the Inspirited Word

Writers tend to have a mixed relationship with silence (either literal or more internal). On the one hand, we sometimes crave more of it, as a way to make space for the words we’re trying to coax onto the page. When those words don’t flow, though, silence can feel more like an enemy—like a space filled with nothing but our own hypervigilant expectations about our work.But what if you could make silence a true ally and co-creator in your creative practice? What if instead of having to fill the silence (or avoid it), you just needed to meet it, with no expectations?Maybe that sounds easier said than done. But this month, some insights from a memoir about life in a convent are giving me a few new and surprisingly simple ideas to reshape the role of silence in my writing—and I think they might help you, too._____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____Episode links:The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong

This month on the pod, I’m going to be doing something that is sometimes considered obnoxiously gauche and self-obsessed—I’m going to tell you about a totally weird dream I had (two totally weird dreams, actually).These dreams fall into the category of what you might call “big dreams.” In Jungian psychology, a big dream is a basically one that feels transpersonal. It’s made up of images and symbols that are clearly archetypal. And it comes to us with a big message, something that can shift and shape our process of becoming ourselves.Join me as I share one of the creative secrets I learned from these big dreams: the difference between writing for an “audience” and writing for the “holy crowd.”_____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____Episode links:Episode 9: Hearth and horizonweb link (no timestamp, skip to 1:27)AppleSpotifyOvercastEpisode 11: Telling the story that breathesweb link (no timestamp, skip to 2:24)AppleSpotifyOvercast

This month on the pod, I’m going to be giving you a little creative pep talk about two things:Why your consistent creativity matters, even if you’re not publicly prolificA practical way to reach the level of consistency that feels right for your practiceAfter February’s episode on managing the overwhelm of productivity culture, I wanted to dig deeper into something specific that surfaced – the creative ideal of being prolific.How can you escape the productivity ethos but still commit to creating more meaningful work (both in the sense of making stuff that captures deep meaning, and also in the sense of making that kind of stuff more often)?I guess if last month was me talking shit about productivity, then this month is my follow-up on how to rehabilitate an aspect of it.Tune in for three steps to nurture a more consistent creative practice – without getting sucked into the productivity trap._____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____Episode links:Rachael Stephen, How to NOT f ** k up your creativity for a decade (YouTube)Kening Zhu, botanical studies of internet magic podcast10. sharing your work as creative release17. transcendence of a productivity addictElizabeth Jarrett AndrewMarch 2025 newsletterThe Release

This month, something very strange happened. I found myself researching a biz-bro productivity hack for writers... and actually wanting to try it.How did this come to pass? In these manically trying times, it’s been feeling especially hard to avoid getting flooded with information and content – to actually integrate what I’m taking in, instead of being swept up. And ironically, this productivity system might be a way to do just that.So, does this mean my long-running, deep-seated distrust of creative productivity culture may be misguided? Am I going to pivot to being a prolific, write-and-post-every-day kind of writer? Meh, I still don’t think so.There’s nothing wrong with being prolific – but there’s nothing inherently good about it, either. Being prolific requires the courage to speak, but speaking well requires making space for deep and surprising thought. Sometimes it requires prioritizing slowness over productiveness.I think the line between expression and noise comes down to two concepts that sound similar, but are ultimately opposed: “next actions” and “next right things.” And it’s very easy to mistake one for the other.But when you get it right, you unlock the potential to reclaim what’s truly meaningful to you (no productivity system needed)._____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____Episode links:Bob Doto“The Spirit of Productivity: Channeling Inspiration Into Doing What Matters Most”A System for WritingMain blog“Information Dysregulation: This New Term is Changing Everything,” Taylor Heaton (YouTube)“Do the Next Right Thing: Carl Jung on How to Live,” Maria Popova, The Marginalian“Slow productivity is a team sport: A critique of Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity,” Meredith Farkas, Information Wants to be Free

