?” And then I stress myself out 😂 If i can just train myself to be like, “I will retrieve the thing at the bottom of the pool eventually.” Trust man, it’s hard 😂