Finding creative clarity at the start of a new season

How writing a letter to my own writing reminded me how precious this exchange can be

“The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.” —Koun Yamada

I have been doing all the things. Maybe to avoid the news. Maybe to avoid my own emotions. Maybe to feel as though I’m doing something of value in the world. Or maybe, just maybe, to avoid what means the most to me.

So long as we don’t do the thing, we can still dream. Besides, if we do 100 things, at least one of them will be of value, right?

Here’s what I’ve been doing since the beginning of 2026: Teaching and managing a program in academia, hanging with friends and family, teaching writing workshops in the evenings, communicating with Unleash authors and supporting their work, sharing my own tips and tricks here, and revising my novel. Recycling and protesting. Teaching meditation.

Here’s what I have not been doing: writing.

Feeling alive and getting distracted at VSC, March ‘26

I was finding ways to reset through meditation and somatic movement, but before I arrived where I am today, at the Vermont Studio Center, I was worn down, tired and having trouble remembering everywhere I need to be, even as I instruct others to relax, trust their flow. This wariness was a result of giving more than I was allowing myself to receive.

Creatively and otherwise.

Because I’ve been so deep in revision, I have been giving myself a pass. Aside from this blog and a gratitude journal I keep, I recently realized the pile of notebooks around my house has not grown, but I told myself—eh, it’s okay because I need to focus my attention on getting publisher notes integrated and evaluating beta reader feedback.

I don’t know about you, but when I don’t write, I feel off. And I’ve felt “off” lately.

A little distracted and tired and sad. Not due to anything diagnosable so much as from a persistent confusion about the world and not enought time cathartically exploring it with my art: the expansive possibility found in words, sentences, and story.

I feel as though I should be doing more in the world and taking in less of it at the same time, but sometimes the opposite is true.

Such disconnects are often the questions that we (writers) work out on the page, in whatever genre, through whatever depth of metaphor.

So what’s a woman to do?

Busy or no, you guessed it, I started a new notebook. And while I worked during my residency, I also WROTE. New work.

Not with a plan or an aim, only with the invitation to return to the creation portion of my work. It began with a letter to my own writing. This reminds us why we do this thing, it loosens the grip external circumstances can place on our expression. It reminds us.

I invite you to try this. Over the next two weeks, write not one but two letters. One to your writing and what it offers. Another as your writing responding.

See what happens.

"The Threshold of Becoming" by Horst Von Szalghary

Prompt: Write a letter to your own writing, your own art. See what comes up. Allow your writing/art to reply. What does it have to say?

Practice and invite for paid subscribers:

Creative Potluck (rescheduled): https://luma.com/4sjqt6yz

Reflection on expectations: