Over the past few years — partly since realising I’m neurodivergent as fuck — I’ve been focusing on ‘unlearning’ a lot of the unwritten rules around my work, creativity, and day-to-day life. For example:

• questioning why something has to be done a certain way (hint: it doesn’t)

• or if there might be more nuance behind a hard-and-fast rule (hint: there is)

• or if I’ve unknowingly trapped myself within a methodology that simply does not work for my neurotype (hint: I have).

It’s an approach I’ve used in my coaching and mentoring for a decade, but rarely applied to myself (look, do as I say, not as I do, okay?), and has become even more important the more I work with autistic and ADHD folk.

Because whether you’re creating art or building a business, you end up spending more time and effort trying to battle against rigid rules and systems that just don’t suit your brain.

So I invite you to call bullshit on the whole shebang with me, starting with a very basic question:

Because maybe you can’t write every day (but feel guilty about it).

Maybe you’re more efficient working piecemeal rather than linearly.

Maybe you need visuals instead of spreadsheets.

Maybe you’re a ‘bottom-up’ thinker and need all the moving parts in place before you can see the whole thing.

Maybe you get more done in one manic burst of ‘productivity’ than most people do in a whole week.

What actually works for you? Aaaaaaand have you spent your whole life thinking it’s ‘wrong’? Why? Because of... some bullshit rule?

Hmm. It’s certainly an interesting can of worms to bust open. And has honestly made the past few years the most enjoyable and creatively free period of my life.

So, if you want to learn/talk more about this kinda thing, here are three ways to do that:

Unfuck Your Writing — Creative Drop-in

Join me on my next monthly online hangout — this Wednesday, 27th May @ 6.3pm BST — on the topic of Bullshit Writing Rules and how they turn up in our writing.

This is a super chill group chat about all things creative; a chance to share your thoughts, ask for advice, find accountability, and generally just spend a lovely hour immersed in inspiration.

Find out more

Creative Coaching for Neurodivergent Writers

(or anyone who wants to find a different way)

Book a one-to-one mentoring call (with optional feedback) to dive deeper into how your brain explores stories and explore ways of creating that help you find your flow.

Whether you’re right at the start of a story, stuck in the middle, tinkering with the finishing touches, or just want support with your creative practice, let’s do a lil’ brainstorming together.

Find out more

Creative Coaching for Neurodivergent Business Owners

(or anyone who wants to find a different way)

Practical, flexible business support to help you organise, develop and implement your ideas, feel more authentic in your work, and enjoy what you do.

From project management, content planning, brand strategy, business development, marketing to copywriting, let me help you wrangle your ideas into something much more tangible (and much less overwhelming)…

Find out more

And no matter what you do, here’s to finding your own way, and unlearning whatever bullshit rules don’t work for you.

Jo

: )

So, at last week’s Unf*ck Your Writing hangout, I got to share my favourite writing analogy:

Sure, sure, you start out pretty optimistic (or at least determined), hauling out out all the shit that’s been crammed in there over the years. You’re going to be efficient. You’re going to be ruthless. But oh, there’s that old coat you used to love, except it’s got a big ol’ tear in the sleeve and you never did get round to fixing it… And why the fuck do you have three broken umbrellas but no actual functioning ones?

You dig deeper, uncovering hitherto unknown layers of understairs hoarding. And after a while, you look around to find yourself trapped in the hallway, surrounded by chaos (cue: regretting life choices). Nut you can’t just walk away and leave all this crap everywhere.

So you really start getting methodical. You make piles: stuff to throw away; stuff to keep; stuff that needs fixing; stuff you’re not sure about but you’re gonna hang onto for now.

Then here’s what you do:

• You put everything you’re going to keep back in the cupboard.

• You find creative solutions for more effective storage.

• You throw all the broken and extraneous shit away.

• You figure out if you actually have the brainpower or energy to fix the stuff that needs fixing.

• Or you find someone else who knows more than you do about umbrella engineering.

I think a lot of people think they hate editing because they’ve reached that point of sitting on the hall floor, overwhelmed by the mountains of unsorted detritus.

But sometimes you just need to look at it like a big Tetris puzzle.

Sometimes you discover gems that’ve been hidden at the back of the cupboard for ages.

Sometimes you chuck out so much crap that your brain finally has the space to see clearly.

And how satisfying is it when everything is in its right place and you can shut that door again…?

So, if you’ve been avoiding editing, or are stuck mid-draft, or would like to learn a few ways to make the whole process more enjoyable, I’ve got a workshop for ya:

The Make It Less Sh*t Workshop

Watch the Webinar + FREE PDF cheatsheet

And I deeply apologise if this has prompted you to start clearing out your actual understairs cupboard, but solidarity to you — whether you’re in the editing trenches or covered in cobwebs...

Happy writing

: )

More editing-y stuff:

Hey,

If you’ve ever emerged from the honeymoon first draft phase with a whole pile of words, a tangled mess of a plot, and several questions about your life choices — I feel you.

I used to hate editing. And now I do it for a living. So… there’s hope. I promise!

​As an editor and writing mentor, I’m often asked by writers to help them “make it less shit — both their story and the creative process. Which is exactly what I’m hoping to pass onto you in my latest workshop: Make It Less Sh*t

​Because editing is all about perspective. It’s not just moving the occasional comma and polishing up your prose. It’s not the boring part, where you stop being inspired and have to get all analytical and pedantic. (I mean, some of us enjoy a bit of pedantry, but that’s not the point.)

Editing may require a different approach to the first draft, but it can still be incredibly creative, experimental, exploratory and transformative.

It’s where you finally solve the puzzle of your narrative.

It’s where you learn the most about writing.

And it’s where you get that satisfaction you’ve been searching for, as your story takes its final form.

​So, I’m here to convince you that editing CAN be a joyful process. And to share some of the best ways I know to make any kind of writing less shit.

I hope you’ll join me :)

Not ready to edit yet?

For those of you knee-deep in the drafting phase, there’s also my monthly drop-in group session, Unfuck Your Writing, for a chance to chat about your creative process, troubleshoot, solve plot problems, and get support from me and a handful of lovely writers.

Each monthly session will focus on a different topic (from decision paralysis to bullshit writing rules to writer’s block), as well as offering the chance to share inspiration, tips & techniques.

These online Zoom hangouts are small, friendly, and always super motivating, because there’s really nothing better than bouncing ideas off a bunch of fellow creatives (especially you lot).

Grab your spot

P.S. Unfuck Your Writing tickets are FREE for paid subscribers of The Joy of Fixion (saving you £3 per session) — upgrade here or DM me for the discount code if you’re subscribed.

Just wanna feel more confident about your writing?

I have (limited) availability for one-to-one mentoring in May, so if you’d like some personalised feedback and support, please get in touch.

It doesn’t matter what stage you’re at with your story — we can work on:

• developing a new idea

• outlining

• breaking through writer’s block

• solving plot & structural issues

• characterisation

• editing

• finding an agent

• submitting your work to lit mags

• fine-tuning your creative process

• general motivation & confidence building

Whatever helps you get to the next step on your writing journey.

I have over 15 years of experience supporting writers, lived experience of neurodivergence, burnout, and chronic illness, so if ‘traditional’ approaches haven’t worked for you, let’s find some new ways that suit your brain and energy levels a bit better!

Find out more & book a session

Hope to make beautiful words with you soon.

Otherwise, happy writing : )

Jo

Recent posts & useful stuff:

At the end of each year, I like to do something that sounds about as horrendous as a tax return but is actually massively inspiring: a creative audit.

(You may have even done it with me last year, if you took part in my Creative Roadmap workshop. And if you missed it, you can watch the replay here »)

Essentially, I take ALL the creative stuff I’ve done, ALL the stuff I planned to do (but didn’t), and ALL the other stuff that spontaneously manifested over the year, and I set each of them against my own secret recipe of criteria to see what ‘worked’.

By this I definitely don’t mean how ‘successful’ or ‘productive’ or ‘profitable’ (ha!) something was. It doesn’t necessarily matter if I even finished it or not.

Instead, my audit criteria measure whether I actually enjoyed doing it. If it helped me develop creatively. If it led to interesting ideas, connections, or opportunities.

And, on the flipside, I also check how much energy each project required — if it was way too stressful, draining, or just impossible to juggle alongside work and life. Or if, despite requiring a lot of energy, it still filled my creative cup.

All of this allows me to figure out if I’m headed in the right direction, focusing my efforts in the right place, and — most importantly — getting joy and satisfaction out of whatever I’m doing. It also highlights where and how I might need to tweak things, adjust my expectations, seek extra support, or gain new skills.

[Sidebar: This is pretty much what I do for other people as a creative mentor, but this is how I apply it to myself — because it’s hard to be objective about your own situation and/or take your own advice!] 

Anywho, since we’re 3.5 months into the year now, I thought I’d give myself a ‘lil creative audit check-in to see how different reality was from my expectations for this year.

Because of course things don’t go to plan. I mean, why would they? Global politics notwithstanding, the machinations of general life are always ready and waiting to throw a spanner or twelve into the works. And it’s been an… interesting few months so far:

The good

• I’m currently on not one but two 6-month writing programmes — one for playwriting, one for scriptwriting — so I have a boatload of deadlines and assignments and webinars and group sessions to attend, all of which are exploding my brain with ideas and inspiration and making me want to WRITE ALL THE TIME instead of, y’know, everything else I should be doing.

• I wrote and directed a 15-minute monologue for a local theatre showcase and I’m so glad I was a part of it, so proud of the actor I worked with, and learned SO much in the process.

The bad

• So, the writing programmes and the play weren’t actually all meant to happen at once. Or, at least, when I applied to them, I didn’t think I’d get accepted for all three of them. A super lucky problem to have, I know, woe is me. But I’m having to rearrange a whole load of my life to make the most of the opportunities. Which was definitely not something I’d anticipated in my creative audit and prime example of the kind of shit you have to learn along the way!

• Related: there is still never, ever enough fucking time.

• On top of that, somewhere in the middle of February, life threw me an emotional curveball that pretty much knocked out a whole month of regular scheduling. Work, writing, everything had to take a backseat for far more serious human stuff, which isn’t something I’m going to put on the internet, but is certainly another good reminder that most of the petty shit we let ourselves stress over just does not matter in the grand scheme of things. And your creative spark will always still be waiting there when you’re ready to return.

The other

• As of right now, I’m in that clench-worthy liminal space of waiting for a response for a funding application… If I get it, well, things will be marvellous. If I don’t (and I’m trying to be realistic about how steep the competition is), well, I’m working on contingency plans. For now, the unknowing is the most annoying thing. Lucky I have more than enough other stuff to distract myself with, huh?

And what have we learned?

Plans and expectations are far less important than how you throw yourself into things (or extract yourself from things). Life is gonna life. There will always be unexpected items in the bagging area, good and bad. But keeping those ‘creative audit’ criteria in the back of my mind has helped to navigate it all without completely falling off the map. For example:

• Am I enjoying this?

• Does this really need to happen now, or can it wait?

• How/is this helping my creativity develop?

• Is this taking too much energy from me?

• What can I do to make this feel easier?

• Who can I ask for advice/help/support?

• Does this really feel like me?

• Is this leading somewhere?

Sometimes the answers are obvious, sometimes they’re hidden under uncertainty, stress, or obligation, and sometimes you can’t figure them out until much later (like your end-of-year audit).

And sometimes you just need a little help from someone else to find them… Wow, what an incredibly smooth coincidence that I just so happen to offer that exact thing as your friendly neighbourhood creative mentor:

So, another creative audit realisation this year was that one-to-one mentoring is probably my favourite kind of work. Anyone who’s taken one of my workshops or had a coaching session with me can attest to the fact I get extremely excited about stories and writing and ideas, and I love talking to creative people about their plans.

I also love a good puzzle, so if you’ve got a plot problem, a writing process blockage, or just want to brainstorm, use me as a soundboard, or vent your creative frustrations — I really am your gal!

Find out more & book a session

You can also join in with my monthly Unfuck Your Writing drop-in, which is more of an informal group session to talk about all the things that have sparked (and stifled) our creativity lately — with plenty of wisdom and support from your literary peers and a writing exercise to get your ideas moving.

Find out more

And if you’d like to catch up with The Creative Roadmap Workshop and do a lil’ creative audit of your own, you can grab the replay + free PDF guidebook here:

Creativity, take the wheel!

