When living the dream looks like a tracksuit and a warmed up fish pie from Tesco
On reframing the things that are hard
(Here’s a pretty picture for you. This is not what my life looks like this week).
This week has been a lot, deadlines piling up like books tossed onto the to-be-read pile, which has got so high you stick a plant on top and pretend it’s a side table. I know you know what I mean.
It’s always like this at this time of year, the relentless push before the winter slowing, and to some extent I understand my own logic of lining things up so everything is done by the end of November and I can spend December eating mince pies, crunching through country lanes on the lookout for robins, and planning all my Christmas presents in a cosy cafe by the sea as I watch the waves roll in. It’s a great plan in theory except for the reality that it makes October and November very hard work. And this year all I really want to do is write Substack essays. Anyone else???
This week I have been dealing with editor queries on what I thought was a finished manuscript, finalising my upcoming sale and doing a host of things other people need from me, not to mention making advent calendars and helping with homework and so on in the evenings. Oh I forgot, also recording and launching Season 3 of my podcast - which involves writing more words than my book manuscript (I am not kidding). Shall I tell you what it’s called? Promise not to laugh? The Calm Christmas Podcast. It’s not ironic, it’s my December strategy, bringing calm to my own rushed life as I endeavour to help others invite calm into their own. It’s like learning how to paint from a working artist instead of a history of art major. It’s real and comes direct from experience…
I digress. The real irony is, there is nothing on my to-do list that I did not choose to put there. When I think about a time years ago, when everything on my to do list was put there by someone else - a time when book manuscripts and podcast recordings and sales of courses that I made with my own brain and heart were only ideas hovering at the edges of my dreams, building up their courage to enter - I realise that things are so very different now. Having nothing on my to do list that I did not choose to put there is a privilege.
Us creatives who take the plunge to living on our terms, turning the wild ideas in our heads and hearts into things that are medicine in the world, face so many challenges every day.
“You do what for a living?”
“Yeah but how does that pay the mortgage?”
“Oh I could never bear the uncertainty, or the critics.”
“Did you see that negative review? Oh here, let me send you a link.”
“Did you see that other person doing basically the same as you but for half the price?”
“Hmm, that’s a nice idea but it’s a shame because it’ll never work. You need at least X many followers before you can even contemplate a book deal/launching something new etc etc.”
And so on.
I know you know this too, and that deep down, like me, you know most of it is born from jealousy in the minds of people who have a secret creative dream, perhaps not a million miles from the one you are living, but haven’t yet taken the leap. And yet it can be a lot on top of all the platforms we have to learn and the things we have to do to get our creations out in the world to the people we built them for.
But here’s the thing.