If you were around for last month’s episode, you may have caught this little line toward the end: “You want to practice your craft consistently as an ethic, not a metric.” And maybe you thought, “Okay, sure... but what does that actually mean, Mary?”

(Or at least, that’s what I thought to myself after the fact.)

So today, I’m exploring the difference between creative ethics and creative metrics, and how adopting a personal writing philosophy can fuel a sustainable, generative, and ever-evolving practice.

Join me as I dig into an example philosophy called the Witches’ Pyramid, to uncover how it could help you meet specific writing goals – without letting those goals determine the way you relate to creative craft as part of your life.

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Episode links:

Éliphas Lévi, creator of the Pyramid

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This month on the pod, I’m going to be giving you a little creative pep talk about two things:

1. Why your consistent creativity matters, even if you’re not publicly prolific
2. A practical way to reach the level of consistency that feels right for your practice

After February’s episode on managing the overwhelm of productivity culture, I wanted to dig deeper into something specific that surfaced – the creative ideal of being prolific.

How can you escape the productivity ethos but still commit to creating more meaningful work (both in the sense of making stuff that captures deep meaning, and also in the sense of making that kind of stuff more often)?

I guess if last month was me talking shit about productivity, then this month is my follow-up on how to rehabilitate an aspect of it.

Tune in for three steps to nurture a more consistent creative practice – without getting sucked into the productivity trap.

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

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Episode links:

Rachael Stephen, How to NOT f ** k up your creativity for a decade (YouTube)

Kening Zhu, botanical studies of internet magic podcast

• 10. sharing your work as creative release
• 17. transcendence of a productivity addict

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

• March 2025 newsletter
• The Release

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This month, something very strange happened. I found myself researching a biz-bro productivity hack for writers... and actually wanting to try it.

How did this come to pass? In these manically trying times, it’s been feeling especially hard to avoid getting flooded with information and content – to actually integrate what I’m taking in, instead of being swept up. And ironically, this productivity system might be a way to do just that.

So, does this mean my long-running, deep-seated distrust of creative productivity culture may be misguided? Am I going to pivot to being a prolific, write-and-post-every-day kind of writer? Meh, I still don’t think so.

There’s nothing wrong with being prolific – but there’s nothing inherently good about it, either. Being prolific requires the courage to speak, but speaking well requires making space for deep and surprising thought. Sometimes it requires prioritizing slowness over productiveness.

I think the line between expression and noise comes down to two concepts that sound similar, but are ultimately opposed: “next actions” and “next right things.” And it’s very easy to mistake one for the other.

But when you get it right, you unlock the potential to reclaim what’s truly meaningful to you (no productivity system needed).

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

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Episode links:

Bob Doto

• “The Spirit of Productivity: Channeling Inspiration Into Doing What Matters Most”
• A System for Writing
• Main blog

“Information Dysregulation: This New Term is Changing Everything,” Taylor Heaton (YouTube)

“Do the Next Right Thing: Carl Jung on How to Live,” Maria Popova, The Marginalian

“Slow productivity is a team sport: A critique of Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity,” Meredith Farkas, Information Wants to be Free

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It's January! And regardless of how you feel about the whole “new year, new you” vibe, January is the ultimate case study of goal-setting in the wider cultural zeitgeist. Maybe you’ve tried the often-hyped approach of choosing a word to act as a mantra or touchstone to guide you over the course of the year.

Tools like a word of the year can be powerful reminders of the ways you want to feel and act along the path toward your ideals – but only if they also help you stay curious about that path, and about your actual life, as it exists right now.

This year, what if we all chose questions rather than words? A question is a reminder to keep going deeper, to explore how our ideals are emerging and evolving in the moment.

And for storytellers, the art of asking good questions is maybe the most important gift, even more than the art of writing pretty words.

Tune in for some support and solidarity to nurture your creative potential in the months ahead (regardless of how all those goals turn out).

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

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Episode links:

On Being podcast: “Foundations for Being Alive Now,” Krista Tippett

Hannah Louise Poston

Episode 10, “Freedom with form (Or, story structure for optimists)”

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I allude pretty clearly to my political leanings on the podcast, but I don’t generally structure entire episodes around specific political issues. And I do like for this to be a kind of quiet space where you can come to recollect your creative self, whatever’s going on in the world and in your life.

But I decided it wouldn’t feel genuine to not talk about the fallout of the US election this month. Because it’s certainly affected my creative practice, and I’d imagine that may be true for you as well.

I’ve realized that the practical aims of the election, and of politics as a whole, have had the effect of substituting a desired strategic outcome for what I actually desire in my life and in this world. Basically, I’ve lost touch with my longing.

And the most immediate and vital way I can reconnect with my longing in the daily way I live is to live creatively – to let my creative sensibility feed and shape the way I interact with others, and the actions I take.

Join me to explore a model of storytelling (from the mind of Ursula Le Guin) that’s been giving me hope and nurturing my creative longing... even when the strategic outlook isn’t so inspiring.