It's January! And regardless of how you feel about the whole “new year, new you” vibe, January is the ultimate case study of goal-setting in the wider cultural zeitgeist. Maybe you’ve tried the often-hyped approach of choosing a word to act as a mantra or touchstone to guide you over the course of the year.Tools like a word of the year can be powerful reminders of the ways you want to feel and act along the path toward your ideals – but only if they also help you stay curious about that path, and about your actual life, as it exists right now.This year, what if we all chose questions rather than words? A question is a reminder to keep going deeper, to explore how our ideals are emerging and evolving in the moment.And for storytellers, the art of asking good questions is maybe the most important gift, even more than the art of writing pretty words.Tune in for some support and solidarity to nurture your creative potential in the months ahead (regardless of how all those goals turn out)._____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____Episode links:On Being podcast: “Foundations for Being Alive Now,” Krista TippettHannah Louise PostonEpisode 10, “Freedom with form (Or, story structure for optimists)”

I allude pretty clearly to my political leanings on the podcast, but I don’t generally structure entire episodes around specific political issues. And I do like for this to be a kind of quiet space where you can come to recollect your creative self, whatever’s going on in the world and in your life.But I decided it wouldn’t feel genuine to not talk about the fallout of the US election this month. Because it’s certainly affected my creative practice, and I’d imagine that may be true for you as well.I’ve realized that the practical aims of the election, and of politics as a whole, have had the effect of substituting a desired strategic outcome for what I actually desire in my life and in this world. Basically, I’ve lost touch with my longing.And the most immediate and vital way I can reconnect with my longing in the daily way I live is to live creatively – to let my creative sensibility feed and shape the way I interact with others, and the actions I take.Join me to explore a model of storytelling (from the mind of Ursula Le Guin) that’s been giving me hope and nurturing my creative longing... even when the strategic outlook isn’t so inspiring._____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____Episode links:Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”

This month, sort of in honor of Halloween and sort of just because, I want to share and explore a single phrase about writing that has been inspiring me lately:Your characters are your ancestors.This idea unlocks all sorts of potential for me – but I admit that it also feels a little overly sentimental. Even for creatives, there can be disdain around ways of thinking about writing that feel precious instead of practical. There’s a sense that while of course art is magical in its way, your perspective on your own work better not be, or you risk being naïve and unserious.And it’s not like there’s zero truth to that. When you get too precious about every word that hits the page, you can’t work through projects, and you can’t keep improving.But magical thinking doesn’t necessarily have to lead to precious thinking – I’d actually say that in the creative life, you have to find ways to maintain a strong dose of it if you want to thrive.And in that sense, magical thinking can be practical magic.Tune in to unpack how a magical mindset can help even Very Serious Writers do deep and liberating creative work._____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____

Today’s pod is coming to you from the messy middle of something I’ve been mulling over for a long time. Something I don’t have a tagline for yet, but that still feels worth sharing, in all its in-process, still-forming glory.If there’s anything I believe in, it’s the power and necessity of creative expression. But I’m going to be talking this month about the limitations of story – the ways that turning our life experiences into stories can maybe keep us from actually living what we experience.One way to think about the role of storytelling is that stories are maps – ways of navigating the stuff of life. And as maps, stories are representations of something bigger and deeper than any single narrative can encompass.Or, to borrow a commonly used phrase: The map is not the territory.This feels pretty self-evident… until you realize how deeply story maps are ingrained into the way you think about how your life is supposed to happen, and what kind of meaning you’re supposed to make out of what happens.This month, let’s get real about navigating with story maps (and when it might be time to get a bit lost instead)._____If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox._____Episode links:Marisa Goudy, KnotWork Storytelling: A Story About Getting Unstoried | S5 Ep12Feminist takes on the Hero’s Journey modelUrsula K. Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”The Heroine Journeys Project, a website that includes summaries of some of the major feminist responses to Joseph Campbell’s theory