Your Coziest Creative Nest

Hi. I wanted to make this video to talk a little bit about why I put together your coziest creativeness. And I'm gonna start this off by saying that I never record videos and I'm a little bit nervous, but also I wanna push myself in terms of what I share and how I share it. Okay? So the reason that I made Your Coziest Creative Nest, and I'll get to what it is in a second, is that I feel like we as writers are not given what we need to take our craft seriously in the digital space.

So what do I mean by that? So I think about my grandfather and he loved to fix things. He loved to work with tools. He had a small wood shop in his garage and he was in there well into his eighties. He liked to make little bowls, little candlesticks, things like that. And that was a source of creative joy and pleasure for him. And so of course, you know, when you have a wood shop, you have to take care of your tools. You keep them organized, you sharpen them, you oil them. And I'm sure that my grandfather was not in there oiling his tools, being like, oh, well now that my tools are oiled and sharpened, I'm sure I can make five candlesticks in the time it used to make me four or you know, now that my tools are oiled and sharpened, now I'm gonna make the most beautiful candlestick.

No, caring for his tools was a part of his creative practice. And we see this in other disciplines. You know, a chef organizes their kitchen, they take care of their knives, they may want or need knives that are theirs that feel right in their own hands. And we see this also as writers for ourselves in a more physical space. You know, some folks prefer to use a certain type of pen or a certain type of notebook, and that's something that we understand or that we may have thought about. But then when it comes to our digital space, we are not given the skills to discern what we actually need and prefer in that space and to set that up in a way that is going to work for us. And the way that I started to think about thisis actually that for several years until last month, I lived in a studio apartment with my partner and my child and then my children.

And so I did not have a physical space that felt like it was mine. And that felt really hard for me because for years I had thought like, I have to tend to a physical space for my writing. I have to light a candle, you know, I need to kind of clear off my desk, I need to have certain physical tools. And that was really not so available. And for a while it really felt to me like the only physical space that was truly mine was the screen of my laptop. It was within my laptop was the only space that I could control and that I could do my creative work. And so that space was going to have to become my sanctuary. And I started to say to myself, how could I make this more joyful? How could I make this more pleasurable?

How could I make this more in line with my needs? And to do that we have to discern what our needs are. And again, you know, when it comes to this stuff, we are like a chef that is not taught to know when our knives are adult. We're just like, why isn't it cutting? You know, we are like a woodworker who's trying to work at a work bench that's made for someone a foot taller. Why can't I do it so well? But when it comes to our digital space inside our computer, we are just not taught to ask ourselves what will work better for me? What would look nicer to me? How can I organize things in a way that makes sense? Is this program kind of distracting me? And can I solve that either by getting a different one or by changing the settings or changing how I interact with it?

Because these are our tools, whether we like it or not. If we're writers, we work in inside our computer and we need to treat it that way. It needs to feel like our studio, like our kitchen, like our wood shop. So how do we get there? The first thing we have to practice is discernment. And so discernment can be practiced really easily once we give ourselves permission to do that type of discernment. So I can discern like, do I wanna use a different font? Is it font annoying? You know, I can read this, but what I prefer is, maybe it was a little bigger. Do I want this to be a different color? And these things are minor, these things are so small, but they add up. And if you've worked with Shea in the Catskills, you've probably heard about the importance of taking our desire seriously.

And so to me, this whole thing is a way of taking our desires and preferences seriously. In the digital space, we construct for ourselves to do our writing. So it is very easy to say, oh, well you know, I don't prefer that thing in my computer, but you know, whatever. I shouldn't be so petty. No, this is your studio. This is where you do your creative work. It matters. And thinking about what do I prefer in my creative studio, in my area where I do my creative work is a creative act in itself. So for me, I started by thinking about these smaller things that were very easy. And what I found was really the challenge was to ask myself what could be different? Because I was so used to being a passive receiver of the computer program in a way. I was so used to being like, oh, that's how it's so I had to shift my mental habits both in a small way and then in iteratively bigger ways to think like, actually I don't prefer that and I can probably change it.

So that was the first thing, discernment. Try something, see how you feel, notice that you don't like something and think I can probably change it and then figure out how to do that. You almost always can, that's the thing. And so a lot of it was really like, oh, I think I could change that. Let me Google that. And like 10 minutes later it's taken care of. And then as we practice that skill, we are simultaneously practicing the skill of imagination, of imagining what the most luxurious, what the most powerful creative life would look like for ourselves. So I started to imagine like, what if my writing program thinks perfectly to my phone? What if I could do math? This is relevant for other aspects of my work right there inside the program without using a calculator. Like I have been all over the place.

What if I didn't have to look at my website analytics because I don't like how they make me feel? And I am not gonna just pretend that, oh, it's no big deal. I know that when I open up my website and it opens to the analytics page, it bothers me and I'm okay with that. So I was like, I bet I could get rid of this. And I had to use browser style sheets, I had to write some CSS, but it was gone. And so it's not just that these things create more ease and joy in my creative life, but they also create more creative sovereignty and agency. Because now I'm like, I don't like that. This is my studio, I'm gonna change it. And that has been an incredibly profound shift because now I feel like I notice I don't like it. What am I gonna do about it? And then how is my studio now the way that I want it, which is focusing my creative power exactly in line with my intentions. And so when I was talking to Shea about this, Shea said, you know, it is liturgical what you're talking about. And I had not realized that that was the word that I would use, but I realized it's true. Like this is a way, a practice that I have of focusing my creative energy in line with my intention.

And so to wrap this up, I just keep going back to the idea that other types of craftspeople are taught to discern what they need from their tools and what their tools need from them. Is my knife dull, is it not balanced in my hand? But we writers in this particular moment are not given those skills when it comes to our computer, when it comes to the space where we spend so much of our creative time and energy. And so we are like people who are sitting at a work bench that's not adjusted to our height. We are like people who are like, why is my knife not cutting and we don't understand about it might be dull and I need to sharpen it because no one has taught us that we can and do deserve this level of agency and specificity to this creative space that exists inside our computer. And so to me, this idea that we can control and focus our creative energy by exercising discernment and agency in our digital space feels urgent in this moment. Because anytime that we exercise discernment, clarity, and agency, it's important. And the fact is, this is not just about you or you having a more pleasant writing experience, it's also about what needs to come through you. And the fact that I might need to receive what you are working to put out in the world, someone else may need to receive that. And so as we oil our tools, as we hone them in line with our specific desires and needs, that's how that can come through more clearly. And that's how we can be in our creative power.

Tools, as we sharpen our tools, as we hone them in accord with our specific desires and needs, that's how that can come through more clearly. And that's how we can be in our creative power.