It’s okay to feel bored with your writing. Actually, it’s perfect.
A ball of blue yarn with a wooden heart on top.
Hellooooo beautiful human.
I read once that my Myers-Briggs personality type (ENFJ) struggles in romantic relationships because we can so clearly see the ideal of human connection… but human connection doesn’t live in ideals. It’s hard to be with the muddy, daily work of routines and miscommunications and vacuuming when we’re exploding with the potential for deep soul connection. I was like — “Well. That explains a lot.”
This helped me to understand my relationship to writing too. Sometimes the essence of a piece, the place I know it can go if I could just get it there, is so real that the many slow steps towards it feel… off. Laborious. Beside the point. The humility of that first draft can just about drown me.
At Firefly, we’re going through a period of deep dreaming. There are new classes in the works, new ways of using the internet, and The Big Dream — a cozy, rural retreat space. Imagine string lights over a big harvest table piled with food, cricket calls in the air, little bouquets by all the beds… That dream! It’s so seductive.
And meanwhile, the realities, Oh My Lord. Confusing zoning bylaws, soaring property prices, reams of unanswered questions. It feels a LOT like the long, confusing journey towards a finished writing project…. And the drippy dish racks and piles of laundry that make a shared home. It’s so much work.
I have a note above my desk right now. It’s American writer Cormac McCarthy, who said:
“Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.”
The world lies waiting. Thank you, Cormac.
Here’s my take: As writers, we need to dream. It is required. We need to always be thinking wider, pushing down walls, looking to the sky. And, to work towards those dreams, we need mountains of patience, deep breaths, belief in ourselves, and, when possible, actual love for all those messy and inconvenient details.
The world is in those mortgage rates.
The world is in the sentence that won’t sit still.
The world is in the foamy oval of toothpaste in the sink.
Of course you’re going to get bored. The dream gets you out the door but it doesn’t walk with you for every step. The real, actual work exists in the in-between, in the not knowing, in the imposter syndrome, the awkwardness. Those things aren’t beside the point. They’re the heart of it.
While we’re on the topic, want to know what we’re dreaming about right now? It’s partly the shake-up of the pandemic and partly the amazing chemistry of our newest team members — but we have a lot of new things cooking. Here’s a taste:
A week-long intensive writing experience called something like “Push Week” to rocket projects forward.
A workshop for people whose first language isn’t English, about finding voice and freedom on the page.
A Stay at Home Retreat specifically for BIPOC or racialized writers.
Several new time slots for Morning Coffee Sessions this fall, including a “bedtime session” on Friday evenings.
A poetry workshop for kids and caregivers to do together.
A workshop for speakers of Urdu about appreciating and experimenting with Urdu poetry.
A multi-week program focused on trying on new writing habits to see what sticks.
A new version of Begin Here in Spanish.
… That’s just some of it. As these dreams land and find their way, I’ll share lots more details.
Thanks for being here, for dreaming and walking alongside us, in the big and the small, the glory and the muck. Here’s to all of it.
In it with you,
