on the source of creative confidence & the magic of beginning
Trusting myself
During November of last year, I enrolled in a local, fiction writing class for National Novel Writing Month. Affectionately referred to as NaNoWriMo by the thousands of writers who embark on it, this special challenge requires participants to write the first 50,000 words of their novel in a mere 30 days. Yes. It’s as crazy and diabolical and magical as it sounds. 30 days. 50,000 words.
Each morning, I’d start my day at my desk or my dining room table and I’d attempt to write at least 1600 words of my novel (this was the daily, minimum word count to make it to 50 K in 30 days). It would usually take me anywhere between 1 to 2 hours each day to write this much depending on how inspired I felt and the flow of new ideas for the story. The first week was intimidating but once I had a couple of days under my belt the writing started to really come. The story still felt fresh in my head and I could get away with long, directionless blocks of exposition – after all, I was still setting up the world and the characters! But, once I got to week 2, I hit a block. Now I actually had to figure out how my characters were going to live in this world and have their lives unfold. Week 2 is also a common threshold where many NaNoWriMers start to feel creeping thoughts of self-doubt. The initial buzz of writing a novel starts to wear off around this time, and your self-editing brain turns on. You start to look at your draft and say: What a mess! This will never be good, why bother!
But I pushed through. Where doubt continued to pop up in my process, I met that doubt with persistence. Just getting up each morning, lighting my candle, putting on some music – doing all the things that felt like ritual– watered this conviction within myself that I was worthy of seeing the next leg of my novel through. This is an important note: Showing up to write each day didn’t make me feel like the most talented writer in the world. It didn’t even make me feel like a good writer. There were actually days I felt like a horrible writer. But, what I was able to marvel at by the end of each writing session was the sheer magic of getting words out on the page. 1600 words became 4800 words,and then 4800 words flowered into 25,600 words by the end of November. They didn’t need to be “good” words. But the sheer output of having hundreds and sometimes thousands of words come out of me each day was a miracle in itself, especially as someone who had felt creatively blocked for many years prior. Committing to the simple act of transferring my ideas into a creative vessel – which happened to be a novel draft – helped me prove to myself that I could recreate this momentum again, and then the next day, and then the next week, and so on and so forth.
Common pitfalls of beginning
That was all just a really long way of getting to the challenge of confidence. I’ve been reflecting on that word in conversations with dear friends recently. How does one muster up the confidence to keep chipping away at a new project or personal goal when that “creation” is in its infancy?
To answer that question, we need to know what we’re up against. When we’re at the beginning of a new project, our brain does this dance of scanning for every possible reason to not create the thing we set out on creating or doing. Some of those mindsets against creating can look like:
Ego Brain: The thing we are trying to create doesn’t feel innovative or like it is breaking new ground. In other words, our project isn't important or original.
Planner Brain: We need to have the entire project or goal clearly mapped out and know where we are going to end before we can even start.
Researcher Brain: We don’t know enough to possibly get going and we need to keep learning more before we can offer something.
Perfectionist Brain: The quality of our work and performance at the outset of the project/goal is a reflection of everything we will ever accomplish or be. We don’t have the capacity to grow or evolve through practice and experience. If we’re “bad” now we’ll always be bad. This is just who we are.
Conformist Brain: The thing we are trying to create may not have a model or exist yet in the form we are imagining. We fear it will not be accepted or understood by the world outside of our head.
A recipe for confidence
It’s clear that the typical mindsets I listed above zap our confidence and keep us from the very important work of beginning. So what are we to do? Speaking from personal experience, waiting until you are confident to begin your work can be a long battle. When I did NaNoWriMo back in November, I didn’t even make it to the full 50,000 word count by the end of the month. I cleared a little over half of that. But that wasn’t the point. It was persistence, not confidence, that created the energy I needed to keep working on something, even when I didn't think that something was good. And having physical proof of my creation – which is really my persistence made tangible – gave me the drive to keep going.