How’s your creative year going so far?

Have your plans been laughing in your face or have you found new ways to find your flow? What are you working on? What would you like to work on?

Lemme know:

Leave a comment

Happy writing.

: )

1. A character

2. Some kind of conflict or change

3. A setting

When I work with writers, there’s often a lot of focus on #1 and #2 — and rightly so, since your protagonist and their quest (and actions and flaws and relationships and mistakes and backstory etc) are primarily what drives the plot forward. The interplay between #1 and #2 is also where we most often find ourselves tangled up, trying to connect all those dots.

Whereas the third item on that list tends to fade — literally — into the background. Or it’s quickly established and then mostly forgotten about. Or it remains a bit vague while you figure out the plotty stuff; y’know, it’s there but kind insignificant right now. But sometimes you simply can’t get your head around #1 and #2 before you know exactly where your story takes place. And why.

Because if we don’t pay enough attention to our settings, they can become afterthoughts, which means your whole story ends up being staged in front of a cardboard-cut-out backdrop.

Because if we don’t know how our protagonist relates to their setting, or how the place they grew up shaped them, then we might not actually know our protagonist all that well.

Because if our settings don’t have any significance to — or influence on — the action of the story, then we’re missing a whole bag of plotting tricks.

Because if we don’t find a way to connect with a fictional or fantastical place, it will never feel entirely real to the reader.

Setting can play a huge part in any story, even if it’s just sitting quietly in the background. Your story’s location sets the tone and atmosphere for the action. It gives us clues about the characters and the plot through visual storytelling, objects, details and subtle signposting. It can even be a ‘character’ in its own right (like The Martian or Piranisi or pretty much any book with a big gothic house in it).

And I’ve found that often it’s this missing link that makes pinning down a draft so hard. I might know my characters intimately and have a whole narrative arc of trouble to throw them into, but it’s only when I can fully imagine my fictional locations that I’m able to genuinely ground myself in writing the story.

But to do that, first I have to establish a tangible connection point. I.e. Do I know what it’s like to be in this particular place?

Now, this should be fairly straightforward if I’m writing about something contemporary or within my wheelhouse of experiences, but I can still draw a blank trying to visualise “a school” or “a park” out of thin air. And I don’t want my settings to feel generic or bland, so getting specific about the details is still an important.

Even more so if I’m writing about some far distant planet or the poop deck of a pirate ship or the antarctic, or if I’m writing about a historical era hundreds of years in the past or a country I’ve never been to or a scenario I will never find myself in real life. Which is the whole reason writing is fun — and also where a bit of good ol’ reliable ‘write what you know’ comes in.

Also, this slightly ominous-sounding mantra:

Find the familiar. Draw from what you know. Bridge the gap...

Where was I? Oh yes. All together now:

Find the familiar. Draw from what you know. Bridge the gap...

Here’s how:

#1. Start with a familiar place, adjacent in some way to the setting you want to write about (even if it’s on the tenuous side).

Never been to a desert? Well, have you been to a sandy beach? A very hot place? A sauna? Not a perfect comparison but it’s a start. Writing about a church or a school or a supermarket? Chances are you’ve been to one before. Pick a real location (or elements of several) you can visualise clearly. Then let’s go to step 2.

#2. Draw out details and sensory elements from your familiar place that might be useful to transform into your fictional setting.

Writing about a cold, dank, underground futuristic city? Conjure up the atmosphere of your local underground carpark — the smell of piss-damp concrete, flickering strip lights, echoing footsteps… How does it feel to be there? What aspects might stand out to your character, or become relevant to the action of the scene? Borrow from multiple familiar locations to get the precise mix of real life details you need to create the right atmosphere and make it feel genuine. And then…

#3. Bridge the gap between familiar and fictional: expand, adjust, and add a little creative license.

Once you’ve anchored your setting in something authentic — even if it’s the tiniest detail drawn from a real life place — you can start building out your fictional world. Use reasonable assumptions, research, and imaginative spice to incorporate more layers of depth and realism until it manifests itself onto the page…

After that, you’ll probably begin to get a clearer sense of what kind of role your setting will play in your story. Whether it’s a vital component to narrative development or a subtext-laden reflection of your protagonist; a safe haven or an active antagonistic force; a looming atmospheric shadow that looms over the whole plot, or a weird liminal vibe that heightens the mysteries within your story; a place your reader would love to spend time in or a place that haunts their dreams long after they’ve finished the story.

What does this look like in practice?

Only you know how your fictional location needs to show up in your story, but here’s some of my own writing where the setting unexpectedly became more important than I had anticipated. In each case — whether consciously or unconsciously — the details were drawn from writing what I know, connecting with some tangible place to build something fictional. And each piece takes a slightly different approach to incorporate the setting into the story:

Things Left and Found by the Side of the Road (Bath Flash Fiction Award)

Baby car seats, sometimes with babies in them, swiftly recovered. Nettles flourishing in the face of toilet breaks. Things said in anger and in tiredness, whipped free from wound down windows. Singular shoes. Houses turned into islands, refusing to bow to the bypass, clinging to their land. Roadkill; fox-ochre and badger-stripe and innards turned outer. And crows, wherever things are dead and forgotten… [read more]

Sometimes a setting can be described purely by the objects found within it. This one is essentially a list of details (clue’s in the title), strung into a narrative. Almost all of them are taken from genuine car ride observations — whether concrete or abstract — and the more of them I layered together, the easier it became to see the shape of the story.

→ PROMPT: Try describing a setting using only items and objects that can be found there.

Three Miles Off the Highway Past Exit 509 (Blue Frog Prize | Flash Frog)

Al sells inflatable aliens in the parking lot outside the taco place with the sun-bleached sign; an army of little grey men with suspicious eyes and blow-up valves on their butts. There’s a steady stream of customers—for tacos and aliens—even though they’re way off the main route, the only square of concrete for miles, with an inch of dust coating every surface and a glowing pink sombrero you can see from the highway… [read more]

Sometimes a setting can be an overwhelming force of nature that makes your characters feel tiny. I wanted the desert in this story to feel heavy but expansive; unsettling but irresistible, mysterious and mundane; full of contradictions. Its details came from photographs, memories of a real life road trip through Death Valley, every middle-of-nowhere hike I’ve ever been on, and a childhood of 80s sci fi movies.

→ PROMPT: Try writing about setting that feels contradictory, or a space so huge, ancient or primal that it humbles your character.

My Brother, the Skyscraper (Flash City | Molotov Cocktail)

My brother was a skyscraper—one of those big glass-fronted towers that turn into a mirror when the light hits it just so. The kind with security guards and a white marble-floored lobby covered in tiny glittering speckles, like an inverse starscape. You needed a keycard to get through his barriers; to go through his metal detector; to pass his receptionist who checked your name on the computer and judged you up and down... [read more]

Taking the concept of setting-as-character a little too literally, perhaps, but sometimes the places our protagonists spend time in can be metaphorical mirrors for their aspirations, insecurities and inner worlds. Maybe a particular setting keeps them trapped in their current mindset. Maybe it forces them to move on. Maybe they draw confidence from it. Or maybe it sucks all the life out of them. (And, if nothing else, it’s a whole lot of absurdist fun to try matching personalities with anthropomorphic buildings.)

→ PROMPT: Write about a place that heavily influences your character in some way (or try describing your character AS a specific location)

On Day Six of Bible Camp We Crawl into a One-Man Tent (Full House Literary)

There’s mould crawling down the canvas, still musty-stale from last year’s rainstorms, back when we couldn’t even make eye contact. We poke the lining until droplets seep through… [read more]

Sometimes your setting can do a lot of work for you to set up the atmosphere, tone, and tension of a story. Especially a teeny micro contained entirely within a sweaty confined space.

→ PROMPT: Try describing a setting in fewer than 100 words that conjures up the atmosphere of a supercharged moment-about-to-happen.

Let me know what you come up with. And please tell me about your favourite locations — real or fictional!

Leave a comment

Or if you just wanna keep exploring, here’s a bunch more Write What You Know inspiration from the archives:

Happy writing : )

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOP AHOY!
Write What you Know: Setting & Place — Tues 31 March
Let’s build fictional worlds together…
(more info below)

I used to alternate between three or four different routes to school, and each one included walking through a graveyard. The one with the fish weathervane and ancient church bell. The one with two swinging gates, worn round and smooth by generations of hands. The absolutely gigantic one on the hill which, in my teenage years, became an oddly tranquil place to get stoned in the evenings. The deconsecrated one — now a community centre surrounded by gravestones — where I’d spend entire summers running feral while my mum volunteered at the charity jumble sale. I vaguely remember being told off for clambering on the 200-year-old tombs, but if they weren’t meant for climbing, why were there footholds carved into the corners, exactly the right size for a little foot? The slabs on top would become hot plates in the sun — the perfect spot for sunbathing cats and small children eating cross-legged packed lunches, throwing crumbs to the magpies and planning my next imaginary adventure.

I’m slightly more respectful of graves now (although if, one day, a scrappy little kid wants to sit on my grave and make up stories, I’d be quite happy with that), but I will still always detour through a churchyard whenever I can. They’re also a staple for dog walking routes, which is where I happened to come across the inspiration for one of my current works-in-progress — the grave of an 18th century smuggler “unfortunately shot” in the head while stashing goods down an alleyway.

And what started as an idle historical research project became a ten-year obsession (and hopefully, one day, a TV drama) that has led to a whole lot of hanging around in graveyards across Sussex and beyond.

Because of course you could just Google a list of common names from the historical era you’re writing about — OR you could spend hours wandering around graveyards scouring birth/death dates and noting down olde-timey names. And of course, once you’ve chosen your characters, you are obliged to pat each mossy headstone bearing their namesake whenever you pass by, like visiting old friends.

Even if you’re not looking for specific story inspiration, it’s so interesting to see how naming trends have shifted throughout the generations. Or how far back a particular ‘modern’ sounding name actually goes. Or seeing the same names skipping down from grandparent to child to grandchild. Or just imagining tiny baby Agneses and Geoffreys from hundreds of years ago, scampering about between these very stones.

In a particularly magical stroke of luck, deep down a research rabbit hole, I even came across a diary written by a man who once owned a whole load of the suburbs (then villages) near where I live.

It’s mostly a lot of fairly boring legal stuff and obsessive checking of land boundaries, but then there’s a throwaway passage in which the author describes planting a 5ft yew tree beside the local church in 1800.

The same church I walk past almost every day with my dog. The same churchyard that just so happens to contain a massive old twisted tree. I’ll admit to having to double check what a yew actually looks like, but lo and behold:

There she is, 226 years later. How bizarre to know the exact date it was put there, and the name of the person who patted down the soil around its roots. To know what the weather was like that day. To see the surname of someone he chatted to about the logistics of sheep grazing on a gravestone nearby.

So many lives. So many stories…

The church itself is much older than the yew — parts of it going back to the 12th century — and the lettering on its closest graves has worn away entirely. Depending on the day, my dog can be a little selective about whether we walk the full loop around it or if we just pass on through, but without fail she will stop and stare at that big ol’ yew before deciding. I assume, to confer with something I can’t see. It has become a cue:

“You wanna say hi to the ghosts today?” I’ll ask. And she’ll ponder a moment more before making her choice, yay or nay — I assume, based on whether the ghosts fancy our company or not.

To be honest, there are so many pictures of graves on my camera roll I’ve lost track of where some of them came from, but no matter how many times we walk through the same churchyards, I still keep discovering new things. Tiny, innocuous details that turn anonymous names and lumps of stone into people again.

Like these good old reliable reminders of mortality:

Or this alleged ‘pirate’ grave in Rottingdean, which you’d assume would have a similar skull and crossbones motif, but instead has this hourglass:

An obligatory dose of pirate research later, and I learned that contrary to popular belief, the Jolly Roger traditionally featured an image of the devil, sometimes holding an hourglass — a reminder to both the pirates’ victims and to themselves that death is coming for all of us (and most likely soon if you were seeing or hoisting such a flag).

Gotta love a memento mori, eh?

I’m also rather partial to a grave that just says it how it is:

Obviously, graveyard observations have a tendency to get a little dark, but there are also serendipitous moments that make you believe there must be some kind of spiritual energy surrounding these places, no matter what you believe… Like this lil’ critter, taking a moment to rest its wings on these precise words.

