It's been nice to step off the world for a bit. I love writing and sharing, in this newsletter, on my blog, on my Substack, but it's also nice to not have content creation on the forefront of my weekly creative plans. What I once would have called the winter blahs, I saw instead described on Threads as the winter lulls, and I loved it so much I adopted it immediately.
I'm not in the doldrums, I'm just in a quiet season. I don't have writers block, I'm just taking time rest and gather my creative energy for the spring explosion I know is just around the corner. Like the time I adopted
“learning turns” as a mindset in place of “mistake” or “wrong turn”, this slight shift of wording has been incredibly powerful in giving myself grace in a season where creating, photographing, writing, sharing, doesn't always come easily.
Instead, I've enjoyed having a clean craft room. I've read thirteen books this month, a bit less than one every two days. I've been off exploring and spending precious time with my rapidly growing family. And in between all that, I've slowly gathered ideas; not to start immediately, but to chuck on what I've sen referred to as the
creative compost heap. There, I've left them to mellow, take in air and sunlight, absorb goodness from what's below them and also feed what is to come next. And what a splendid little garden I think that heap is going to grow. I have a camera roll full of screenshots of offhanded comments I've made on various blogs and substacks; comments I wrote from the heart and then when I looked back at them, I could see a kernel of an idea that could become something bigger.
I think that's one of the true joys of creating, reading, engaging with long form content. On Friday, I jumped on a video call to be interviewed for
The Blogging Room about my blog, and my thoughts on the shifts that have occurred over the sixteen years I've been sharing long form content online. We talked about the immediacy of social media interactions, compared with the slow, but often more in-depth, conversations that can come from a blog comments section (or a substacks comment section). We have time to think, consider; think some more as we wait on a reply. Long form content, as both a reader and a creator, gives us space to breathe and let the little mojo worms work their way through our creative compost heaps.
This week marks back to real life - school, content, chores, the weekly rhythm of which-kid-goes-where-and-when, the daily debate of if I really do need a third cup of coffee at noon. In between, I'm hoping to steal a slice of time to turn over the pile and start sketching ideas in my creative brain dump book. I need to do some pruning as well; the current projects box and the on-going projects box and the current focus basket and the right now trolley (yes all of those are very different levels of immediacy) all are in need of some TLC to empty, reorganise, reprioritise. Come spring, there will be projects sprouting all over the place, and I will be thankful I embraced a period of rest to give those projects space at the idea stage, ready to let them flourish.
