the Inspirited Word

Writers tend to have a mixed relationship with silence (either literal or more internal). On the one hand, we sometimes crave more of it, as a way to make space for the words we’re trying to coax onto the page. When those words don’t flow, though, silence can feel more like an enemy—like a space filled with nothing but our own hypervigilant expectations about our work. But what if you could make s...

This month on the pod, I’m going to be doing something that is sometimes considered obnoxiously gauche and self-obsessed—I’m going to tell you about a totally weird dream I had (two totally weird dreams, actually). These dreams fall into the category of what you might call “big dreams.” In Jungian psychology, a big dream is a basically one that feels transpersonal. It’s made up of images and symbo...

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 creat...

This month on the pod, I’m going to be giving you a little creative pep talk about two things: Why your consistent creativity matters, even if you’re not publicly prolific 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...

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...

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 ac...

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....

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...

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 t...

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...

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...

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&nb...

(First things first: Thank you to thank Taylor Swift for releasing The Tortured Poets Department last month and thus making this episode kind of topical…) We’re all way too familiar with the idea that emotional suffering or “madness” is the most powerful source of our creativity. It’s the cultural story that just won’t die. But today, I’m sharing a folklore-and-history-informed counter-narrative....

It’s pretty much objectively true that finishing stories is an excellent way to get better at finishing stories. This is true on both a practical level and a skills level — in addition to requiring persistence, writing endings is a technically difficult aspect of the craft, no matter what genre you’re writing. But while getting to the end of a project is often excellent practice... I don’t th...

Ever found yourself lying awake very late at night or very early in the morning wondering if you've missed your calling in life? I'm guessing most writers will be in the yes camp; we tend to be sensitive souls, primed by school and work and even religion to long for "the call" to a vocation of purpose and meaning. I think our insomniac worries stem from a common cultural fallacy: ideas about havin...

You’ve probably heard this core and celebrated advice for a successful writing life: Write every day Finish as many projects as possible No exceptions And maybe, like me, you’ve also heard this extremely well-adjusted and reasonable guidance more times than you can count: Being a writer is awful. So if you’re able to walk away from your writing, you should—but if you’re too obsessed to quit, no ma...

There’s a popular New Year meme about picking words to act as guideposts for the year. And in this first month of 2024, I’ve found myself reflecting on two sort of abstract terms I use to describe what I’m up to with this podcast: “visionary,” and “praxis.” These terms are signifiers for the real core of what I’m grappling with here – the disconnect so many creatives experience between all the bea...

’Tis the season of wintertide celebrations, including the ritual of gift exchange... no matter how commercialized and un-ritualized that exchange might have become. But I promise this month’s episode is not an anti-consumption screed, because that’s kind of exhausting to listen to and I’d guess you can fill one in for yourself. This winter solstice, at the darkest point of the year, I’m reflecting...

The typical ways writers study and practice storytelling often encourage us to conflate “paying attention” to our craft with catching errors or imperfections. We try to pay our best, most granular attention to the words on the page, in order to bring them closer to some standard of excellence. And at certain points during revision, there’s not actually anything wrong with that. But when this type...

When writers talk about story structure, we tend to conceptualize it in one of two ways: As a set of almost mechanical instructions on how to put a story together “correctly” As an organic, intuitive outgrowth of the themes, symbols, and artistic devices within the story Both of these views on structure contain a bit of truth. But sticking too closely to either one can lead to sterile rigidity......

How do we find our creative center, and how do we actually stay in it while we’re working? It’s pretty easy to feel centered when a story is first emerging. There’s usually that phase where stuff seems to be spontaneously welling up from somewhere inside us, somewhere private and inner and… well, centered. The act of drafting, on the other hand, tends to feel like searching for something that’s mi...

You’ve undoubtedly heard this bit of common wisdom at some point in your life: “You only grow when things are hard.” Incarnations of this advice pop up in all sorts of contexts and snappy wordings (“No pain, no gain” or “Growth and comfort do not coexist” or, my personal Tony Robbins fav, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”). This brand of wisdom has a kernel of truth. But when we apply...

Have you ever pushed through to meet a writing or publishing goal, only to feel let down once you reached it? Or worse, only to find that the story you wrote wasn’t at all what you wanted to create, and you have no idea how that happened? If you’re looking for more satisfaction and growth (and even success) in your writing life, it may be time for a new framework. Write toward your values, not you...

In your writing practices, you may be chasing creative flow – that state where you get so immersed that time takes a pause while you hammer away at the keyboard. (And then four hours later you’re like “Why do my wrists hurt, and why are the cats screaming like no one has ever fed them in their entire lives?”) But your flow state has a sneaky cousin: dogmatic trance. Trance states (like meditation,...

... and that's okay. If somebody were to ask you outright if you think you’re a creative genius, you’d probably be pretty comfortable saying no (and meaning it). You’re also probably not going to rationally think that this means you shouldn’t be creating anything. And yet, most of us still have this feeling that our ideas and our work need to be "special," by which we mean "entirely unique yet uni...