Or these two, cosying up together as they settle into the earth (or perhaps they’re just exchanging a little gossip about the gravestones over yonder):

And I’m obsessed with the ones that have become utterly untraceable — cracked, broken, weatherworn, overgrown with ivy — nothing but texture and unknown history:

Or so minimalistic that their owners are reduced to initials:

As far as I know, these kinds of markers tended to be a low-cost option when a family couldn’t afford a headstone, or a hasty option when a burial had to be quick. Of course these letters would still be identifiable to their family, and friends, but I always wonder how many generations passed before the knowledge of who they were passed out of general memory.

And then there are pairs of stones with no discernible lettering remaining at all. The practical explanation is that the smaller ones were originally foot stones, tidied up as the ground shifted or the graveyard expanded. The tragic explanation is that these are combined graves — a sobering reminder of the high mortality rate of childbirth in days gone by.

All these hypotheticals from blank stones. And even more from the ones that are still legible. Like finding four generations of the same family name scattered throughout the churchyard. Or the fifteen-year-old who must have lied about his age to join up in WWI but didn’t make it through the first year. Or this “faithful and upright steward” who served his master for more than half his life:

And, as the circle turns, we find ourselves back at the disrespectful beginning — where my childishness has never quite grown beyond snort-laughing at a good bit of wordplay. I therefore present to you my favourite grave of all time — found in Stanmer churchyard: the immaculately named Fanny Feast:

At this point, I don’t even know how much of my love of graveyards is about writing and stories, or if it’s more about humans and history and all those invisible connected dots that suddenly come into focus when you look close enough.

Either way, I hope there’s a nice, stony patch of grass full of dead people near you to hang around in, too. (And I’d love to hear about the treasures you find there.)

Leave a comment

Happy writing : )

Write What You Know: Setting & Place Workshop

Write about your favourite familiar and fictional places with me on the next Write What You Know workshop (Tues 31 March) — in which we’ll play with different techniques to conjure up authentic, nuanced locations and worlds using memory, observation, sensory detail, and pure, unbridled imagination.

Find out more

New to the whole concept of ‘write what you know’? Lucky for you, I’m obsessed with it. Start here »

Just a quick reminder that my next Unfuck Your Writing online hangout session is happening tomorrow, Weds 11 Feb at 6pm (GMT).

I’m planning on running these monthly so we can build up a friendly little group of fixioneers, and I’d love to see you there:

It’s a super casual thing — just turn up and chat about your writing, your creative process, what’s working and what’s not, and share advice and experiences with some lovely fellow writerly people.

For example, last month, we ended up delving into some fascinating non-writing related methods of shoring up our creative reserves:

Looking forward to finding out what we all come up with tomorrow!

Find out more & book

Write What You Know: Setting & Place Workshop

Tuesday 31 March @ 7.30pm BST

Also coming up soon-ish is one of my favourite workshops to run — all about creating authentic, nuanced settings in our writing by writing what we know: drawing from our own experiences, memories and observances — and then transferring all those intricate sensory details and emotive connections into brand new, uniquely fictional locations.

A tonne of prompts, exercises, techniques and inspiration to get you writing about fantastical and familiar places with confidence.

Grab your ticket

For a taster of my ‘write what you know’ approach, there are a bunch of posts and exercises at The Joy of Fixion already.

And on the theme of ‘setting & place’ — it’s only fitting to bring back this dose of location-based silliness:

Treat Yourself to a Creative Development Zoom Consultation in February

And finally, at the risk of sounding alarmist, it’s somehow already the 10th of Feb and I only have 6 one-to-one mentoring spots available for the rest of the month — so if you’re in need of some personalised support for your writing, gimme a yell.

More info & book

Hope to hang out with you soon & happy writing!

Jo

: )

• I am a short (5’2”) writer of fiction

• I also write a lot of short (<1000 words) fiction

So. I’ve been sending my work out to lit mags fairly consistently since (ohmygod) 20101, but I’ve only really been keeping track of my stats for the past six years — eg: how many times I sent my writing out into the world, how often I got published/rejected, how much it cost me and how much (or if) I got paid for my words. Spoiler: this is not a get rich quick scheme. But in all that time I have acquired quite a satisfying stack:

And now I have a decent chunk of data, I spent an idle Sunday afternoon picking it apart to see if the numbers might show me anything useful about my submission habits.

Turns out, yes the numbers are interesting but ultimately mean very little (as is so often the case, which is why I peddle in words instead), although some of the patterns were enlightening. And, in true Fixion Lessons style, I have learned a lot from trying and failing and trying again.

Here are the stats:

Over the past 6 years (2020-25)...

→ I submitted between 23 and 125 pieces of work per year

Lately my average is around 50-70 submissions per year, which feels like a lot considering it’s already the end of January and so far I’ve only sent out one thing. (More reasons for that at the end of this post.) My subs are primarily flash fiction, a smattering of poetry, some longer stories, plays, and TV scripts. Sometimes I’ve included submissions to other opportunities in my stats, too (funding, development programmes etc). Basically, anything to do with writing that required a yay/nay decision from an outside source.

I don’t have a particular target for how many subs I send out per year, but I do generally try to keep a healthy number of pieces in rotation — generating new ideas and editing drafts in the meantime so I’m not just sitting around twiddling my thumbs and waiting for responses (by far the most common of which is, yep: rejection).

→ My work was rejected between 30 and 86 times per year

I’ve always really liked Kim Liao’s 100 rejections theory, although I think people often misconstrue it as an invitation to fling your work out with wild abandon, relying on pure quantity rather than using it as motivation to keep creating new (quality) work and finding the right match for each submission. I’ve never quite hit the 100 mark, but aiming for rejections instead of acceptances is a fun subversion of the whole game and helps to dilute the ‘oof’ of receiving a “no thanks” (which is important to cultivate, because you’re gonna get a lot of them).

I was talking to a writer friend the other day about this, actually, because we’re both fairly ‘meh’ about getting rejected and we reckon it mostly stems from a dogged kind of determination. It’s not so much that rejections don’t sting (of course they do), but a) we’ve been doing this long enough that we know just how much subjectivity there is in each decision, and b) if you know deep down in your soul you’re never going to fucking stop writing then ultimately it doesn’t matter either way. It’s also not a case of simply believing one day that acceptance will come (although of course we hope it will) because we would have written anyway and I can’t imagine getting to my death bed and wishing I’d spent less time writing simply because I didn’t get published.

So: meh? I’ve got over every single rejection I’ve ever had so far, right? And I’m pretty sure the older and uglier and fewer-fuck-giving I get, it’s only going to get easier.

Also, we are all so incredibly rich in lit mags and publication options* that there’s really not much point dwelling on disappointment — just… mark it down, move on to the next potential, and click submit. Easy as falling on your face.

(P.S. I also love Sage Turtle’s “Sushi Challenge” version of the rejection game because it almost makes you eager for the next one to drop…)

(*P.P.S. I’m obligated to disclose that this is an affiliate link to Chill Subs because if you sign up I get a lil’ kickback and you get a comprehensive database of places to send your writing that I thoroughly endorse because it’s run by genuinely good people and the main resource I use for submitting things.)

→ My work was accepted between 4 and 19 times per year

Which, according to my GCSE maths, makes for an acceptance rate of between 8.5% and 21.8% per year. Funnily enough, one of the years I published the least, my rate was the highest, and I believe those pieces are some of my strongest. So, just like rejections, this is another form of number tracking that I don’t overly concern myself with. There have been years where I’ve written a lot but sent out hardly anything. While other times I’ve written much less but edited and submitted a tonne. And in the same vein of “rejection = meh”, there’s really no point worrying about output; I know there will always be places to send work to, and all my half-finished stories will wait (because life so often demands they have to).

Obviously acceptances are wonderful, and I’m not trying to be blasé about it — I’m always immensely grateful and proud to have my work published — but there’s definitely something cracked in my dopamine machine because the moment something gets a green tick, well… it’s done. Past tense. Close the loop. Add it to the bibliography. I’m immediately ready to write the next thing. Validation is ostensibly a slap on the haunches to keep moving. Because the writing is the thing I’m chasing.

→ I paid between £55 and £188 in submission fees per year

→ And (minus submission fees) I earned between 50p and £1318 per year from publishing payments/competition prizes*

While it would really fucking great to get paid decently and consistently for writing submissions, the truth of the matter is that hardly anyone does. And that’s not really what I do it for. However, much to my own surprise while analysing all this stuff, fees/payment rates have been important factors in where/how I submit, and shaped how I approach the whole shebang over the years.

For example:

I think my favourite (and by far stupidest) stat is the year I paid an astonishing £188 in fees and earned exactly £188.50 back. That’s gambling, folks! And I would never spend that much on subs now. I think it was a year where I was particularly prolific and prioritised competitions — something else I definitely wouldn’t do now.

Of course, it’s possible to earn a few hundred quid (or sometimes over £1000) from a single competition — and that’s actually where the majority of my payments have come from — but I’m extremely selective about them these days. And I think there’s far more value in finding a lit mag that’s the right match for your writing than taking the risk of a comp. Mainly because you have so much more information about what kind of work a magazine has published before, what tone and style they like, who the editors are — and you’re more likely to be able to niche right down and find a mag that suits your particular genre/vibe* instead of throwing your story into the melting pot of a competition slush pile. Sometimes I’ve even seen BIG comps bragging about their BIG NAME judges when these authors don’t actually have any experience writing the type of pieces they’ll be choosing (eg: assigning a well-respected novelist for a flash competition). But hey, sometimes it’s fun to gamble. So long as you’re placing your bets carefully.

(*And here I’d once again recommend Chill Subs purely because their categorisation scheme makes me cackle every time.)

After the infamous 50p-in-earnings year, I toyed with the idea of only submitting to paying markets (you know, to prove that I was a ‘real’ writer, snorf) but quickly dropped that approach because a lot of my favourite lit mags don’t pay and <gasp> I still wanted to submit to them anyway. Ironically, since then, although I have made a concerted effort to pay less in fees, I actually end up donating to submission tip jars more often and try to support the mags I love when I can.

(It also might be useful to know that you can claim fees as expenses on your self-assessment tax return if you work in any kind of writing-related industry.)

As for getting paid, well, it’s complicated (and rare). For the most part, lit mags and anthologies (and many competitions) are run by editors on a voluntary, literature-loving basis — which is a shitty representation of how little the arts are valued by capitalism — and if writers are getting paid, it’s often coming out of an editor’s pocket, or the sole use of any profits from running the publication. Rather depressingly, many ‘professional’ publications and anthologies (don’t get me start on the academic model) rarely pay authors either, and one of the worst publishing contracts I’ve ever received (and negotiated at length) was from a magazine with an average distribution of 350,000+ per issue.

So. Yeah. It’s never been about the money. But, without sounding too saccharine, I still get a whole lot of satisfaction from my work appearing in the pages of publications I admire, alongside authors I admire, and finding each new story a well-suited home. And there’s something about the whole cycle and routine and impetus of sending your work somewhere that motivates me to write, experiment, read, and keep looking for the next idea.

*A note: these earnings don’t include print-run payments for my chapbook, The Woman’s Part (thank you, lovely Stanchion), the non-existent royalties (lol) from my novel, or grants and other literary funding — these are purely from lit subs. According to the ancient lore, there are ways to make a living from selling your words, but mostly I earn my keep by helping other people develop their writing, which is also its own rich reward in creative immersion.

→ Other miscellaneous learnings and nuggets of submissions wisdom from over the years

• Literary festivals, workshops, courses and writing challenges can be excellent ways to generate a lot of ideas and drafts in a short space of time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll end up using all of this material. And as with competitions, I’ve learned to be selective and discerning about how I spend my time. Eg: taking part in the next shiny thing may not be as useful as buckling down to edit and polish the drafts I already have.

• There’s no upper limit to how many times you can send out a story or how long it takes to get published. In 2025 I received an acceptance for a story that I first drafted over 15 years ago, gathered a handful of rejections, and has sat on my hard drive ever since. Two other stories published last year were sent out at least five times each before getting a yes. Others have been sent out many many many more times than that and still haven’t found a home (or still need work, most likely). And one of the most exciting writing opportunities I’ve had to date took a full year to come to fruition (and I can’t actually talk about it for another six months…). So: patience.

