Creative advice from your local goblin 👹
How to microdose embarrassment and get shit done
I’m trying to finish something. Writing is like fighting a weak, lazy demon with a sword while simultaneously going click clack click clack on a keyboard. The demonic blob lumbers across from you, barely in swinging distance, going “ehh, nobody’s gonna want to read it anyway” and you have to swat it while also finding a suitably funny (and original!!) way to make a fictional person poop their pants. 💩
A glamorous profession. I mean, it actually is the times you’re getting paid well for it. But when you’re paid only in your own stubborn insistence that YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY it can feel more like putting on a dunce cap and going to dance in the town square. 💃
The funny thing about being a writer is how much your ability to write gets in the way of writing. While I’m trying to write a convincing enough lead up to two fictional people ALMOST but NOT QUITE kissing (save that for the season finale!!!), my brain distracts me by writing a parallel story about how I am stupid and/or pre-cancerous and/or one day going to die and/or not doing enough to influence the upcoming presidential election. 🇺🇸
One’s greatest strength is their greatest weakness, or so goes the literary trope. And writers are nothing if not one big, walking, literary trope, right? 💪
My greatest tip for finishing shit is to let yourself be a little bit dramatic about it and then slap yourself (metaphorically) back to reality. In the past few days I have left long, whinging voice notes for my friends about how I’m never going to finish this, gone to sleep, and then woken up and read what I wrote the night before and screamed at myself “ACTUALLLLLYY! I kinda killed it!!! Look at me go!” 🎉🎉 and then quickly… Oh fuck so many more pages to go. 🤪
I repeat this process ad nauseam1. The trick is to have enough friends (or when out, your Substack or journal), to be embarrassingly pathetic in front of. Being a little bit embarrassing is like a vaccine for the larger embarrassment that I will one day face when I finish this, where I send a 60 page PDF I shat out of my kooky lil’ brain to a stranger and go “Hope you enjoy!!” and then feel queasy for 48-10009 hours while I wait for their response. 😬2
Speaking of vaccines, new Covid boosters are out. I’m getting mine at CVS tomorrow! This entire post is brought to you by the benefits of herd immunity. 💉3
Hope you’re having a great week!
<3
ANDRA
I misspelled this originally and I just looked it up and I’m sorry, the correct way is insane. Nau-SEAM? Why would it not be Nauseum, like museum??? Fuckin’ English
I used this emoji and not the queasy emoji because looking at the queasy emoji actually made me feel queasy, and I wouldn’t do that to you. Side note, the word Queasy is SO FUNNY.
WHY IS THIS VACCINE EMOJI SHOOTING BLOOD