Content is ubiquitous because the world is a blank canvas.
Gone are the days of having to find the smooth part of the cave wall or the unused portion of the scroll.
Gone are the days of squalor, of books’ costs being based on the paper bound within.
Instead, we are all artists.
We can write, draw, paint, film, photograph, edit, all on a single device.1
Art is risky because we don’t know how we’ll be received, if our work (and our perspectives) will be recognized, appreciated, or shoved aside.
But there’s also no cost to art.
No risk of spending a lot, or all, of our money to create things people don’t care for.
So why the FUCK do I still stare at a blank page and get nervous?
This is a Substack with 35 readers.2
I do not need to sell my next essay to make rent.
I have not sacrificed hard-earned cash to participate in this hobby.3
I will not catalyze any great change, in my life or yours, if I fail to publish tonight.
It turns out that creativity is a muscle:
When I keep writing new blog posts and think about things to write about, inspiration rolls off of my fingertips and onto the page.
When I slow down the writing and give time to other things and let the blog just hum in the background, that inspiration only comes in fits and starts.
I’ve spent 343 days developing my creativity, but, in the past few weeks, as posts have become sparser, I’ve had a couple nights where I’ve drawn blanks.
Have I discovered a piece of myself, only to voluntarily surrender it?
There’s certainly a full circle moment right now, and not a particularly pleasant one: I wrote about my struggle to find a topic for my second post.4
So are these Substack nerves just writer’s block under the pressure to produce?
I’m not so sure…
I could write an “Executive Review,” or I could text a friend and do a little interview.
I could post photos from a recent outing, I could share a recipe, or I could tell another funny story about my time in college.
If all else fails, I could text Lenny and see if I could cross-post anything from Post-Lennyism.
Am I really nervous because of the blank page?
Or is it residual, from clicking the “New Post” button after a couple hours of procrastination?
That’s the real challenge: the commitment.
Even if creativity is a muscle, motivation is pretty much ephemeral.
For a while, I wrote in part out of joy and in part out of habit.5
I began to find peaks and valleys - moments when the energy to write something great either coursed through me or abandoned me entirely.
The impact of this “motivational” roller coaster is mitigated by a stable schedule, but, these days, those tracks are starting to look pretty rickety.
This is my next challenge.
I don’t want to use habits to simulate motivation.
I want to be excited to click “New Post” because I had the time and inspiration to cook up something good.
We can even make a computer do all of this for us, but that’s besides the point.
And I deeply appreciate all of you <3.
I guess I could’ve done something to make money with the time I spent here, but I’m not too worried about that.
I already derided that follow-up in What to write when you don’t know what to write, a much more productive piece. My sentiments have not changed.
In Changing Things Up, I lamented a single weekday in which I had failed to publish.
There’s something artsy about naming a piece “New Post.” The writer’s version of an “Untitled” painting.
(Obligatory “Post-Lennyism mentioned rahhh”)
It’s time for us to do the challenge we talked about (probably over half a year ago at this point). We each write something defending or arguing a position we don’t agree with. Deal?