1 say no with love story
The other day, a writer friend sent me a message: “I see a change in you in the last week or two! I can't even say what it is exactly…but I am reading through all the posts from the last week or so and there is something new there between your words and I LIKE IT, I REALLY LIKE IT!!! There is an energy and a joy and a something something kinda like confidence but more expansive and wonderful! It's getting me all excited and I can't tell you why but it is there.”
I closed my eyes and sat with this message. I saw it as an invitation to slow down, and ask myself “What created the conditions for this shift? There’s no way this happened over night.”
She was right. I was different. I had been doing things differently and putting myself out there A LOT. Over the last few months (time I’ve taken away from my say no with love letters), I’ve been struggling with a very personal relationship. A relationship that, for my whole life, has always taken so much more than it has ever given. I told myself I couldn’t do anything about it decades before because 1. I didn’t know how and 2. I didn’t really have anything to protect. And four weeks ago I made the bold say-no-with-love decision to close the door on that relationship. It seemed to me like it just happened. But it didn’t "just happen" it was decades of say no with love work in the making. It was years of experimenting and working on myself. It was exploring what home and safety meant to me as an individual. It was me taking weird creative risks (like pitching myself for things, trying things before I was ready ... it's a long list). It was learning how to pay attention when the good things happened and to value those enough to not let any part of them fall away. Even when they happened alongside the impossibly difficult times.
Yesterday, a client sent me a 9-minute video about how she was forever changed because of our mentorship.
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2 days ago, I wrote a prose poem for the first time in a long time.
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4 days ago, I wrote a letter to myself as part of a personal challenge, which, 2 days later, turned into a prose poem about love.
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6 days ago, I shared a presentation on how creative risk increases your creative net worth, and delivering it felt like I was finally coming home.
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1 year ago I started writing book number 6, a second novel about the little prisons we put ourselves in. It’s about the decisions we make and how we make them. It’s about home. I’m constructing the narrative shape so much differently.
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4 years ago I wrote a novel about love, home, and being a mother.
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5 years ago I built and delivered (for the first time) my Say No With Love Workshop. I also used my creativity and risk-taking skillset and convinced the powers that be to give me a mortgage on no “stable” income. I pulled everything out of my creative kit. It worked.
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7 years ago I started my studio. No one thought I’d still be doing this work today. In fact, one person told me to my face, I’d fail. (Damn!)
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8 years ago I wrote a book about all the different homes I lived in as a young girl. It was a book about home. Or, maybe, a search for it.
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11 years ago I said no to an 8-year toxic relationship that felt like a prison. That’s hard to admit.
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13 years ago I participated in my very first writing program where I shared all of my (then) terrible poems in front of a group of writers and would-be mentors. It was a huge creative risk (I didn’t know that at the time).
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15 years ago I intentionally left a job that felt like home. I was treated with love, I was encouraged to be myself, use my creativity, come up with weird and random ways to delight customers. I was encouraged to do the same things so much differently. I took this message and put it in my pocket.
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24 years ago I became a mother.
In between those changes, big moments, and creative risks, are the asterisks of mundane moments, and the exclamation marks of really bad, painful hard things. But they are all connected. They are all there whether others see them or not. They build on each other. They inform one another. They … create patterns. Between some of the good moments you may notice a lot more exclamations and asterisks. And you get to decide whether you share those asterisks and exclamation points, and with whom you share them. Not everyone should get a full access pass to you. You get to decide whether you look for the patterns or not.
What will you do with those patterns?
What do you really want to protect in your creative life? Can you see it?
When you see it, and the conditions are right, that’s when everything changes. If you can’t see it yet … well, that’s the work I do with writers. I help you create the conditions. We dig into that liminal space together, slowly. What we find, we put to damn good use.
My writer friend decided to tell me what she noticed, was a risk for her. Because she took that risk I was able to see what I had been protecting, and do something with that data (a risk for me).
It had been decades in the making.
Reader, this is slow work. Building a creative life that “fits” into the rest of your life doesn't just show up because of a 3 month program with me, or some workshop you signed up for. But it is the sum of these parts. The fitting happens after making space to look for and acknowledge the patterns. Your creative practice feels important (even when your house is on fire) IF you create the conditions for the right people in your life to say the things that need saying at just the right time. It takes a lifetime to learn how to listen and at just the right volume. Create the conditions. Do the same things so much differently.
If you are feeling creative, go back, and re-read this letter. Maybe take out your notebook and see if you can notice or sketch the patterns in this letter. What do you notice about the way time passes? What do you notice about how images, ideas, themes, and messages repeat themselves? What do you notice about what piqued your curiosity and when and where?
If you do this, send me what you come up with, even if it's a sketch! And if the conditions are right, maybe you’ll even share with me your asterisks and exclamations. I’ll reply to every response I get.
Ps, the free, Say No With Love Session is open again if you want to sign up or invite a friend.
And maybe what you notice about patterns inspires you to think about the narrative shape of a story you’ve been working on. Sometimes stories come to life when the shape or the way it unfolds comes into view. I’m currently designing an advanced workshop on spatial narrative structures. I'm still deciding whether to make it a public workshop or not. I guess if enough people show interest, then I might! Put your name on my workshop waitlist if this interests you!
Ps I've added new segments to my say no with love letters: First, you'll always get 1 say no with love story (just like the above story, don't worry, they won't always be that long haha), 2 new creative risks to try, 3 writing process refinement tips, and studio delights aka what is happening in my studio that you can be a part of. Pick any of the ideas below to try!
2 creative risks to try
Creative risk 1: Make a mess with your writing project FIRST. Start an unstructured notebook! Read more about that in my super short Brevity post.
Creative risk 2: forward this letter to a friend with one line about WHY you are forwarding it. Let's see what ripples you create ; )
3 writing process refinements
aka 3 things to do ... differently
Spend 5 minutes defining "writing" for yourself. What ELSE does it include aside from just drafting?
Make a list of your "crutch words" (the words that you use A LOT). Look up words to replace them. What do you notice about how the piece reads? hint hint look for your crutch verbs!
Experiment with how much space you leave between writing sessions. How can you call in more breathing space?
Studio Delights
There's a lot of new things happening in my studio, but because this letter is long enough, I'll just pick one:
My Shop page is all cute, tidy, and refined! I'm really loving it so check it out.
with love, Chelene
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