• The lit community can be an echo chamber, a circle jerk, and is occasionally infiltrated by fraudsters — but also contains some of the most generous, hilarious, thoughtful and talented writers I’ve ever met. Editors and publishers and fellow writers who champion each other, offer insightful feedback, share resources, and band together to help those who need it. And I feel particularly lucky to have built working relationships (and friendships) with people who now commission my work, invite me to run workshops, or use my stories as examples in their own. Our little artistic bubble is a strange one sometimes, but it’s one of my favourite places to spend my time and I’m so glad I stumbled into it all those years ago.

Submission plans for 2026?

Well. So far the stats are pretty sparse. This year I’ve sent out one piece and had one publication (for something that was accepted in the previous year). I also have also five other 2025 subs sitting patiently in Submittable, waiting for a response.

But aside from that, I suspect this year might skew my data a bit, as I’m not really planning on sending a whole lot out. Mostly because I’m part-way through of a bunch of longer projects, a collection, and a weird little undefinable thing I’d like to self-publish. I’m also slightly shellshocked to be on two separate development programmes over the next six months — one for scriptwriting and one for playwriting — so aside from slingshotting those existing submissions back out when/if they get rejected, I can’t see that I’ll have much time for much else.

Instead, I’m hoping that by the end of 2026 I’ll have some completed scripts and full-length projects to send out, which feels like an entirely different ball game — undoubtedly with a whole lot more publishing lessons waiting for me.

We’ll see what the data drags in then…

And to finish up this unprompted submissions analysis, here are all the things I had published/accepted in 2025:

• Non-compliance — published in the 2025 FlashFlood for National Flash Fiction Day

• Not Fate but Patience — published by Gooseberry Lit

• Lucille Ascends — 3rd place in the Flash 500 competition

• Young Enough — highly commended for Frazzled Lit’s Short Story Award

• Hallelujah Has Too Many Verses for Karaoke — published in Stanchion’s 5th anniversary issue

• Unrealistic Expectations — published in Kicking Your Ass Issue #3

• What it’s Like When You Become a Living Ghost — published in The Craft of Care Anthology

• Bloom — longlisted for the Scratch A4 Competition and the Flash 500 competition

• The Fourth Law of Motion — forthcoming in Matchbook Lit

• Perfect Circle — forthcoming in Uncertain Stories

• (Also forthcoming: a Shakespeare-themed poem and an academic chapter commission I’m not allowed to talk about quite yet!)

And if you want to talk more about submissions, publishing (or anything else about writing)...

…my next Unfuck Your Writing group chat Zoom session is on Weds 11th Feb at 6pm GMT and I’d love to see you there:

More info & booking

(Just FYI: Paid subscribers to The Joy of Fixion get a free ticket to all Unfuck events — if that’s you, pls get in touch for the discount code. And if you’re a free subscriber tempted by my little promo lure you can manage your subscription here »)

Ok. This post contained a lot of numbers. I need to go and lie down.

One final reminder: What do we say to rejection?

Meh.

: )

On the ‘unfuck’ list were all sorts of crafts and activities that fill our cups, like crochet and knitting, gourmet cooking, jigsaw puzzles, yoga, dancing, and singing in a choir (or on a dog walk when no one else is around).

All entirely non-writing related stuff that still somehow scratches that creative itch — using different senses, colours, movement, methods of expression — while also serving as a way to calm, focus, or quiet our brains.

Interesting, too, that a lot of these crafts involve bilateral movement (activating both sides of the brain) which is meant to create a bridge between logic and emotion, facilitate learning (and creativity), process trauma and help us self-regulate.

I joked to a friend the other day that the key to happiness is simply having enough time for all our little activities, but I’m starting to think it’s true.

I used to see my other crafty hobbies as ‘lesser’ than my writing (because how can you compare a bobble hat to a short story?), but they all tap the same source, don’t they? Human hands and brains don’t like being idle. We crave the making. Doesn’t much matter what it is. And the more we make, the more we want to make, the more we’re tempted to experiment, and the more we use it to express ourselves.

And doesn’t all art originate from some kind of basic or necessary craft/activity, anyway?

First, we make things with our hands because we need fabric for clothing, or a pot to cook with, or a chair to sit in. Then, at some point, when the necessity part has been fulfilled, and the skill goes up a notch, why not make a really beautiful piece of fabric, or paint a special design on the pot, or carve an intricately ornate chair? The craft becomes more complex, perhaps less functional, but valuable nonetheless.

First, we pass down stories through song and dance or mark making, because knowing these things is important: for survival; as a warning; to understand something. Then, at some point, when the fundamental information is safely delivered (and eventually we discover we can also write things down), the stories become more metaphorical, more expressive, more meaningful. We use them to represent emotions and experiences that cannot be rationalised.

Here’s the paradox, though:

If art and creation is needed most when the world is particularly irrational; when we’re dealing with something difficult in our personal lives; when the horrors of the news are overwhelming — why is it so fucking hard to write when life knocks us sideways?

This is exactly why I love getting a bunch of creative people together, because the moment this question arose, there was a flood of thoughtful, kind, and imaginative suggestions. Stuff like:

• Journal/freewrite about the difficult thing, or try turning some aspect of what you’re feeling into a story.

• Put your work-in-progress aside and do a random writing exercise/prompt instead = low stakes, less emotional investment, but still writing.

• Rather than even trying to write something coherent, simply gather the materials you might need to explore a concept — associated words, feelings, places, memories, details, and make a mind map out of them (I think this one was credited to the wonderful ).

• Forget about writing altogether and focus on comfort and self-regulation. Time for a little crafty activity? Or re-watch/re-read something nostalgic, familiar, comforting and predictable to give your nervous system a break.

A secret admission: I really didn’t know how these Unfuck Your Writing sessions were going to go. Or if anyone would turn up. But I could not have asked for a better first attempt. So a huge thank you to those lovely writers who spent an hour putting the world to rights with calming craft ideas.

And now I’m going back to my crochet project (a hooded scarf — practical and decorative). With a little daydreaming about a new story on the side, perhaps…

Keep those idle hands busy.

: )

P.S. The vast majority of The Joy of Fixion is free-to-read, but paid subs get a free ticket to Unfuck Your Writing check-ins — next one is on Weds 11th Feb @ 6pm GMT:

Join the next session

It’s a sad (and absurd) thing to admit that my nervous system is not used to being at rest. Not being busy makes it skittish. Not working at absolute capacity all the time makes it freak out entirely. Because surely if we stop, give ourselves space, or even dare to pause for a moment, we’ll miss out on something important, we’ll drop the ball, or something we’ve forgotten to do will come back to bite us — and thus, the perpetual anxiety is really keeping us safe, no?

No, my sweet bundle of nerves, it is not.

A warm bed, a good view from the top of a frosty hill, and a roaring fire are much better at keeping us safe — or at least slowing the pace of Real Life for a while. They’re also excellent opportunities to carve out a bit of blank brain-space to ponder stories and imaginary things and creative ideas — all the kind of ponderings we never seem to have time for amidst the hustle…

Just because the great big invisible hand of ‘progress’ has ticked over into January doesn’t change the fact we’re still deep in midwinter (your hemisphere may vary) and every cell in our bodies is screaming for pause.

The trees are bare, the seeds are lying dormant underground, and any animal with any sense is tucked nose-to-tail somewhere warm, dark and quiet.

And I think creativity follows a similar cycle — especially if we’ve just pushed ourselves to the limits of ‘productivity’ by the end of the year. Can you hear it screaming out for a little pause, too?

So maybe the new year is abso-fucking-lutely not the time to be adding any more stress or urgency to our lives.

Because when we rush into making New Year’s Resolutions about our creative work based on guilt and shame (I should be writing more) and haste and fear (I’m not good/fast enough) and expectations that have no tangible basis in how we get into the flow (I should be doing things a certain way because the internet told me so), no part of that process has any real connection with creativity.

All we’re doing is making it feel like ‘work’.

Instead, what if we slowed the fuck down and stayed in stasis a little longer? What if we made space for those kinds of creative ponderings that only come a’calling when we’re doing absolutely nothing at all?

Stare into a fire. Climb a hill. Get back in bed where it’s warm. Pause and reconnect with how your creative brain actually functions when you’re not throwing shit at it constantly. Take an objective look at what genuinely motivates and inspires you. Get clarity on whatever problems need solving before you set yourself a bunch of new goals. Trust that those dormant seeds will sprout in their own good time.

Then, maybe, our expectations might be a bit more based in reality.

So, if that sounds like something your nervous system (and your work-in—progress) desperately needs, then here are three ways to go a little more gently into the new year…

1. Creative Hibernation

Allow yourself some deliberate downtime with a six-part Creative Hibernation series to help you get some objective perspective on your work-in-progress and reconnect with your creative flow/mojo/muse/whatever floats your boat.

Here’s a little more about it:

And you can read Part 1 for free to see if you want to become a real life grizzly bear with me:

Then get proper cosy and go full hibernation mode with the rest of the series:

Get Hibernating

Oh, and here are some really nice things some really nice people have said about the whole shebang:

In the spirit of not rushing, this is a totally asynchronous workshop so there’s no time limit and the whole thing is available right now — just go through each lesson at your own pace. And I’m always here if you have any questions, want to chat, or need hibernation help :)

2. Unfuck Your Writing — January Check-in

I decided this year I want to start a monthly online hangout, so join me Tuesday 13 January @ 11am (GMT) for the very first Unfuck Your Writing session — an informal Zoom group chat to talk about all the things that spark (and stifle) our creativity.

(Or, y’know, what’s fucked & unfucked us lately?)

​Look, I’m not here to tell you what to do, but the most useful things I’ve learned after 15 years as a writer, editor and mentor are:

1. ​Writer’s block is mostly caused by fighting our creative instincts.

2. ​What most of us really need is to reconnect with the joy and excitement in our writing — to learn how to work with our creative flow instead of against it.

​And the best way to do all of that is to talk it out with other creatives. Share the things that inspire you. Bounce ideas around the room. Crowdsource solutions. Take an objective view of your creative process, set fire to stagnant habits, and focus on having more fun with your writing.

​So let’s chat some shit and manifest The Great Unfuckening together.

Get Your Ticket

P.S. Paid subscribers get a free ticket to these monthly Unfuck Your Writing sessions — just DM or email me for the promo code. And if you’re a freebie subscriber and would like to upgrade your sub, you can do that here »

A bunch of nice things a bunch of nice people said about my previous live Zoom session:

3. Book A One-to-One Mentoring Call

I currently have 8 spots available for one-to-one mentoring calls in January, so if you’d like some personalised creative unfuckery, feedback on a WIP, or support with your hibernation journey, then let’s chat!

These 1-hour Zoom sessions are a chance for you to talk about your writing, break through blockages, brainstorm, problem-solve and soundboard ideas — with optional editorial feedback on up to 3,000 words.

Book Your Call

Even more nice things some incredibly nice people have said about my creative coaching & feedback services:

Hope to see you hibernating, unfucking your writing, or on my Zoom screen soon.

And from my janky nervous system to yours — happy writing and take it slow…

: )

New to Creative Hibernation? Catch up on previous posts and view the whole series here »

Hey there, creative one.

Welcome to the final post in my Creative Hibernation series.

The main ‘goal’ here has been to take a break from being consumed with writing-related goals and simply… follow where our creativity leads us.

No pressure. No FOMO. No hustle. No bustle. No word counts. No deadlines. No must-dos and have-tos and should-dos and what-if-I-don’t-do panics.

Just you, your writing, your ideas, your daydreams, your thoughts, your wonderings, and whatever your creativity decides to ping around your head when you actually give it some room.

So far in our Creative Hibernation journey, we’ve:

• Deliberately stepped away from our WIPs to see how it feels to give ourselves some creative and objective space.

• Immersed ourselves in all the facets of our stories to get back to the roots of why and what we’re writing.

• Given ourselves a little appreciation and practised positive reinforcement to rewrite some of the negativity around over-pressured writing practices.

• Tantalised our creativity by cultivating a sense of excitement and curiosity into our writing.

• Ventured into the unknown and explored all the possibilities of our WIPs with curious, open-minded exploration.

In this final post, we’re going to take everything we’ve looked at so far and turn it into something tangible to bring forward to the new year.

A ‘creative audit’ of everything you’ve learned about your writing; about how you work best; about where you want to go from here with all your creative shenanigans…

(And YES, I am aware that ‘audit’ is the dullest and least creative framework for this, but bear with me — it’ll all come good, I promise.)