In other words, I don’t think confidence precedes conviction of your creative talents. I think confidence – that voice in your head that says ‘this is worth pursuing, this is good enough right now’ – gets generated from persisting, enduring, and showing up for your work over a consistent period of time.
Some ingredients for persistence
I know I always feel a lot of excitement and doubt at the outset of something new I am creating. Over the years and through conversations with other creative friends, I started collecting some guide notes for starting a project and persisting through a creative process. I’d love to offer some of the most important ones to you here:
Name your gifts and why YOU need your project (against ego brain)
By this point you know the project or goal you want to work towards or you may even have started working on it. But you may also be getting hung up on this idea that your project isn’t special and therefore you may be finding it hard to feel momentum or reason to keep going. Every time you sit down to meet your work, you may feel discouraged because your progress or draft doesn’t look anything like the fully finished versions of this project that exist in the world. You may even find yourself comparing your first draft or first attempt to great works of art, professionals in their field, or even friends or colleagues who are doing something similar to you. If any of these feelings or mindsets resonate, I invite you to tap into the prompt below.
A Spell for Conviction:
Take 10-15 minutes, and using a pen and paper write down a list of the reasons you are doing this project or embarking on this goal. Think about:
WHY you need to express this thing within you
Do you have something to say that needs to be processed or freed within you?
Who else may experience freedom or safety by getting to experience your creation?
What value do you hope this project can add to the world?
What might your project help to clarify or bring more nuance to?
You might want to include things like a specific audience you are trying to reach that traditionally has not been reached.
You may include what reaching this audience will mean to them and you.
how will making this thing or meeting this goal change you and those around you?
What are the reasons this project needs to exist in the world?
What would we miss out on if we didn’t get to see or experience this project or the version of you that meets this goal?
When I first started working on my newsletter, I did a version of this prompt through a 3-day guided exercise created by artist and writer Cody Cook-Parrot called The Creative Ideation Portal. For three days, you get a step by step guide sent to your email with prompts for visioning the beginning of a new project and setting up structure to bring this project forth into the world. Their prompt was a little bit different from mine, but Cody encourages participants to write about how their project will serve themselves and their community. I thought a lot about the things I knew I was craving in my own life and from my creativity, and transferred those desires into an imagined audience or community that also wants those things.
When you start to hear those creeping thoughts of doubt in your head again, refer back to this prompt to remind yourself of why you’re doing this and why your efforts matter in the long haul.
2. Distill your idea or goal into a few core pieces (against planner brain)
If you’re anything like me, you’re a big picture thinker. You get excited by big ideas, concepts, and worlds. Those are the things that keep you excited to create or start new goals. But sometimes, ideas and concepts can flood us all at once, making it hard to see through all the noise. Where do we begin when there is some much we could do, work with, and accomplish?
For some creative people, we don’t feel secure enough to begin something new until we have a detailed outline or plan of every stage of the process we are about to embark on. When I was doing NaNoWriMo, I had to shut down my planner brain completely. There was no way I was going to have a chance at completing 50,000 words of prose in 30 days if I got stuck outlining every single chapter of my story. I had to widdle down my novel to the beginning of an idea and just GO. For me, that looked like briefly outlining the setting I wanted the story to take place in, the perspective I wanted to tell the story from, and the inciting incident I wanted to start the story from.
Everything else would just have to be figured out as I wrote. And I did just that.
Sometimes the need to be innovative, groundbreaking , and perfect (see: ego brain) keeps us in the ideation phase for far too long. If you need some help transitioning out of planner brain, see the prompt below for gentle guidance on letting go and just starting.
A Spell Against Planner Brain
Step 1: When you’re starting a new project, it can be easy to get lost in the sheer scope of something so big or new. Using pen and paper, take 4 minutes to write down a list of all the discrete parts of this project or goal that come immediately to mind.
Think of this prompt like a glorified to-do list. What are all the things you imagine needing to do or accomplish for this project?
