How to Crack Your Creative Process
Plus, aid in New Orleans and Texas.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the creative process. In large part because I am working on a book, and in small part because I am kind of always thinking about the creative process.
I am the proud owner of approximately four hundred books about the creative process and I’ve definitely read at least one page of all of them. Some of them, like Intimations by Zadie Smith, or Big Magic by Eliz*b*th G*lb*rt, I truly loved and they’ve shaped the way I move about the world. Others, like that horrible Twyla Tharp book, were truly so caucasian I almost put them in the garbage. (In The Creative Habit, Twyla says an essential part of her creative process is hailing a cab to her private dance studio everyday. She also prescribes booking a trip to Paris as a good way to get through writer’s block. 🙄)
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, another I read one page of, is a very good but equally caucasian book. Revisiting it this weekend, reading this little nugget got me through my day:
“E.L. Doctorow once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.”
As a girl with her fair share of mental illnesses, I find all solo creative projects daunting. But doing things in “small assignments” as Anne would say is the way I’ve often muddled through them. Trying to break my word count into smaller prompts and vignettes has helped me immensely. That, and real-time forgiveness of the shittiness of your first draft. It always feels like such a drudge though, because driving that car at night, even though you can do it, still feels lonely and often worrisome.
I am childishly jealous of generative people — those self-starter types who are never not making shit, advocating for their own work, cranking out new things no one asked for. I see this in nightlife and queer subculture especially, with the girls self-producing photoshoots, short films, full looks, etc — often without the motivation of a paycheck.
Though I wish it weren’t true, it’s hard for me to crank things out if I am not beholden to a deadline, financial compensation, or institutional pressure, and I hate that. In my darker moments I wonder if I am a creative at all if it doesn’t come naturally to me.
But productivity is a lie late capitalism sold us through Instagram aphorisms and Forbes profiles about successful people’s morning routines. Those are cool, but the reality is that 99% of people can’t wake up at 6am everyday, meditate, workout, floss, eat a healthy breakfast, write for 5 hours uninterrupted, get their agenda texted to them by their personal assistant, etcetera.
This profile on my friend Willie showed two sides to her career. Her work lies not just in the clothing she designs but in the community she fosters and builds around her like a queer sociocultural ecosystem. Talking about her transition, nurtured by that vital ecosystem, she describes gender as synergetic with her creative process, an ongoing state of making something.
“I realized what I identified with on a spiritual level had a societal assignment,” she said. “When I gave up the scarcity mind-set that was so deeply tied to the gender role that I assumed, I could just live in a state of perpetual creation.”
And I think that’s kind of it — being vigilant in your making, understanding it as an entity that is always on, always absorbing, always trying to poke something through the wrinkles of your mind. Whether it’s the flowers you pick up, the story you see between pedestrians on the street, the bolder outfit choice, the memory that comes to you, the idea you jot down — living and breathing that process is more important than waking up at 6am or whatever.
Xx Fran
P.S. I have unfortunately googled Anne Lamott for the first time and discovered she is a white woman with dreadlocks. Please proceed with her work using the utmost caution.
some things that brought me joy this week
1. While we are here, Willie is dropping a bag she calls “The Carry” and hm I most certainly need it for my drugs *ahem* reading material.
2. Following the release of Lorde’s album, I was reimmersed into the world of late 90s/early aughts positivity bops. You know the bops I’m talking about, cue Natasha Beddingfield. I made a lil playlist of some of my faves and have been bopping along through my walking commutes.
3. Also, I feel like no one is chattering about this, but SZA released three songs on Soundcloud last week and they are…. amazing? Not that we would expect anything less of SZA, but you must bravely relocate your Soundcloud login and give “Joni” (feat. SZA’s whistle tone!!!!!!) an immediate listen.
4. A seasoned pegger wrote in from my anal advice letter recommending a tried and true strap for all genders. Those of you looking, the pegger said, “Totally worth the investment. They make really high quality, comfortable harnesses for folks in many sizes with various style preferences.”
5. I’ve been loving Eric Cervini’s newsletter dispatching little histories of queerness, ranging from the origin of the word “Queer,” to a mini-bio of Sappho, to gender nonconformity in Ancient Egypt. Each one is richly detailed and I always learn something new, even as someone who has studied the subject for so long — though I can’t hold a candle to the (extremely handsome) Pulitzer finalist.
6. I got this little New York coffee cup earring from Studs and it immediately became my new favorite earring.
7. If you haven’t already, secure your tickets to Bushwig, which is kind of like the Lollapalooza of Brooklyn drag (the best drag in the world, no offense). I know several people that are flying in for it, and I cannot recommend the event enough. I have seen *life-changing* performances here and most certainly made some of my best New York memories — see you there!
8. Tarot reader Jessica Dore writes one of my favorite Substacks each month, and this one talking about the Devil really resonated.
The etymology of the word capture comes from capere, “to take, hold, seize.” Captivate is related, from captivus, “caught, taken prisoner.” I’ve considered this often in terms of passion, and how to be captivated with something or someone—a poem, a piece of music, a project, a lover—it really can feel as though some psychic mechanism is holding you there. Limiting your movement.
I love understanding the devil as an entity you are beholden to. Sometimes it’s addiction, a bad lover, a lie you keep telling yourself. But her expansion of its reading as something about freedom and personal limitation was so generous and beautiful.
9. Dr. Silky Nutmeg Ganache contributed the best performances of this season of Drag Race to the latest episode of All Stars 6, among them her rendition of “Barbie Girl.” For context, she was meant to lip-sync against another competitor, but that competitor declined the invitation to battle. Without someone to lip sync against, Ru handed her the win by default — but Silky asked to lip-sync solo, one of the most stunning demonstrations of a queen’s dedications to their artistry and professionalism. And DAMN did she deliver.
this week’s actions
Aid is needed in Texas and New Orleans. Texas because the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, a Handmaid’s Tale-level reversal of Roe v. Wade, just passed for the state. Mutual aid is needed, and Jane’s Due Process is a tried and true org doing that work for teens, as well as TEA doing it for all.
In another dystopia, New Orleans is keeping their head up, but completely without power. Some think it could be out for a week and others think it could be months. New Orleanians now have homes without things like a refrigerator or A/C unit in 100 degree weather, and they need help getting resources or relocation. House of Tulip is doing that work specifically for trans and GNC folks, and Imagine Water Works also comes recommended by my born-and-raised Nola friends who I’ve been texting through this.