Oh Hey, All Of a Sudden There's More Time to Write (A Love Letter)
What chaos brings.
It helps me enormously if you drop a heart on this newsletter, forward it to a friend, or share it on social media. Or subscribe to get me in your inbox! And I adore comments! I love hearing from you, so you can hit reply and email me any time. Writing these newsletters is part of how I make a living as a writer, so I welcome paid subscriptions, too.
Hi lovies,
It’s a hella crazy world out there. I’m sure you’ve noticed.
I have, in spades. But what I’ve also noticed is that lots of people I’m talking to are turning away from the crazy. Ignoring the chaos. Turning away from following every in and out of the news. And—gasp—even turning away from social media.
I am firm in my resolve to not obsess about the news. That does not mean that I’m always successful. When the L.A. fires were raging, I watched way more news then I had been. But by and large, I’ve been pretty good about it. And I’m not ignoring everything. I’m not sticking my head beneath a pillow, closing my eyes and plugging my ears. I zip through the headlines and dip into an article here and there. And, trust me, I have friends and family to keep me informed although I confess I do sometimes zone out. (Sorry, people I love.)
And this crazy thing has happened. I have more time to write. Huh. How about that. And I have more time to stitch, and knit, and I bought a sketchbook. And I’ve used it a few times! True true, I am teaching the Artist’s Way, and that definitely has an effect on my creativity.
But allowing your creativity to bloom depends on having time to do it. And what I’m discovering now is that it’s not about having time, it’s about making time. Duh. I think I knew this all along, but technology made me forget it.
And so, despite the craziness, I feel expansive in a way I haven’t in a long time. Here’s the deal, and this is important, especially for those of you who still feel stuck in the doom scrolling rabbit hole. I know a lot of us are still struggling to find our focus these days.
It doesn’t happen all at once and you don’t have to expect it to.
Because there’s this wonderful thing called momentum, which starts to accrue when you take the babiest of baby steps.
Set down your phone, pick up your journal, and write. A sentence, a paragraph, a page. Doesn’t have to be much. Open the door and step outside for a walk. (Get a dog. That’ll get you out the door rain or shine.) Go to the end of the driveway and back and call it good.
Before you know it, your brain will send you an idea you need to note. You’ll look up from your desk when the sun is shining and think, hmm, a walk sounds like a good idea. (Trust me, I never thought this would happen to me when I was in pain prior to knee surgery. But miraculously, it does these days.) You’ll snap a photo of moss on the sidewalk while you’re out walking and come home and sketch it.
Baby steps, people.
Heather Demetrios calls this microdosing creativity and since I have a friend who just tried microdosing mushrooms for her depression, I like this idea. We’ve been talking about this in the Artist’s Way class as well. You don’t have to reorganize your entire office all at once, maybe just shop for an inbox for your loose papers. (No surprise, this is what I need.) Bake some cookies, repot a plant, or even just trim the dead leaves off one.
Slowly, step by step, we find our way back to our creative selves, as Julia Cameron would say. And as we do, it is easier to tune out the noise. So, hey—chaos is good for something after all.
Love, light, and good writing,
Charlotte
P.S. How are you doing these days? Hit reply and tell me or leave a comment.
Books
We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman. This is the first book in a new series by the author of the beloved Thursday Night Murder Club, which I never got into. But I like this one a lot. Main characters are Steve, a cop who has retired to a small English town where he lives with his cat Trouble, and grieves his wife. The other is Amy, his daughter-in-law, who lives for the adrenaline her job in private security allows her. The chapter in which Steve is introduced is a master class in showing setting and character. I’m really enjoying this one.
Marie Howe, New and Selected Poems, by Marie Howe. I’m not a poet and I get a bit squiggly about poetry because I always feel I’m not quite smart enough or literary enough to “get” it. But I’ve recently discovered the work of Howe (I know, late to the party) and I love her. She’s got a bunch of separate collections and I’ve got them all on hold at the library but this is her most recent and probably the most representative. 2025 is full of surprises, and discovering a poet whose work I want to delve deeply into is one of them.
Resources and Articles
Tips for focus when the world is on fire. (Relevant to the theme of this newsletter.)
The end of blurbs as we know them? Simon and Schuster head says yes.
Nice guide to organizing a rewrite.
Barbara O’Neal on procrastination.
Workshops in England and France
Information, including dates and cost, for our 2025 England workshops is now listed on our website. And heads up! Due to distractions beyond our control, we’ve moved the deadline for the early-bird discount to December 1. (Commit today with a promise to send the deposit and you’ve got it.) We’ve had several writers indicate strong interest in joining and a couple of sign-ups already, so we recommend registering soon.
I’ve just updated our France page as well!
And if you want a taste of the adventure that awaits, you can read my posts about this year here, and here, here, here, and here.
Other places to connect with me:
My website (badly in need of an upgrade)
Our workshop website
My original blog (now for archive purposes only, no longer updated, but damn there are a lot of articles on it)
Have a great week, everybody.
You nailed it again, Charlotte. You made me realize I’ve been following every horrible thing as it happens as if I am holding up the world. It is a fine line between staying informed and jumping in head first.
Thx also for your links to the articles about novels being like puzzle pieces (amen), procrastination (Queen of that here), and reorganizing a novel (you know that hit home for me). I don’t promise I’ll change my ways right away but at least I’ll be more aware of myself.
I am in the same situation and can get easily sucked into doomscrolling way too much, filling myself with dread and anxiety which are true destroyers of creativity. I also absorb the anxiety of others as I am a sensitive, empathetic person. I feel for the American people. I feel for all of us in North America and the world, too.
But in the meantime, we have to enjoy our lives and live each day as best we can. Embracing creativity and enjoying small moments of beauty are so important. I'm enjoying your Artist's Way course. Guess I'd better get at those morning pages and I need to think of a topic for my in person memoir class next week.
Happy Sunday, Charlotte and all from snowy Ottawa up in Canada!