For example, if I’m starting to write a new book, I might write down things like coming up with a book title, creating the character profiles, coming up with the rules of the world, deciding what perspective I want to tell the book, and creating a loose plot outline.
Step 2: Once you have your to-do list, I want you to pick ONE thing from your list that interests you the most.
Right now, I’m writing a middle grade fantasy and I’m really obsessed with world-building so I would pick something like setting up the rules of the world.
Step 3: Once you have your one selection from your longer to-do list, I want you to think about one step you can take within the next 24 hours to begin working towards that item on your to-do list.
For example, if I selected “coming up with the rules of the story world,” my one thing to do within the next 24 hours would be to write 300 words from the perspective of the setting I want to create. It’s important for this step to both address the task at hand, but to also move the greater project forward. Notice how I didn’t say something like spend a day researching different settings on the internet. On the contrary, my promise to myself actively gets me to start WRITING while also exploring setting ideas for the larger novel.
Now it’s your turn! What could that look like for you?
3. Affirm your brilliance (against researcher brain)
When I first started working on my first children’s book, I knew the story was going to take place in rural North Carolina in the 1940s. I had never been to North Carolina at the time of writing the book, though the story was loosely based on my maternal grandmother’s time there and I had grown up with her stories of the state and its land. It was important to me to get North Carolina right in order to honor my grandmother and her story. But I found that gaps in my knowledge often made it hard for me to begin writing because I was overly focused on what I didn’t know. And consequently, for months I was stuck researching and collecting information instead of exploring and writing. So here’s my special concoction for transitioning out of researcher brain:
A Spell for Knowing Just Enough
Step 1: Take a pen and paper and for 5 minutes make a list of everything you know about the thing you are creating or pursuing. Try not to stop writing or take your pen off the paper.
Include facts, research you’ve already done, things you’ve learned through conversations with other people about the topic, ancestral stories, books and digital media, things you’ve been inspired by that may inform your process/project, things you intuit, memories, the experiences of other people.
Don’t just include things about the topic…feel free to add things you know about the process of creating the thing you are embarking on. In my case, I would include knowledge I feel that I KNOW about what it takes to write a children’s book.
For each entry you write down, start each sentence with “I know…”. For example, one of mine might look like “I know the dirt in beargrass, North Carolina is red because my grandmother told me so.”
Step 2: Once you have your list of things you know, I want you to take 5 minutes and write down a list of the things you are curious about and want more information about in order to complete your project or goal.
For example, during the research phase of my children’s book, I was curious about the regional accent in Beargrass (how people sound in this part of North Carolina), what bodies of water existed in close proximity to this community, as well as the history of how my grandmother’s family came to own the land they have in their hometown. Again, try not to take your pen off the paper.
Step 3: Now, I want you to pick the two MOST important things from the larger list you generated above. One should be something you feel will build a sense of accuracy or expertise to your project and the other should be something that you’re personally excited about learning more. Circle both of them.
Step 4: For your two most important research items, I want you to spend 10 minutes for each one creating a loose outline of the specific things you need to know about each to feel satisfied with BEGINNING your project. This does not have to be an exhaustive amount of information. What will make you feel like you have ENOUGH to get started?
For example, when writing the picture book, I needed to know about how my grandmother’s family became landowners in a state her ancestors had previously been enslaved in. So, I might write down things like: I need to know the year the land got turned over to my grandmother’s family and why, who the land belonged to before and what their relationship was to my grandmother’s family, and what my grandmother’s family used the land for once they owned it. I might even add something about where I plan on getting this information from.
Step 5: Once you’ve created your research outline for your two items, set a deadline for how long you want to spend gathering information for each item.
This deadline should reflect how long YOU think it will take YOU to find this information.
And you should make a commitment to yourself to not spend longer than the established time gathering this information.
Step 6: Once you begin working on your project, refer back to the list of things that you know when you feel the itch to get stuck in the research phase.
You have enough to say already. You have so much to teach and offer.
You will learn through the practice of making and doing. Don’t lose sight of that.
