I first started posting daily within a small and idyllic walled garden, a workshop run on discourse by Akimbo with content by Seth Godin that focused on daily creative practice, genre, and a rejection of perfectionism.
I transitioned my daily posts onto this website around day 40 and at first I was stripping part of the workshop post out for the blog. Eventually I was writing the blog first, and then writing context in the workshop.
I took a week off after the first 100 days, and then some sporadic days since. I’ve written a number of times about cadence being more important than dogmatic streaks, and I have to recognize now that my cadence is not what it once was.
But why post anyway? Cadence is great, but where are we rowing to that it makes sense to find a boat, organize a team, and get someone to sit in the back (I see you internal critic) and yell, post! Post! Post!
I’ve been feeling my motivation to post draining. Not because I have less to say, but because I’m not clear about what’s around me. Who else is in the boat? And just who are we racing anyway? If we’re not racing, maybe it’s time to ship the oars and float a bit, see how far we’ve come, look at the strange scenery on this side of the river.
I’ve started working with a marketing consultant. I’m organizing my branding and getting things together. I’m realizing that these daily blogs have become slightly performative lately, me presenting creative guru-lite and not really talking about what I’m noticing in my life directly. Time to get back to that.
It’s also time to start expanding outwards. To connect myself to a larger world. Not all at once, but eventually all rivers lead either to the ocean if we head downstream.
I’ve decided to stop posting in the workshop communities that nourished my early and vulnerable stages, and to focus on longer, more intentional, and more vulnerable works. I do still feel that my daily practice is critical so I’ll continue onwards here. But I’ll be dropping the oars to look around from time to time, and while I’ll still doubtless be hearing the calls to “post, post, post” in my head, I’d rather come back to stillness until in the quiet, I just hear, “Create!”