Creative Genius in Powering Off

I tried and failed to write about money

Last month, I finished teaching the second part of my class about reconnecting with creative intuition. The first class (The Map to Inspiration) is about taking yourself seriously and realigning with what you want to achieve, creatively. The second class (Unfolding the Map) is about digging deeper. It says: creative work isn’t easy, but if it’s what you want, you’ll be willing to dive down and excavate the dark corners that are holding you back. The second class deals with Shadow. The second class deals with money.

For years I’ve thought I should write in this newsletter about money, and I spent the past week working on an essay about making money (or not!!) as a writer. The more I wrote, the more the essay opened up into an unwieldy beast that made me feel exposed and vulnerable. I’m still working on it, but I’m going to send it out for paying subscribers (next week, probably). It’s too sensitive to send to everyone.

Part of the money essay ended up being about the pull I’m feeling to turn off my computer and center my day around analog creation and consumption. I keep wondering if my only options are craggy hermit lady or aspiring influencer. We’re supposed to be All In with whatever we do, but is the push toward All In a lie that keeps us from being our messy human selves? Aren’t we supposed to be weird, confusing, uncategorizable humans who might change our minds at any moment? More and more, I want a life that’s not Instagrammable, but does that make me irrelevant in 2024?

I’m reading And Here’s the Kicker, which is a book of interviews with comedy writers. The interviewer, Mike Sacks, asks Harold Ramis if Bill Murray was as difficult to work with as people say he is. Ramis says:

“Billy has that thing I’ve seen in only a few people in my life…It’s a kind of penetrating intellect and a very intense kind of scrutiny. They look at you really hard, and you always feel that you’re being judged for honesty and sincerity and clarity.” 

He goes on to describe Bill Murray as incredibly talented, and a genius at improvisation, and how that “very intense kind of scrutiny” meant he would do what he could to make the scene as good as it could be. He knows what works, and so that’s what he does. You can suggest something to him, and if it’s going to make the scene great, he’ll do it. But if it’s not, he won’t. 

What does it take to have this sort of self-regard, this level of knowing? What does it take to be committed to doing your best, and not worrying about whether people are hurt if you dismiss their idea? What does it take to be regarded as the most talented person in the room, and also potentially “difficult to work with”? 

I write this and still think, “well, though, I do want to be nice.” I write this whole essay and worry what everyone will think of me.

There is a trick, which is to make these things for digital spaces and then to hightail it away from the computer and into the woods. My habit is to sit in front of the screen and wait to see what people think. The internet is designed to make us all wait for reactions, and especially to exploit those of us who are keen on external praise for our self esteem. I should walk away into nature, meditation, or a book, and yet I almost never do. It’s a trick I have not yet perfected.

“Yes, you should turn off the computer and walk in the woods.” -Cosmo

I still have this teensy problem with codependency, with people pleasing, with looking outside for validation. I’ve mostly quit social media, but haven’t quit texting and email. I’ve thought about it. What if I just stopped checking? What would happen?

Cody Cook-Parrott

wrote something about turning your phone off entirely. Which I want to do, and haven’t. I am an adult person who can’t fathom powering off the phone that I actively avoid all day long.

It also sounds terrifying. When I stopped posting on Instagram, there were so many people I lost contact with. It’s hard to take, the thought that, if I go offline and devote myself to writing, everyone will forget about me. This sounds like a petty complaint as I’m typing it (who puts the paranoid in parasocial? I do!) and also, I think I’m ok with it. I’d rather learn to write. It’s not like I actually cease to exist, if I am not doing much on the internet (right? RIGHT??). Here I am. Breathing and typing. 

I used to find joy and delight in online spaces, and then, one by one, I noticed that these platforms didn’t make me feel good. Instead of finding giddy connection and inspiration, I’d log on and feel dread, sadness, and envy. I deleted my Facebook account, and then Twitter/X, Pinterest, and Goodreads. I’m monitoring my feelings about Instagram. And I’ve noted, with alarm, that lately the entire internet makes me uneasy. Google, email, Substack, trying to find a recipe, reading a book review – so much of what I run into is angry or needless. I do wonder if there is a coming metamorphosis, where the inflated fluff and angry beasts of the internet will fall away, and we’ll return to a place of serenity and connection. I already see people pulling away and questioning their “content creation” strategies. I see people quitting the platforms. I see people coming back after being quiet for months, to share the thing they made offline. I’m intrigued by this. There is hope in the prospect of us all going deep, creating from a place of wholeness and introspection rather than sharing every moment for likes, metrics, and algorithms. 

