Setting a place at the table for fear. (And for joy.)
A top-down view of a tealight, small wooden hearts, and a mug of pens atop a colourful table runner.
The client on my screen is nervous.
She keeps looking away, touching her cropped hair. We’ve been talking for months, and it’s not usually like this. We have a beautiful conversational flow. She talks about her writing process with nuance and clarity. She knows her creative wounds, her sources of joy, and where she gets stuck.
She has so much power.
This nervousness is new.
But I get it. She’s doing something for the first time. She’s finally letting me read her work.
Writing is a big thing, and then sharing our writing is another big thing.
It seems like they’re one thing but they’re not. When we share, we’re letting ourselves be seen in a whole other way than in everyday life. We’re opening ourselves to critique and rejection. We all have so many reasons not to.
Here’s some of what I hear:
If I share and it goes badly, I’ll lose my confidence.
My story might be too sad for other people to handle.
People will think I’m petty for writing about my little life when more important things are happening in the world.
The person I’m writing about will be angry or hurt.
I might not be as good at this as I think.
Do you see yourself in any of those? Or do you have a different flavour?
This is so real.
Anyone who tells you there’s a quick fix for fear is distancing themselves from the raw edge of creative risk. But — our fear isn’t the end of our story.
Over the years I’ve learned to expect my writing fear, to not be surprised by it. I treat it with care, like a beloved old pet who snores and sometimes needs to poop in the middle of the night. It’s not great. But it’s still part of the family.
This is what the writer and I have been working on. And here we are.
I remember walking home after sharing my first big piece of writing.
It was an art book that blended memories and photos about a hospitalization in my 20s. I created it in a state of pure fear and flow, hunched over my kitchen table in my basement apartment. Finally, it was time. I read it to my class in a rush of exhilaration and then walked home along Bloor Street kicking snowbanks and watching the explosions of white fill the sky.
The story had lived inside me for so long. Letting it out made me feel unstoppable. And — by the time I got home I was scared again. (“Did they really like it?” “What if I have nothing left to say?”)
So we continue. We write another little thing. We find someone to share it with. We walk the bridge from fear to ecstasy and back again. There’s room for all of it.
I thought this newsletter was finished, but then we had our team retreat this past weekend.
We were talking about what value we want to work from in 2026, especially as we get ready to launch our new membership site. (More on that soon!)
The thing that kept coming up was joy. This was a surprise to me. A lot of us on the team have had a hard year. It’s a strange time to gravitate towards joy. But all weekend, we kept playing silly games and laughing our heads off at each other’s jokes and I started to realize something new — joy has wisdom. Beauty has logic. We need that, and the growth it invites us into.
This isn’t “put on a happy face” joy or “dry those tears” joy, it’s the deeper kind that bubbles up out of the ground, that explodes in fireworks of snow or laughter. The kind of joy that naturally greets us when we meet our fear, and keep moving.
I realized — when we set a place at the table for fear, joy slips in the door, whether we like it or not. We may as well set a place for it too.
As our winter workshop groups come together, this is my wish for you.
I wish you deep and gentle patience with all your creative fears, small and enormous.
I wish you the unexpected explosions of joy that can come on the other side of fear when we meet it with courage.
I wish you people who can lift you out of the tangle and show you your own possibility.
Hungry for some company in all this hard work?
We’d love to write with you. Here are ways how.
Winter Workshops Galore
We opened these last week and some have filled but lots still have space!
Keep Your Pen Moving is a classic Firefly workshop for anyone whose stuck and craving movement.
There are two online, one-day programs for and by BIPOC coming up.
The Big One — our longest, deepest class yet — is open for applications until November 24.
We have something very big in the works
My next newsletter will be to introduce you to something we’ve been working on all year — a membership program called (name in progress) Fireside.
We could not stop talking about it at our team retreat this weekend. It will include monthly writing sessions, special events galore, a resource library with all the goodies you’ve been asking for, and many more weird and sweet gifts from us to you.
More soon! Can’t wait!
A poem for you
Ada Limón does it again, check out her poem “On Earth As It Is On Earth” or let me read it to you.
The writer finishes her piece, and then she can’t stop laughing.
I’m captivated and enchanted by the piece, and I think about it for days. But mostly, I’m so moved that I got to witness this big moment.
Better yet — she emails me the next day, tells me she feels so good that she’s sending it to someone else to read too.
Fear plus courage equals joy. And, usually, even more courage. I’m here for all of it.
In it with you,
P.S. The client I’ve written about here is a composite of a couple of clients, to preserve privacy.