How does your creativity flow?

If you’re like me, you’re constantly looking to the future when it comes to your creative work.

What’s the next thing? What can I set as a new goal? How fast can I get there? How do I move onto the next stage? How do I get better at this? How do I skip the boring/hard/annoying bits and reach the finish line?

One one hand, this forward-looking perspective can create the necessary motivation and drive to keep moving. But on the other hand, only thinking ahead can mean you’re not actually paying much attention to what your creativity is trying to tell you in the moment.

(And if you take nothing else from the Creative Hibernation, then at least consider giving yourself a teeny tiny break to stop, listen, and pay attention to your creativity.)

I’ve realised I don’t often stop and consider where I’ve been or how I got there. I don’t often pause and look back. I don’t often give myself credit for the things I’ve already done, or the work I’ve already put in, or how much I’ve changed and grown and learned along the way.

And I certainly don’t often stop to take stock of how any of this actually felt while I was doing it.

• Did this work for me?

• Did I enjoy it?

• Did it stress me out?

• Did my creativity develop in the process?

• Did I discover something new?

• Did I discover something not to do?

• And did it all lead me somewhere interesting?

These are important questions to ask from time to time — but I know I rarely give myself the time and space to consider them. Which is kinda where this whole idea of Creative Hibernation came from. That, and working with a tonne of writers over the years, who have also shown me that what they need most is objectivity (which can only really come from a place of honest observation — which can only really come from a period of pause).

So, how do we take stock of where we’re at, how we got here and where we’re headed?

Read more

New to Creative Hibernation? Catch up on previous posts and view the whole series here »

Hey there, sleepy bear.

This is Part 5 of our Creative Hibernation journey, which has so far led us through some introspective explorations and quietly curious observations of our writing — with absolutely zero pressure to do anything except to notice what happens to our creativity when we take a step back from the hustle.

And we’re still on paused time, so — if you can — try to stay in that mode a little while longer…

I’m leaving you with a slightly existential task this week as we explore all the unknowns within our creativity, our writing process, our stories — and search for a deeper meaning within them.

Because ‘the great unknown’ is often the source of all sorts of writerly frustrations: sticking points, writer’s block, rage-quitting, dry spells, self doubt and a whole bunch of other creative meltdowns.

I think perhaps this is because the unknown is sometimes confused with uncertainty, or seen as something scary and dangerous — something that needs to be controlled or micromanaged or eradicated.

But I fucking love the unknown.

The unknown is an exciting place. Yes, it can be daunting, but isn’t it where the real magic happens? That mystical place we step into whenever we fully and truly get into the flow — into the zone — and reality falls away? The place where we discover solutions to hitherto ‘impossible’ problems and explore ideas we never could have possibly planned?

The unknown is where we transform a seed of a story into something beyond our imagining.

So, I hope you’ll venture into the void with me and see how a little unknowing can help create a treasure map of exploration and discovery…

But first! A quick recap of how we got here — and some handy links if you need a refresher of the Creative Hibernation series so far.

• In Part 1, we looked at the importance of writing downtime, and how it can give us new perspective on our WIPs.

• In Part 2, we looked at all the different facets of our writing, research and inspiration, to fill our brains with everything that makes us wanna write.

• In Part 3, we looked at taking a positive view of our writing, our WIPs, and our attitude toward creativity.

• In Part 4, we looked at how to cultivate a simmering, growing excitement for our work with the help of a little delayed-gratification…

And now, if you’re brave enough, we’re going to take a deep breath, hold hands, and venture into the unknown together.

We’re going to learn how to sit with that sometimes uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty.

We’re going to learn how to unlearn the unhelpful lessons that might be holding us back.

We’re going to ruminate on all the things we don’t know.

And maybe discover some things we didn’t even know we knew…

Inviting in the unknown

A lot of writing advice — or perhaps our natural instinct — guides us toward planning and plotting and setting out all the things we ‘know’ about our stories, so that we have a handy guideline to work from. So we don’t get lost. Or stuck. Or confused.

Logical so far? Yes. But.

As helpful as that can be, our carefully drawn plans rarely work that way in practice.

Writing is a slippery fish.

Your creativity is even slinkier. Your ideas? Like an oiled up otter. Because the parts of a story can’t be quantified in the same way as, say a recipe. If the instructions say you need a pint of milk, then it’s pretty clear 100g of beans simply won’t do. But when it comes to writing, well, you might simply decide to sell the cow and plant the beans, instead. And lo and behold, a giant beanstalk starts to grow, and what then? Uh oh, we’re in the unknown now…

Do you ever start writing and veer off into a totally unexpected direction? Do your characters sometimes throw a tantrum and decide to react in a completely different way to how you’d intended? Do you occasionally find unexpected subplots and metaphors in your literary bagging area? These are all glorious, subconscious-driven, creatively-charged unknowns — and, in my opinion — the most enjoyable part of writing.

Because you can’t always plan for the unknowns that might occur within your creative work, but that doesn’t mean you need to be wary of them. Invite them in! Create a safe environment for all possible unknowns to thrive, and see what happens when you stay open to the options. Fair enough, some of them might be straight-up bonkers, but some of them might have some salient points to make.

Remember in the last post where we practised listening to our creativity (yet again), and focused on following the excitement in our work? Well, what’s tinglier and more thrilling than a big ol’ unknown and all the undiscovered possibilities lying in wait for your creative brain?

We can get just as excited about those faceless, undefined unknowns as the stuff we do know. Perhaps even more so, because they’ll feel fresh and new and full of potential.

And, as we looked at last week, when faced with a plot hole, blockage or sticking point, we can simply reframe it as yet another exciting unknown to unravel.

So, while we’re still chilling in our calm, no-pressure, cosy caves of hibernation, let’s invite the unknowns in and see what fun we can have with ‘em:

Read more

New to Creative Hibernation? Catch up on previous posts and view the whole series here »

Ahoy, creatives. How’s it flowin’?

If you’ve been following along this whole hibernating journey, I hope you’re floating happily in a zero-gravity liminal space of not needing to do anything at all except letting your creativity wander wheresoever it fucking pleases.

I also hope you’re finding a sense of purpose and clarity and forward movement, even as we stay still for a moment. Because the aim of all this is to help us get a better sense of where we go from here, and re-connect with the creative instincts we need to get there.

• In Part 1, we took a moment to stop, drop ‘n’ roll with a much-needed creative pause.

• In Part 2, we indulged our daydreaming instincts and immersed ourselves in writing inspiration.

• In Part 3, we took pride in our work so far, and gave our WIPs a little positive-reinforcement.

In Part 4, we’re going to get a little… tantric with our writing. We’re going to keep going slow, but use everything we’ve worked on so far to build even more excitement for our stories — an unscratchable itch of anticipation to tease and tantalise our creative, uh, urges — until we just can’t wait to get going again.

It’s ‘bout to get steamy in here.

How does your creativity flow?

To follow on from my previous post on positivity, here are a few literary equations to consider:

When you don’t write = you feel bad about your writing.

When you’re stuck = you feel frustrated with your writing.

When you put pressure on your writing = you feel too scared to write.

Therefore…

To write = you need to be excited about your writing.

To write = you need to enjoy what you’re writing.

To write = you need to let your creativity lead the way.

If that feels overly simplified, it’s because it really can be that simple.

In my opinion, creativity often has very little to do with your skill level or even how much time and space you have to do it — it’s all tied up with your enjoyment of it, and how freely you allow it to flow.

At least, that’s very much been my experience whenever I’ve been bashing my head against the keyboard, or trying to force words out of my head, or feeling fictionally-constipated, or straight up doom-spiralling about my writing.

When the pressure keeps on building and building, the flow… stops.

It’s like trying to blow too hard through a drinking straw — the walls collapse in on themselves and nothing can get through.

To mix up our analogies, every time we add a negative thought to our writing, it’s just another brick in the wall.

• “I’m not good enough to write this.”

• “I’m stuck, I can’t do this, this is too hard.”

• “I should just give up.”

• “Everyone else is writing thousands of words / getting published / doing the work — why can’t I?”

• “No one will ever want to read this, anyway…”

Even the micro-aggression of opening up your WIP and immediately closing it again because you know in your guts you’re not going to make progress today adds to the pile.

And when we’ve spent weeks and months and years creating repeated negative associations with the act of writing, no amount of pressure or urgency or sheer bloody-minded willpower is going to break through that wall or pop that cork or unfold the collapsed straw. Because all those force-based approaches are driven by more negativity: guilt/shame/anxiety/judgement.

So the writing continues to not happen.

Which makes us feel even shittier.

And the flow… stops.

BUT WAIT.

There is a pressure valve in there, somewhere. A way to relieve the tension, let go of all that pent up crap — get things flowing again. And you’re already half way there.

As we learned last week, the very simple opposition to all that negative bullshit is positivity. And not just that, but joy and excitement and anticipation and giddy, unadulterated glee at the very thought of writing.

And that’s when the flow really starts whooshing — when writing feels easy and enjoyable — even when it’s challenging. The way it’s supposed to be.

So, from now on, we’re going to start focusing on what makes us excited to write, and what our creativity is excited to explore. And we’re gonna follow it — wherever it might lead us.

The good news is, we’ve already laid some solid groundwork for this:

Part 1 was about making space; to take notice of our creative cycles and let curiosity lead the way.

Part 2 was about reminding ourselves of every facet of our WIPs and all its peripheral inspiration.

Part 3 was about focusing on what’s great about our writing — and what we’re really freakin’ good at.

Now, we’re going to take all these lovely things and roll with ‘em.

Read more

Hey there, hibernators. How’s the view from your imaginary cave of retreat?

I hope you’ve been enjoying your creative pause (paws?) so far… We’re already almost half way through our hibernation, and have been taking an unhurried, objective look at our WIPs as we hunker down for winter:

• In Part 1, we stopped to observe how our creativity responds to just taking a freakin’ break.

• In Part 2, we fully immersed ourselves in every facet of our WIPs to reconnect with the heart and soul of what we’re trying to write.

A central part of all of this has been to ignore any hustle-driven, pressure-fuelled impulse to “write more words!” or “be more productive!” or “make more progress!” because, well, we just don’t need that kind of cortisol in our writing system, do we?

Instead, our focus has been on allowing our creativity to lead the way — meandering through old drafts, connecting the dots of our stories and reigniting the initial spark that started off the whole idea.

Now, we’re going to bolster our hibernation caves with an extra comfy layer to create the perfect environment for our creativity to thrive.

This week is all about positivity — about your writing, about your story, about your very existence as an artist.

A positive perspective (ughhhhh)

I’m gonna start off with a very broad statement here and say that the first instinct of nearly every writer I know is to focus on the negative when it comes to their own work. I would even go so far as to say that whenever I bring up the subject of drawing out the positives in our writing, many of my clients, writer-friends, or students make this face:

And this noise:

Ughhhhhhhh.

Because we will always be our harshest critics, and the puzzle-solving parts of our writer-brains will always look for stuff to fix: all the things that are ‘wrong’ or ‘lacking’ or ‘could be better’.

Never being satisfied with your creative work is — on one hand — kinda part of the deal, and what drives us to keep learning, keep developing, keep improving. But, on the other hand, this negativity-focused perspective can sometimes trap us in a spiral of self-criticism, dissatisfaction, and a skewed view of our own abilities. We can become consumed with picking our work apart, instead of actually figuring out how it ought to be put together.

As an editor, it’s often assumed that my job is to tell a writer what’s bad about their writing. (And maybe that’s what some editors do — I’ve certainly heard some horror stories...) But I’ve never found focusing on the negative to be a particularly useful exercise. For me, understanding the why of the ‘wrongness’ is far more interesting.

Even outside my work, when I’m simply consuming stories for entertainment — reading a book or watching a TV show, film, going to the theatre or playing a video game — and I find myself unable to remove my editorial, critical hat, I’m still looking for the reason behind any judgement. I’ll rarely just decide I dislike something without asking why I’ve had that reaction. Or how it could have been different.

Because if something’s not working in your story, curiosity is the most valuable tool you have. We are natural storytellers. We know when things don’t feel quite right (even if we don’t yet know the solution). But focusing on all the wrongness has a tendency to kill our curiosity (or confidence) to consider the alternatives.

