The surprising magic of saying the same thing differently

I’ve been wrangling with a posting block this past couple of weeks. I’ve been re-editing and overthinking the 12 unpublished essays that are currently sitting on my Substack dashboard.

So many writers on here also share their number of unpublished drafts, which has inspired me to share some words I loved that someone shared with me on this topic. They said:

“The more you write the more you lean into the person you were called to be. Someone is waiting on your words to get free. Stop standing in the way.”

I love the line “someone is waiting on your words go get free,” because it makes it feel sort of like a responsibility or a public service to put your work out there. It also impersonalises it in the best way. Sort of in the way Julia Cameron and Elizabeth Gilbert talk about creatives simply being channels for the work. How ideas are in the general zeitgeist, they’re not yours but they were given to you to for a reason.

We obviously get to choose whether we act on them or not and if we don’t, that’s ok because some people have the same idea too. This isn’t to say we’re replaceable, because no one would’ve done it like us (which on that note makes a case of ‘being yourself’ in the work). That said, I think it’s good ideas are given to more than one person because one person isn’t going to be for everybody. Like seeds, ideas are probably best scattered around the place to give themselves the best chance of spreading. Maybe this is how the universe keeps human evolution ticking.

I can think of so many examples of reading a story that shares an idea I’ve already heard, but the way that particular person said it is what finally helped it land for me. There’s always going to be more room for more music, more art, more words.

This line of thought grants one permission to take an idea seriously… but without taking themselves seriously, because it frames the idea and the work as the most important part of this equation.

While this doesn’t completely resolve my trepidation around posting, it certainly takes care of a good chunk of it.

On that note…

A friend I work with and I are wanting to start a little writers group to support, encourage and share our work. If you’re interested, reply to this email with ‘interested’ and I’ll update you on when and where we kick off. This group doesn’t just have to be for writers, it can be for creatives in general wanting to talk about their work. I’m also considering opening a group chat on here for those that don’t live in the Northern Rivers with the same purpose in mind.