I took a class last month with Melanie Karlins where she advised making a Delight Bank. Make a list of things that delight you, and then actually schedule them into your calendar. She advised something like twelve delights a week (roughly two a day), which sounded shocking, like: twelve? A week? But it’s more shocking to deny ourselves daily delight.

You don’t make good art (or money) by being halfway, by dwelling in casual mediocrity. I’m not saying my books are mediocre – I think they’re all brilliant, honestly. But I look at them and wonder how I managed it. The fact is, I managed it through spurts of ignoring people in order to focus on my words. I have spent a lot of time flailing in casual codependent mediocrity, annoyed by always handing pieces of myself to other people, and then being confused at how hard it is to concentrate when I’ve given away so much of my heart.

I want to know what happens if I turn off my phone and my computer and sit in silence. What if I turn off my car, my television, my microwave, my *&$%ing smart speaker, and I write on paper, fold paper into a heart, rip paper into shreds, sew paper into a tiny book and leave it outside a birdhouse? What if I walk very slowly like my neighborhood is a giant labyrinth, eat a tomato, eat a blueberry, eat a peach, slice a strawberry, tie a knot, tie a bow, learn cloud names, learn dog names, learn another language, learn to sing, learn to dance, learn how to be my full and open self standing on the lawn with no one to praise or criticize me except whoever happens to walk by? What if, what if? I want to try.

Yes, I know everyone is talking about their upcoming books being on sale this week online at B&N! But mine is too! If you enter the code PREORDER25 at checkout, all preorders, including Chester Barkingham Saves the Country, are 25% off. You have to be a B&N member. I just became one of these, when B&N moved into my town, and I don’t remember what all of the perks were, other than I got a free (very nice) tote bag. There were perks, though.

Here is how the PW Fall Children’s Preview describes Chester Barkingham Saves the Country:

If that’s intriguing, go ahead and preorder for 25%. Or, as always, preorder Chester from Print: A Bookstore if you want a signed/personalized copy (this works for any of my books, not just preorders).

In the news

Here’s all the Help Wanted: One Rooster press from the past month:

• I was on 207 (screenshot above) talking about ideas and who I write for.

• I went to Bangor, Maine for the Bangor Literacy Volunteers Book Drive (and was on the news for that too).

• Help Wanted: One Rooster (and its origin story) was featured in the Portland Press Herald (above).

• I had a great conversation with Stephanie of the Kidlit Love podcast about emotions and finding the right book for the right reader.

• I was interviewed on Simply 7 about writing the book.

• I talked about my writing process on the Picture Book Buzz (and about my favorite National Parks).

• Here’s even more about writing Help Wanted: One Rooster on YA Books Central.

• Rooster got the Perfect Picture Book Friday review on Maria Marshall’s blog.

• While it’s not necessarily Rooster-related, I told the Portland Press Herald what I would do for a perfect day in Maine.

• Finally, if you are in Maine, come see me tomorrow at the new Barnes & Noble in South Portland, where I’ll be reading Help Wanted: One Rooster at 11 am.

Books I read recently and loved

Disclosure: book links in this newsletter are affiliate links to Bookshop.org, a site which supports independent bookshops.

• Spider in the Well by Jess Hannigan is eye-poppingly bright and slyly hilarious. It seems like a book from 1965 that you’d discover in a used bookstore and become completely obsessed with, but luckily you can buy a new copy right now. Buy two copies, so you can donate one to a used bookstore in 50 years and get some future book person obsessed with it.

• Out of the Blue by Rebecca Bach-Lauritsen, illustrated by Anna Margrethe Kjærgaard, and translated by Michael Favala Goldman, is a Wes Anderson movie in picture book form, with a surprise bear (well, I guess it’s not a surprise, since it’s on the cover).

• I read two delightful adult fiction romps this month. Both might be called beach reads. One I literally read at the beach. The other I attempted to read while waiting for Fourth of July fireworks, but it was a distracting field and hard to read in. So they are beach reads and not distracting field reads, maybe. One was The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio, which is a little bit time-loopy. It’s about a woman who suddenly has a magic attic that keeps producing new husbands for her (which is hard since she was never married in the first place). The other was Big in Sweden, by Sally Franson, which I found out about on

  Caroline Cala Donofrio
  ’s newsletter and which was just as hilarious as Caroline said it would be. It’s about a woman who kind of casually backs into being on a Swedish reality show (and is based on a true story). There are many, many descriptions of delicious food in it, also, if that’s your thing (it’s my thing).