It can certainly be useful to acknowledge the aspects and areas we’d like to improve, sure, but criticism alone isn’t going to show us the way forward.

Instead of losing faith, or drowning in frustration, or simply giving up, a more positive, curious perspective can help a lot in cultivating a deeper fascination (and joy!) for exploring our stories — no matter what state they’re in.

So, this week, we set the negativity aside.

A caveat: This is not an exercise in excessive, toxic positivity — or a ‘yay, everything’s great!’ kind of denial. If you’ve ever asked someone for their thoughts on your work and just got a stock “yeah, I liked it” response, you’ll know how useless that kind of ‘feedback’ is. How it makes you crave something more constructive — even if it’s critical.

But equally, positivity isn’t something to balk at. I know, I know, it’s hard to be nice to ourselves; it’s hard to be objective about our own work — but if your knee-jerk reaction to a compliment is to go “naaaaaaahhh, that can’t be true,” then, uhh, buddy? We should probably work on that.

An example: Once, a few weeks after sending a feedback review to a client, she messaged me, confused and uncertain and looking for clarity because a ‘friend’ had told her that the only reason I’d given her positive critique was because she’d paid for it.

I assured her that was very much not the case. That’s not my job, it certainly doesn’t align with my ethics as an editor, and any positive feedback I give is my genuine opinion (her work really was great!). I also had doubts over whether the person who said that to her could really be counted as a friend, but that’s more of a personal issue…

The thing is, I had given this writer plenty of constructive critique, too — but the feedback was also balanced with all the many wonderful aspects of her writing, her story, and her voice. Because balance is the point. How can you see what you’re doing right if you’re only looking at the things you’re doing ‘wrong’?

And it made me wonder if many of us are so unused to incorporating positivity into this whole process that we don’t even know how to make use of it when it happens…

Finding a balance

So, how do we undo years of default negative bias and approach our work with a more positive-leaning, curious mindset?

Read more

Are you feeling cosy yet?

New to Creative Hibernation? Catch up on previous posts and view the whole series here »

Welcome back, hibernators.

In my last Creative Hibernation post, I wrote about all the reasons our creativity craves (and benefits from) the occasional period of downtime, and how taking a step back can help gain the perspective you need to:

• get unstuck

• rekindle your motivation

• take an objective view

• refuel your creative reserves

And if you’ve taken that first step of pausing, I hope you’ve enjoyed the enormously important task of intentionally doing… nothing.

Or, at least, nothing urgent, nothing pressured, nothing ‘productive’, nothing stress-worthy — because none of those things really belong in the same sentence as ‘writing’.

Instead, I invited you to gently and curiously observe how it felt to:

1. Put your WIP down for a minute and step away from all the plans and deadlines and word counts and literary angst.

2. Follow your creative urges, if and when they came a’calling, in whatever form they emerge.

The aim here is to make creative space in your brain — uncluttered by all the ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ and ‘have tos’ and ‘arghhhhhs’ that might otherwise fill it up.

So, how’d it go? How’d it feel? What did you learn?

And, more importantly, what the heck do we do now?

In Part 2, we’re going to move onto the next stage of Creative Hibernation, in which we immerse ourselves in the world of our WIPs and start sending out some reconnecting tendrils…

The Cost of Creative Immersion

In my work as a creative writing teacher, editor and mentor, one of the most common challenges I see writers coming up against is simply getting into the zone.

Call it a lack of time/space/focus, call it executive dysfunction, call it writer’s block, call it procrastination, whatever. (Bonus points if you’re dealing with a neurodivergent brain.)

The fact is, sometimes it can be incredibly hard to switch from whatever else you’re doing (working, caring for loved ones, juggling various other tasks, worrying about a million tiny things) and dive straight into your writing.

It’s also pretty ridiculous for us to expect ourselves to do this on a whim, at a moment’s notice, and for our writing to magically emerge in full flow.

If you’re anything like me, the first step of sitting down to write might include a whole load of preamble: opening up your WIP document, sifting through notes, re-reading the previous section, trying to familiarise yourself with where you got up to, what your plans are, what problems need fixing, what you’re gonna write next, how to get back into that narrative voice…

And that process alone takes time and brainspace and focus. Except, sometimes that’s all I have to spare, so by the time I feel more or less up to speed with my project I’m already tapped out, I’ve run out of time, or something in real life is urgently demanding my attention. Sometimes, even if I do have the time and energy to keep going, it’s still a challenge to slip into the creative mode/mood/zone needed to get to the next stage: actually writing something.

Either way, I often end up feeling frustrated, annoyed with myself, disconnected from my writing, and baffled that it doesn’t feel easier to just do the thing I love the most.

This is what I call the cost of creative immersion.

Because fully, deeply engaging with your creativity comes at a cost.

Ok, yes, technically, writing is free, but proper in-the-zone immersion requires the real world to pause, your creative brain to open, and the kind of distraction-free space and time and focus that can be extremely hard to come by in this economy.

And yet, when we fail to connect with our creative practice — simply because we cannot pay that cost of immersion — we end up blaming ourselves for it. We must not be trying hard enough. We should make more time. We are the problem.

AND YET. All that shuffling about of papers that feels so unproductive — the re-reading, the note-scribbling, the preparatory tinkering — it’s all very much a necessary part of the process.

The issue is, most of the time we never get past that point.

Example: A while ago, I reached the end of a first draft of a screenplay pilot. It was in decent shape. I had some very useful feedback on it and I was aware that some fairly big changes needed to be made. I was excited about redrafting, but I hadn’t managed to get to the level of creative immersion required to tackle the next step. I’d been daydreaming about it constantly, though — researching, re-reading, making notes, all that preparatory, feels-like-procrastination stuff. I was eager to get going, but I also knew it would wait.

And then I finally got my time.

Every year, just as winter sets in, my best friend and I spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods to make art and eat nice food and get a little inebriated. We barely look at our phones. The TV stays off. We listen to great music and we sit by the fire and sometimes we spend hours just staring into space, in silence. Then, when our brains have finally found the clarity they need: I write, my friend sketches, magical things happen.

This particular year, I took my screenplay with me, along with all my notes and research. I surrounded myself with it. And, over the space of two evenings, I managed to solve a whole heap of plot problems in my first draft. I reconfigured a whole character arc. I suddenly saw — clear as day — the connections and consequences that had been evading me before.

I slipped right into that creative immersion like a warm bath. And it felt so easy. The way it should be. No rush, no push, no pressure. All I did was make space for it to happen. As if there were all these little dots of story, just hanging there, waiting for me to draw a line between them like a constellation.

Look, I usually try not to over-romanticise the writing process, because more often than not it’s me just yelling “for fuck’s sake!” at my computer and making the same typo six times in a row.

I also realise how lucky I am to be able to take a whole weekend away to write. Believe me, It doesn’t happen very often — and there wasn’t even that much actual writing involved. But it did feel magical. And it was a very timely reminder of how high the cost of creative immersion usually is in my daily life. An enormous tax that I often can’t afford to pay. Which made me even more determined to make sure this kind of clarity doesn’t just happen once a year…

So, how do we allow ourselves to get fully immersed in the ‘zone’, whenever we want to — regardless of what else is going on around us?

Well, we’ve already take the first step: by taking a pause; by relieving the pressure; by letting things just… float for a bit.

Now, we’re going to physically, spiritually, wholeheartedly step back into our fictional worlds, find all those tiny constellation points of reconnection, and start joining the dots...

Read more

Welcome to the Creative Hibernation series. Put on your comfiest pyjamas. Put down your work-in-progress and also all those New Year’s Resolutions (or whatever guilt-laden expectations you’re carrying around, regardless of the time of year). Get yourself a nice snack.

And… stop.

For just a while.

Because a little deliberate downtime can be a very good thing for our writing. And that’s exactly what this Creative Hibernation series is about.

Over the next six posts, we’ll be looking at all the ways we can overwinter our stories — taking a step back, and allowing our creative brains to get some much-needed objectivity (and rest).

But that doesn’t mean disconnecting completely from our writing — don’t panic, babies — there’s going to be plenty of generative, holistic, inspiring stuff to get on with. The difference is, we’re not going to be stressing about word counts or ‘progress’ or ‘productivity’ during this time.

Because stories thrive when we give them a bit of thinking space.

And when was the last time you allowed yourself a period of unadulterated creativity, free from the shackles of hustle culture bullshit?

Ahoy there, free subscribers: This first Creative Hibernation post is FREE for everyone, so please join in, comment, and see if it’s something you want to continue exploring.

And if you’d like to access the rest of the hibernation posts, you can do so by upgrading to a paid subscription, which also includes free access to my monthly ‘Unfuck Your Writing’ Zoom check-ins (next one is on Tues 13 Jan):

Subscribe now

Why hibernate?

I’m gonna be totally honest before we begin.

This series is heavily influenced by my own deep, innate desire to be a soft, overfed, hibernating mammal.

Every year, around this time, I get a desperate hankering for a nice dark cave. To switch off from all the shiny screens. To put my work down. To ignore the submission calls and deadlines and literary FOMO. To bid a fond farewell to my loved ones and be silent for several months. To be alone with my little fictional worlds and just… dream awhile.

And I think there’s a lot to be explored when it comes to recognising (and acting on) our creative cycles — the ebb and flow of artistic expression — and appreciating the benefits of a little downtime, now and then.

On a broader, non-fictional scale, it’s also important to acknowledge that we are continuing to exist (and persist) through un-fucking-precedented times when it comes to political, cultural, and global events. And sometimes it’s hard to even comprehend the feelings and thoughts we have about this world we’re living in — let alone find the necessary time and brainspace for our imaginary worlds.

We’re also living in an era of toxic-productivity and hyper-consumerism, constantly bombarded by messaging that tells us we should be doing ALL the things — bigger, faster, more, more, more — endlessly propelled by this sense of anxious urgency that we’re missing out, wasting time, never doing enough.

And then there’s the weight of our own expectations as we beat ourselves up for not ‘achieving’ what we set out to last year and proceed to set another lofty (and probably grossly unrealistic) resolution for this year.

I’m not trying to doom and gloom here, but all this to say: I think we all deserve to give ourselves a little break and not feel guilty about it, okay?

And what’s the one thing we turn to for comfort and joy and meaning and understanding and catharsis?

ART, baby.

So let’s make some time and space for that — and only that — without any of the rush and panic and anxiety and guilt and frustration and shame and whatever else might be muddying up the waters.

Because creativity is both an escape and an anchor in the most turbulent of times.

Because writing doesn’t have to be a commodity — and sometimes we need to detach our practice from all the arbitrary measures of ‘success’ and ‘value’ and ‘productivity’ and just immerse ourselves in the joy of it.

Because even if we didn’t achieve what we set out to last year, that’s not a failure. Creativity is not a straight path — it’s a meandering wander along the scenic route. (Which is where all the best views are found.)

Because there’s really no point in making Big Plans for this year unless we set up a decent foundation to let our creativity actually flow.

Because even if you don’t have the same literal grizzly-bear hibernation urges as me, there are many good things a brief break will bring to your writing.

And that’s what I’m hoping this series will give you. An objective perspective. A renewed appreciation and excitement for your work. A ground-up plan for getting the absolute best out of your creative endeavours. (And enjoying it while you do.)

But first, we have to down tools for a bit.

We have to take a pause.

Why your creativity could do with a break

Let’s start with a quick caveat:

I’m aware that we’re all in entirely different situations, at different stages of writing, in different hemispheres/seasons, with a different amount of available spoons, and mileage is gonna vary pretty wildly, so please take whatever applies to you and adapt to your circumstances.

(Hibernation is just a state of mind, after all.)

Some or all of the following might apply to you — but here are just a few reasons why your writing could benefit from a break:

Maybe you’re stuck

Maybe you’ve stalled, hit a wall, confused about how to move forward with your story, tied up in editing knots, or not even sure your WIP is working at all.

And while I don’t believe in writer’s block, I do think this is the perfect time to take a step back and get some perspective.

‘Cause otherwise you’re just gonna keep pushing on a door that’s marked ‘pull’. You’re gonna burn your story out. And if you carry on going round in tiny, frustrated circles, all you’re doing is creating more negative feelings towards your work, your writing, yourself. Which isn’t gonna do anything or anybody any good.

Instead, taking a deliberate pause can help you figure out why things feel so difficult.