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

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Episode links:

Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month, sort of in honor of Halloween and sort of just because, I want to share and explore a single phrase about writing that has been inspiring me lately:

Your characters are your ancestors.

This idea unlocks all sorts of potential for me – but I admit that it also feels a little overly sentimental. Even for creatives, there can be disdain around ways of thinking about writing that feel precious instead of practical. There’s a sense that while of course art is magical in its way, your perspective on your own work better not be, or you risk being naïve and unserious.

And it’s not like there’s zero truth to that. When you get too precious about every word that hits the page, you can’t work through projects, and you can’t keep improving.

But magical thinking doesn’t necessarily have to lead to precious thinking – I’d actually say that in the creative life, you have to find ways to maintain a strong dose of it if you want to thrive.

And in that sense, magical thinking can be practical magic.

Tune in to unpack how a magical mindset can help even Very Serious Writers do deep and liberating creative work.

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s pod is coming to you from the messy middle of something I’ve been mulling over for a long time. Something I don’t have a tagline for yet, but that still feels worth sharing, in all its in-process, still-forming glory.

If there’s anything I believe in, it’s the power and necessity of creative expression. But I’m going to be talking this month about the limitations of story – the ways that turning our life experiences into stories can maybe keep us from actually living what we experience.

One way to think about the role of storytelling is that stories are maps – ways of navigating the stuff of life. And as maps, stories are representations of something bigger and deeper than any single narrative can encompass.

Or, to borrow a commonly used phrase: The map is not the territory.

This feels pretty self-evident… until you realize how deeply story maps are ingrained into the way you think about how your life is supposed to happen, and what kind of meaning you’re supposed to make out of what happens.

This month, let’s get real about navigating with story maps (and when it might be time to get a bit lost instead).

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

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Episode links:

Marisa Goudy, KnotWork Storytelling: A Story About Getting Unstoried | S5 Ep12

Feminist takes on the Hero’s Journey model

• Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”
• The Heroine Journeys Project, a website that includes summaries of some of the major feminist responses to Joseph Campbell’s theory

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Today’s episode is for any writer who’s found themselves focused more on chasing the perfect creative practice than actually having a creative practice. (So, it’s for most of us.)

This month I’m sharing a writerly angle on the idea of holding space or creating a container. Specifically, what kind of space might actually keep you contained enough to experience sustained growth and discovery in your writing.

One of the challenges of making art in a capitalist world is staying attuned to your vision amid a constant flow of things you’re expected to consume and worry about and enjoy and reject and chase.

But to fully hold space for your creative self… you have to stay there, in the space you’ve made. And sometimes that feels constraining. Sometimes it feels like holding yourself back from dashing out into a wider space where everything is actually happening, and if you stay here you might miss something important.

This month, tune in to explore what it can mean to hold better creative space for yourself and your stories.

Plus, I share a simple formula to help you turn your writing practices into containers that actually support you and your work.

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

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Episode links:

The Numinous Network, monthly membership community with therapist, somatic practitioner, and spiritual counselor Carmen Spagnola. I learned the somatic exercise featured in this episode from the network’s library of somatic practice videos.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This pod is usually focused on our personal relationships to our writing, and ways to rediscover and strengthen that alchemical creative connection. But this month, I’ve been thinking about the role other people can play in helping us sustain and carry our creative dreams.

It’s much easier to tap into the flow of creative alchemy if someone else is extending their own alchemical gaze onto you – a supportive gaze that can transform your ordinary self into someone capable of making artistic work with deep meaning.

The further away your ordinary self is from what’s generally considered “ordinary,” though... the more you usually lack carriers for your dream. And carrying it alone can leave your creative reserves stretched pretty thin.

Tune in to explore two ways you can change this state of affairs and access the crucial power of vision carrying in your writing life.

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If your writing life feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative path.

You’ll also receive monthly tips to put the pod into practice, delivered right to your inbox.

_____

Episode links:

Goddesses in Everywoman, Jean Shinoda Bolen

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a rule of thumb on this podcast, I try to keep things generally positive, since most of us have enough negativity in our creative lives. This month, though, I’m inviting you to take a little trip with me to the realm of evaluation, judgment, and yes, even snark.

But let’s be clear: I don’t mean snark directed against yourself. I’m talking about letting yourself just really, really hate something you’ve read that somebody else wrote. And here’s why:

Sometimes, it’s easier to learn from work we don’t like than from work we do like. Sometimes we need to indulge in a really deep “no” to get to an even deeper “yes.”

Let’s get into how to distill wisdom from snark – without being too much of an asshole.

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If your writing practice feels more like a doom spiral than a drafting process... join the newsletter circle to access the Creative Rescue Kit, a set of three easy-to-implement tools to help you reclaim your creative life.

You’ll also receive monthly inspiration and supportive, inspirited practices delivered right to your inbox.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.