Yesterday, we explored how to embody your creative power. Today, we're leaning into the beauty that comes with feeling like your work is perpetually unfinished, a sentiment that many writers in my network have shared that they struggle with.
(Become a paid subscriber for $5 a month for full access to this workshop, or, read the article that introduced the concept, You’re Enough, from our community’s open-access library for a brief overview.)
You know that moment in creating when everything feels... messy? When the words aren't quite right, when the ideas are tangled, when you can't see how it's all going to come together? We tend to see this state as something to rush through, to "fix" as quickly as possible.
But what if this mess is actually where the magic happens?
Think about any creative process in nature. A garden doesn't spring up perfectly formed. There's the mess of sprouting, of tangling, of things growing in unexpected directions. The middle of the growing season looks nothing like the seed catalog—and that's exactly as it should be.
Our creative work is no different. Those messy drafts, those half-formed ideas, those pieces that don't quite make sense yet—they're not signs we're doing it wrong. They're evidence that we're in the actual process of creating something real.
I used to think my creative process was "chaotic" compared to others. I'd look at perfectly curated feeds, polished final products, and think I was somehow failing because my process looked nothing like that. Then I started talking to other creators and realized: everyone's middle is messy. We just rarely share that part.
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