Maybe you’re feeling disconnected from your creativity

Do you ever have a burning urge to write, but when you sit down to do it you just… don’t? Can’t? Stare at the page and wonder what the fuck is wrong with your brain?

Do you have all these great ideas but… there’s a vast chasm between the concept and the actual creating?

Do you sometimes feel like you’ve lost sight of the fun in your writing?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from 15 years of working with stuck writers, it’s that most of the time it has very little to do with the writing itself. It’s about the writer figuring out how they work best, how to connect with their story, how to say what they really want to say. (How to unfuck themselves, basically.)

But, to figure all that out, sometimes you need to take a step back and find some objectivity.

Maybe you’re actually doing fine but a lil’ hibernation could still do you some good

I believe creativity comes in waves and cycles — sometimes you can be in full flow, everything’s gravy, you’re a writing machine, and then… the dreaded dry spell. Or you hit a snag and everything falls flat. Or you just can’t sustain the output.

Actually, what I think is happening is that we’re moving through natural phases of feast and famine, hibernation and, uh… procreation? Basically, for every prolific springtime of writing, there’s naturally going to be an autumnal lull, and our brains need those periods of pause and percolation to prepare for the next turn of the season.

And regardless of how well a project is going, there’s never really a bad time to take a minute to check-in with where you’re at and where you’re headed.

Plus, sometimes by stopping before you really want to and creating a sense of scarcity, you start building a stronger desire and sense of anticipation to get going again. A bit like… tantric writing? (Hmm, maybe we’ll explore that later.)

The point is, wherever you’re at — fear not the downtime.

Welcome it.

Silence any inner critic who’s whispering that hibernation = laziness, because…

GOOD THINGS happen when you give your writing a break

Sometimes you really can’t see the wood for the trees. Or the trees for the wood. Sometimes you need to exit the forest entirely.

Sometimes, when you’re feeling truly stuck, disconnected, or creativly dead inside, you simply need to put your WIP down and accept that things aren’t working right now.

And trust that, given time, it’ll start moving again.

Getting some distance from a piece of work (or your relationship with creativity) allows you be more objective about what the problem actually is and what’s needed to fix it.

And remember: not all writing happens on the page.

A lot of it happens while we’re going about our regular lives, daydreaming about our stories, thinking about something entirely unrelated, experiencing life in general, getting inspired by unexpected sources of inspiration, or sometimes just while we’re doing the washing up.

Sometimes magical solutions appear when we start to look at the whole instead of the minutiae of our writing; when we allow ourselves the time and space to experiment and ponder and explore our ideas, without trying to get things ‘right’.

Time, distance and objectivity often help us find alternative routes through your story. Or enable us to be brutally honest about what’s working and what’s not, and discover ways to adapt, change, or move on.

Either way, leaving our creativity on a gentle simmer while our subconscious does the important work in the background can produce absolute gold — fresh ideas, previously unseen connections, brand spanking new perspectives.

And you simply cannot get that by continuing to push on through, or banging your head against the keyboard.

Example #1: I once spent years writing a novel I really believed in. I still do, actually. I love that story. But I’m not writing it right now. I overplanned and overwrote it to death, until I couldn’t see a single damn twig in amongst all the wood and the trees.

I agonised over shelving it — even temporarily — because it felt like such a sunk cost. Because I wanted it to be perfect. But I eventually did put it away, and in that moment of letting it go, I immediately realised why it wasn’t working. Suddenly I could see the all the puzzle pieces slotting together. I could see exactly how to rewrite it from the ground up so it could be what I’d hoped it would be.

And I also felt absolutely no urgency to do so. Which was… kinda peaceful, honestly. I’m 99.99% sure I will go back to it, when there’s enough distance between us, but now is not the time and that’s fine with me. Just finding that objectivity was 101% worth it.

Example #2: All the while I was futzing around with that non-working novel, I secretly wished I was working on another project — one I had been quietly and patiently researching for years. But I repeatedly convinced myself I had to finish the novel before I could allow myself to move onto something else, which was ultimately bollocks because the moment I put the novel down and took up the new story, things started rocketing forward.

I’d never been so happy and so ‘productive’ working on a story, and I think this was also largely to do with the fact that I’d spent so long in such an unrushed, curious, casual kind of relationship with it on the back-burner. It had had time to germinate and fertilise at its own pace. So when the moment was finally right, it was ready to grow...

There’s no use-by date on ideas. And as much as our internal frustrations may want to hurry us along, and external influences exacerbate this (entirely made-up) sense of urgency — there is no fucking rush. Writing takes as long as it takes. So take as much as time as you need.

And don’t be afraid of pausing, going slow, or even stopping entirely. Creativity is a self-perpetuating, renewable energy. It’s never truly lying dormant. It’s just waiting for the next phase.

Which is why I’ve dubbed this process ‘hibernation’. We wouldn’t call a tree ‘lazy’ for dropping its leaves and pausing over winter. We wouldn’t argue with a bear who decided it was time to stuff itself silly, crawl into a nice cave and sleep for a few months.

So why shouldn’t we give our creativity the same due?

Task #1: Let it be

Your first Creative Hibernation task is arguably both the easiest and hardest of this whole series.

Take a deep breath.

I’m gonna need you to just let your writing be. Let it lie. Let it go. Put it down. Stop.

Maybe just for today. Maybe… this whole week?

See how that feels.

See how your creativity reacts when you stop bossing it around.

See what happens when you actively and willingly take a pause.

And make sure you acknowledge the autonomy in doing so.

Because this is very different to the usual: “argh, I don’t have time to write,” or “I’m just not making progress,” or “I can’t figure this story out,” or “I’m blocked!”

This is a completely guilt-free, deliberate decision to let go of any urgency or requirement to write at all.

[Don’t panic: In subsequent posts we’re going to delve into a whole load of practical things we can do to bolster and foster our creativity during this time, but first, I really do invite you to just pause.]

So, what exactly are you supposed to do with yourself this week?

Well, rather than any intentional writing, I encourage you to…

Make creative space:

Clear your head of any ‘shoulds’, ‘musts’, ‘ought tos’, ‘need tos’, deadlines, word targets, or anything else that turns ART into WORK.

Listen to your creative intuition.

Let it come to you in whatever form it wants to, whenever it wants to.

Whether that’s reading a damn good book, journaling, listening to music, cooking, going for a walk, napping, crafting, watching a show. Whatever fills your cup.

Let your delicate, squishy little creative brain wander wherever the hell it wants to.

By all means, DAYDREAM about your stories and ideas as much as you like. But only if they happen to drift into your head.

Otherwise, let them be. Rest those fiction muscles.

Even if you feel an irresistible urge to do write... see what it feels like to resist it — safe in the knowledge that those same ideas will be there when you’re ready.

And as you take your pause, observe the effects of letting go and think about this question:

“What does it feel like to put your writing down?”

Scary? A relief? Weird? Naughty? Freeing? Frustrating?

All valid. All interesting to explore and discuss. And I very much welcome you to do just that.

So please share:

• What are you working on?

• Why are you hibernating?

• And how does it feel?

Leave a comment

That’s all for now. A beautifully simple/complex task of doing nothing.

Enjoy it.

In Part 2, we’re going to look at how to reconnect with our creativity and re-immerse ourselves in our stories by indulging in all the things that make us go “fuck yeah!” about writing. (Click here to jump straight to Part 2!)

Quick reminder to grab yourself a paid subscription (if you haven’t already) to access the rest of this six-part Creative Hibernation series…

Subscribe now

Until then, happy daydreaming, hibernators!

: )

Need some personalised creative support?

If you’d like to talk about your writing, your hibernating plans your creative process, and get help with whatever’s making you feel stuck, uninspired, or like a tired, hangry bear, you can always book a 1hr one-to-one Creative Mentoring zoom with me by clicking here:

Book a call

Or if you’d rather have an informal chat with a friendly group of writers and fellow hibernators about all the things that spark (and stifle) our creative work, then come along to one of my monthly Unfuck Your Writing online check-ins — the next one is on Tuesday 13th January at 11am GMT:

Get your ticket

(P.S. Unfuck Your Writing sessions are free for paid subscribers — if you’ve already upgraded and need the special link, please DM me.)

Might your work-in-progress also benefit from a bit of a break?

Could it be that pushing yourself to the absolute limit during these last few months of the year won’t actually be all that good for your general wellbeing, and probably won’t foster your ability to think straight, create, or get any kind of perspective on… anything?

Well then. Perhaps this is the answer:

Join in with the Creative Hibernation workshop series here »

Maybe we all need to take a step back, rest our tired little brains, and allow that creativity to replenish itself with some much-needed downtime.

Probably.

Definitely.

And yet…

That doesn’t mean we have to put our writing down completely, or lose touch with our WIPs.

We can still make excellent creative use of this time.

In fact, some of the best creativity comes when we stop pushing ourselves.

Creative hibernation simply means allowing ourselves some time to follow the flow, experiment with some low-pressure exercises, and indulge all the things that we love about our fictional worlds.

To feast upon all that creative joy, let our stories take a big ol’ metaphorical nap, and emerge refreshed and ready for literary springtime.

Let’s overwinter our stories together…

What is Creative Hibernation?

Creative Hibernation is a 6-part guided workshop series to help you roll up to the new year with your head clear, your plans straight, and your WIP raring to go. (And all without getting out of your pyjamas.)

Because look, no matter how well-intentioned our plans are for the new year, it’s been a freakin’ year, and we could all do with chilling our boots.

By letting our creativity hibernate for a bit, we’re much more likely to re-emerge from the deliberate downtime with a load more energy and objectivity.

And in the meantime, we focus on getting that creativity nice and chonky — like a pre-hibernation bear — by feeding it with gentle exercises, inspiration, and artistic enjoyment.

No pressure. No word counts. No need to produce anything at all.

Just an immersive exploration (and celebration!) of all the things that get you excited about writing — and a low-demand way to get back in touch with your creative flow.

Click here to hibernate

Who is this for?

Creative Hibernation is for any writer who…

• is feeling stuck, stalled, or disconnected from their creative work

• needs a break from the pressures of productivity and hustle and overwhelm

• has lost touch with the joy and excitement of writing

• is finding it hard to fit writing into their life (and is probably feeling guilty and frustrated about it)

• is juggling multiple ideas, in-between projects, or just trying to figure out what the hell they want to do next

Because sometimes the answer to all these things is to just… pause for a moment, take an objective look at your creative process, and reconnect with what really lights your spark.

So give yourself (and your work) a short break. There’s no use-by date on ideas. Your writing will wait (I promise).

And when you’ve got the clarity you need, you’ll be able to dive right back to it with a whole lot more enjoyment, focus, and creative freedom.

Let's get cozy

Why hibernate?

You know why most new year’s resolutions fall on their face? Because even the best intentions in the world are destined to fizzle out after a few weeks unless we actually make the necessary (and realistic) plans, changes, accommodations and shifts in perspective to sustain them.

Creative Hibernation is a slower approach — encouraging you to take the time to assess where you are, think about what you actually need to move forward, and figure out how that’s gonna happen.

Also: downtime is important. And when you deliberately decide to press pause, it feels way different to a dry spell. It’s an active participation in objectivity. Like REM sleep; an opportunity for your brain to make all the necessary connections between ideas on a subconscious level.

Creativity needs periods of rest. And while we indulge in that, we can also — very gently — tailor our approach to writing, so that when we return to ye olde WIP, our practice is much more focused, effective and sustainable.

I'm ready to hibernate

Okay, how does it work?

You can work through all of the Creative Hibernation exercises right here at The Joy of Fixion at your own pace — just upgrade to a paid subscription to access everything.

Take some time for yourself and your writing, whenever you need it.

Throughout the series, we’ll look at your creative practice and your WIP from a bunch of different angles — without any desperate need to produce or progress or hustle — and help you craft a realistic, holistic plan for moving forward.

Including:

• The benefits of taking a break from your WIP!

• Taking stock of your progress so far

• Finding the flow and immersing yourself in your story

• Building your writing confidence

• Reigniting excitement in your work

• Embracing the unknown

• Making a masterplan for absolutely smashing it in the new year!

You’ll get to touch base with your creative work, build a clearer picture of what you’re doing with it, and build a gentle simmer of anticipation to get started again.

Whether you’re working on a first draft, editing, putting together a collection, or not exactly sure which of your projects you want to work on, the Creative Hibernation approach will hopefully help clarify where you should be focusing your efforts.

