As you can easily imagine by receiving this discussion thread instead of my usual missive, this week I am once again falling short of ideas — or thoughts given the title of my newsletter — I can confidently write about.
Quite frankly, I think the problem is beyond not having any compelling brainwaves to send out. The issue is more like I have the thoughts but they are jammed up, too tangled to make sense when I lay them out. It’s the first time it happens since starting this accountability project back in November 2021 and I feel quite disappointed in myself. Still I am trying not to let it bring me down and fuel my impostor syndrome.
I opened my note app three times, then I switched to Pages, then I tried to write directly on the Substack backend yet everything that flowed out of my finger tips just didn’t seem up to par. It didn’t live up to my standard. Even as I am writing this, I feel like I lost my magic.
I re-wrote, edited and spaced back on the text more times that I ever have before. So at last, after two days of trying hard to pontificate on my weekly opinions, I decided to take the high road and not send my newsletter, to focus on other stuff. For example, I spent some quality time with my boyfriend and applied myself in the kitchen by making delicious Middle Eastern food and zesty sandwiches with this incredible preserved lemon paste we found at the local super market. I hung out of the window and enjoyed the little glimpse of warm sun that have been peaking in and out of the cloud-veiled Nyc sky over the past few days.
Yesterday morning, I read the gruesome news that a madman in a mask and an orange vest injured around 20 people by throwing tear gas and then shooting people on the train during rush hour. That was the last straw that took away my ability to write.
Anyways, this started as a discussion thread but I digressed and, I guess, turned it into a semi-newsletter?
My intention, however, was to ask for your help/support to help me get out of this writer’s block or inability to be satisfied with anything you do creatively. So please, answer these questions for me:
1.What do you do when you feel uninspired and your creativity is tangled up and no amount of metaphorical conditioner can help it unravel?
2. And then again, what do you do to not feel like a total loser when this feeling keeps on?
Beautiful newsletter, I feel like your lack of inspiration is the fact that something you don’t feel like doing it. And it sounds like an inspiration to write about the act of not feeling inspired.
Hey! We’ll first of all, thank you for sharing a real and honest post ❤️ and secondly, I think it’s perfectly normal for us to feel blocked and not be able to write anything decent from time to time. Sometimes our mind and body needs a bit of compassion and understanding, it’s extremely difficult to deliver time and time again.
The first thing that helps me is allowing myself to not be up to my own standards. My standards are usually a hundred times higher than my reader’s and I beat myself up for no reason.
I personally like to find inspiration inside of my writing blocks. I dig inside and see where it’s coming from and try to write about that, it tends to help me get my thoughts flowing again. I also like to go back and read my older posts to see what things I am capable of writing and that tends to spark a few thoughts 😊
To answer your second question: don’t be so hard on yourself, you have a fantastic newsletter and you’ve done great work! Your mojo will come back, give yourself some time 🌱🤍
Beautiful newsletter, I feel like your lack of inspiration is the fact that something you don’t feel like doing it. And it sounds like an inspiration to write about the act of not feeling inspired.
Hey! We’ll first of all, thank you for sharing a real and honest post ❤️ and secondly, I think it’s perfectly normal for us to feel blocked and not be able to write anything decent from time to time. Sometimes our mind and body needs a bit of compassion and understanding, it’s extremely difficult to deliver time and time again.
The first thing that helps me is allowing myself to not be up to my own standards. My standards are usually a hundred times higher than my reader’s and I beat myself up for no reason.
I personally like to find inspiration inside of my writing blocks. I dig inside and see where it’s coming from and try to write about that, it tends to help me get my thoughts flowing again. I also like to go back and read my older posts to see what things I am capable of writing and that tends to spark a few thoughts 😊
To answer your second question: don’t be so hard on yourself, you have a fantastic newsletter and you’ve done great work! Your mojo will come back, give yourself some time 🌱🤍
Thank you! This is really helpful and insightful