I'm so totally up for this

What will you get out of it?

The main aim of Creative Hibernation is to take a fucking break and emerge feeling pretty freakin’ great about your writing. But also:

• To have a clear, top-down view of your work-in-progress.

• To have a deeper understanding of what makes your creativity tick.

• To have a new, objective perspective on what works, what needs work, and what to do next.

• To have space to consider your writing practices, experiment with new approaches, and reconnect with the joy of it all.

• To have a creative plan for the new year that makes you feel excited and in control.

• To, like, chill a bit?

Plus: if you’d like to share your thoughts, progress or questions on any of the Creative Hibernation posts, I’m always happy to chat and help problem-solve.

Yes please, I would like to chill

How much does it cost?

Creative Hibernation is one of my paywalled post series which means it’ll cost you the price of a paid subscription for as long as you want to subscribe.

A Monthly Subscription @ £7/month gets you:

• All the Creative Hibernation posts

• Plus: The Story in a Song workshop

• Plus: selected Write What You Know and Unfuck Your Writing posts

An Annual Subscription @ £70/year gets you:

• All the above

• Plus: FREE access to monthly Unfuck Your Writing live sessions

A Founding Subscription @ £140/year gets you:

• All the above

• Plus: a FREE 1hr one-to-one mentoring call with me

You’ll also have my undying thanks for supporting my work and helping me make a kinda living from writing about writing :)

Oh, and if you’re still undecided, the first Creative Hibernation post is free for all, so take a peek and see if it’s for you.

And remember: you can hibernate whenever the hell you want, so join in any time, go at your own pace, and enjoy the downtime.

Hope to hibernate with you soon.

Go on, click the button

Thanks, and happy writing.

: )

Here’s a secret confession that’s probably the complete opposite of what you’re supposed to do, according to the ‘rules’ of marketing:

I created something called The Creative Roadmap Workshop, but I’ve really struggled to describe what it is in a way that feels genuine — I think perhaps because I accidentally gave it a bit of a wanky LinkedIn name (if you can come up with a better one, I’ll give you a free ticket!).

So I thought I’d explain where it really comes from and what it’s really about, because a) I hate LinkedIn and b) I always feel gross promoting my stuff, but it’s slightly easier when I can honestly and genuinely talk about why it’s important to me (even if that breaks all the rules of bullshit marketing — so be it).

The Origin Story

A few years ago, I was completely burnt out, feeling disconnected from all my creative projects, constantly hustling work to stay afloat (bonus argh points for trying to make a living that’s inextricably tied up with my creativity!), and had reached a crossroads of basically not knowing what the fuck I wanted to do — or what directions even existed for me.

The only thing I did know was that I desperately wanted (needed) to get back in touch with my creativity. And that my work-work had to feel more sustainable and less soul-sucking. And for all that to happen, everything I did needed to be much more compatible with how my (neurodivergent) brain actually functioned.

So I sat down and did something that initially felt entirely antithetical to creativity (and simultaneously super hilariously autistic):

I audited myself.

I took every strand of my work, every creative idea, project and opportunity, every glimmer of a ‘what if?’ and I set them against criteria that genuinely mattered to me.

I did not ask: “Was this successful?” or “Did this make me money?” or “Did I attain my goals?”

Instead, I gave my honest gut reaction to each one and analysed my motivation, my satisfaction, my joy; how challenging something was, or how much energy it took out of me; if it led somewhere interesting, or connected me with someone cool (and creative!).

It helped me figure out where to focus my energy in my day job and my writing. It led me to pursue what I loved and try new things. It encouraged me to say NO to the shit that was making me feel like I was drowning and YES to things I’d previously told myself I couldn’t/shouldn’t/wasn’t ready to do.

I realise ‘audit’ isn’t the most appealing concept for all of this, which is perhaps why I changed it to ‘roadmap’. But whatever you want to call it, it fucking works.

And now, several years on, as I look back on each annual ‘map’, it’s fascinating to see the patterns of how my creativity really flows. The pathways I’ve forged — sometimes deliberately, sometimes unwittingly. The dot-to-dot puzzle of connections that make up my process — and my progress (even when it feels like I’m not getting anywhere). How I’ve grown and what I’ve learned. The unexpected diversions that led to wonderful places, and the destinations were clearly not right for me (even if I was convinced I was going in the right direction at the time).

So what I’ve come to realise is this:

The route creativity takes is never linear, but it makes a whole lot more sense once you look at the map objectively, and with a perspective that’s based on the enrichment, enjoyment and excitement of ART rather than ‘productivity’ and all that bullshit.

Because productivity and unattainable goals and hustle culture are all ultimately bullshit. And they will get us nowhere. (Except burnt out, disconnected and miserable.)

But following the fun, the joy and the curiosity is pure fuel for creativity — and they always lead somewhere worth the journey.

And that’s what The Creative Roadmap Workshop is really about — finding a wiggly, meandering desire-path that feels right for you and your creativity. Being honest and purposeful about what you’re spending your (precious!) time on. ‘Cause none of us are going to look back on our lives and wish we’d spent more time on fucking LinkedIn...

So if you’d like to wiggle and meander your way through a more detailed breakdown of the steps I use to ‘creatively audit’ myself, and get some personal guidance on what directions you might take next, then I would genuinely love to hear more about your journey.

In the meantime, happy creating

: )

Jo

Watch the webinar + free PDF guidebook

1. There is never enough time to do the creative things you want to do.

2. If you don’t make time for those creative things, some deep primordial creative force1 will place a cold, clawed, immovable hand on the back of your neck and shove your face directly into the void, screeching, “See? See what I do for you. I break the rules of time-space and what do I get? Nothing. Get to fucking work!”

Two things may be true at the same time:

1. There is a fixed number of hours in each day.

2. This is, however, negotiable…

Four Ways to Hack Time (Or Four Ways Your Creativity Will Do It For You)

Hack #1: Sleep Deprivation

1. Why are you wasting those quiet twilight hours while everyone else is asleep? That’s when the delirium really sets in and the hallucinations creative spirit runs unchecked. Your muse is the annoying kid at the sleepover. Tomorrow is an abstract concept.

2. If you won’t go willingly into the dawn, try ignoring all your creative impulses for as long as you can, until BAM! It’s 3:AM on a Tuesday, the muse yanks you from a perfectly contented sleep cycle, and you find yourself more awake than you have ever been in your life, scrabbling for your phone and filling your notes app with the stream of data suddenly flowing through you — the power of words compels you, the power of words compels you — possessed with the clarity of a mountain lake as you transcribe the outline for a play, half a poem, the answer to your novel’s main plot issue, four new story ideas, and a word-perfect synopsis. It is now 6:AM. “I will always find you,” the primordial voice says, “You can’t hide from me. Not even in your sleep.”

Hack #2: Diversion

1. Make an entirely reasonable plan to set aside time for a piece of creative work. Your main piece of creative work. The piece of creative work you are supposed to be working on. The piece of creative work you really want to finish, prioritised above all other pieces of creative work. Use this ringfenced time to work on a completely different piece of creative work.

2. If you insist on implementing willpower and forcing yourself to focus on the originally intended piece of work, become increasingly frustrated by your lack of inspiration, motivation, enthusiasm, creativity, and will to live. Achieve nothing. Become convinced you are a useless, talentless piece of shit. Fail to notice the primordial tentacle curling around your brainstem until it’s too late. Watch as your ‘creative block’ becomes a multi-coloured wall of flickering screens, each showing a different, new idea — an endless archive of creative possibilities, past, present and future. Realise, to your horror and fascination, that you cannot look away, cannot blink, can only stare straight ahead as the voice whispers: “I want all the things, my pretty. ALL the things.” Accept that you cannot disobey. Find that the paralysis eases a little and time flows smoother if you stop struggling and just follow where your brainstem points you.

Hack #3: Compress/Accumulate Time

1. Make firm, strict intentions to create something. Continuously do nothing. Wait for the urgency of a non-negotiable deadline to fill you with cortisol. Wait until the very last 48 hours. Sidestep panic and let the primordial shadow in. Let it temporarily suspend the requirements of your human meatsuit. Straddle time like a bucking bronco and do not let go. Discover that 48 hours is plenty of time to create something if you simply forego everything else. Think: every day should be like this. Listen to the voice laugh and laugh and laugh.

2. If you do not wish to be consumed by time, make time your prey, instead. Engage in guerrilla warfare. Crouch naked within the primordial shadow and strike suddenly and unexpectedly. You do not need 48 hours of linear time. You can steal it in portions. Snatch minutes from thin air. Pin it down and slice off a whole hour while it’s still wriggling. You may only manage to catch scraps at first, but they can be sewn together, piecemeal. The primordial in your guts does not care what your creations look like — it wants all the things, remember? Patchwork will do.

Hack #3: Patience

1. Scatter seeds across a barren stretch of land. Toss them into the wind; into the ocean; over your shoulder. Share them with strangers. Give them as gifts, expecting nothing in return. Watch and wait — and when nothing sprouts, tell yourself you have wasted your efforts, your seeds, your time. Tell yourself surely nothing will ever grow. Forget about them entirely. Forget how fast-burning little creatures like you perceive time in comparison to, say, a tree. Forget that sometimes a seed may lie dormant underground for a whole year before taking root. Feel the primordial roll its eyes when, one day, you discover a tiny green shoot.

2. If you are unable to wait, or become convinced that nothing will ever come from your seed-scattering, allow yourself to believe that the muse has abandoned you entirely. Go about your life, spending your time on mundane things, enjoyable things, necessary things, but never creative things. That time is behind you now. Except, sometimes you still hear the shadow grumbling; feel the claws catching on your skin; catch glimpses out of the corner of your eye. You start noticing tiny dots, here and there, reminding you of those long-forgotten seeds. Start noticing how all those mundane, enjoyable, necessary life-things are covered in dots, too. Start drawing lines between them, like a puzzle that hasn’t yet decided on its shape. Notice lines everywhere, becoming clearer and clearer — ideas processing in granular time, at evolutionary pace — epiphanies accumulating like dividing cells. Notice the lines are actually circles, large and small, intersecting one another, rippling outward forever. Some so huge you can barely see the curve. Marvel at how long an orbit like that must take. Feel the primordial voice sigh. “I can wait,” it says says; both a threat and a promise.

Join me in communion with our collective primordial beasts on 7 December for more — slightly less esoteric — advice on how to hack the space-time paradox:

I want to do all the creative things

I’ve been a little quiet lately (‘tis the season of hibernation) but I’ve been brewing up a brand new workshop to see us through the long dark and out the other side…

Watch it now

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads
(but a map can be helpful)

Creative journeys are meant to be messy. (That just shows we’re finding our way.) And yet, we still often find ourselves feeling lost, confused about which direction we should be heading, or urgently forging ahead with something just so it feels like we’re “making progress”.

But when was the last time we actually stopped to look at how far we’ve come, what we’ve learned, how we navigated difficult challenges, what’s working, and where our creative subconscious is trying to lead us next?

So, instead of flailing our way to the end of the year, full of panic about all the things we didn’t get finished, and all the things we think we should be doing, here’s an alternative — we make a Creative Roadmap.

In the workshop, we’ll:

• Take an objective look at your creative journey so far;

• Explore which methods and approaches work for you, which don’t, and why that might be;

• Identify how your creativity actually flows, and make sure to remove any hurdles in your way;

• Focus on what’s most exciting and enjoyable about your creative work (and how to do more of it);

• Turn all that newfound knowledge into a tangible roadmap to take forward into the new year.

Let your inner artistic goblin take the wheel (for an hour, at least) and join me on The Creative Roadmap Workshop — a practical, step-by-step guide to figuring out where you’re at, how you got there, and where you’re heading next, using joy as your compass...

The details:

What is it?
A 90-min webinar (recording) with exercises, prompts, and a FREE Creative Roadmap download to help you tailor your creative plans.

How do I watch?
Download The Creative Roadmap guidebook HERE and you’ll find a link to the workshop recording inside.

Why?
Because creativity doesn’t flow in a straight line — and fighting against the current doesn’t get us anywhere. Instead, by exploring all those untrodden paths and wiggly detours and scenic routes, we can get a whole lot more clarity on which road is going to lead us to the real fun stuff...

So let’s go on a little end-of-year road trip together.

You bring the snacks. I’ll help you draw the map.

Jo

: )