4. Affirm your talents though one small promise each day (against perfectionist brain)
I first started an intentional morning routine in 2020 in the form of a daily walking practice because I was dealing with a lot of inflammation in my body after being stuck inside as a remote worker during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. When I first started my daily walking ritual, I was feeling very overwhelmed by the demands of remote work, I couldn’t keep up with a consistent exercise practice, and I didn’t feel at home in my body. In other words, I didn’t trust myself to show up for my own physical health and that made me feel bad about myself and stuck in this cycle of lethargy. When I decided to start walking every morning for at least 30 minutes each day, I did that because I knew walking would give me a physical outlet and allow me to work towards the larger goal of exercising daily. At the time, I hadn’t written creatively in a really long time and I was insecure about that. And the thought of starting up again would send me a wave of anxiety. So I started small. I didn’t know it then, but walking each day helped me prove to myself that I could keep promises to myself. If I had tried to incorporate daily writing and spiritual rituals into my morning routine right away, I may not have eased into the belief that I can depend on myself to bring my goals into reality - physical health goals, spiritual goals, and yes, creative goals.
As a recovering perfectionist, it’s easy to fall into the belief that if our creative output at the outset of a project doesn’t match the idealized outcome or quality of work we want to accomplish then we are simply not talented or worthy to create or keep creating. That’s a trap that keeps you disconnected from forward progress and unlikely to show up each day for your work.
One of my favorite poets, Jericho Brown, spoke to this trap on a podcast a few years ago when he said: “Some of y’all aren’t willing to write bad drafts first in order to write good drafts.” In this statement I hear the message of persistence OVER genius coming up. Genius isn’t an inherent state that some people possess and some people lack. Rather, creativity is something we choose to nurture each and every day through small, consistent acts. Creativity is not a static state that belongs to some and evades others.
Creativity is a promise you make every day and meet through daily ritual.
A Spell for Watering Your Promises: Think about the project you just started or the goal you are about to embark on. Is there one small promise you can honor every day to move towards the larger vision? For example, if I want to write a book, I might promise myself to write in my “ideas journal” for 15 minutes every morning. When I wanted to exercise more, I decided to walk for 30 minutes each day for a month. What’s one small promise you can water each day ?
5, Seek out models for the work you’re doing (against conformist brain)
Sometimes it can feel scary to start a new project because you might feel like the thing you’re making doesn’t exist yet. Or maybe the ideas and beliefs your work is pushing forward feel niche or isolated. Feeling like we don’t have a community of people to work with or be inspired by when we’re starting something new can feel isolating and provide more reason not to start the thing.
You might be saying to yourself, who am I to start this/make this/do this? But in my life as a writer and creative being, never has this feeling ever been substantiated with evidence once I went through the process of actually seeking out other models. There is always a kindred spirit out there desiring your desires, making the things you want to make, calling in the life you are calling in.
Even if that is just one person. You just have to be brave enough to look for it.
I learned the following practice after years of praying to my ancestors at an altar of my creation. And then I saw this prompt formalized into writing for the first time through Cody Cook Parrot’s Creative Ideation Portal. In this version, Cody invites you to make a list of the ancestors, friends, and living creators who make up your team. These are the people whose life, work, and ideas inspire you to keep going and make your projects happen. These are the people (and archetypes) you can refer to, remember, and lean on when you feel scared to get started.
A Spell for Conjuring Kinship
Step 1: Take 10 minutes to create a list of family members(biological and chosen) who have passed but who inspire you to do what you do. These should be people who have created things you admire, things you desire, or who have modeled a way of living that is aligned with the things you want to create.
For example, I began this prompt by listing my father and maternal grandfather, and writing a few sentences detailing what kinds of creative energy they modeled in their life:
Theodore McBride Sr: (maternal grandfather): virgo energy of care and structure, for seeing the beauty in Blackness, for the deep portals he found in jazz music, for surrounding himself with the arts, and for starting his own business when racism tried to limit his opportunities and earnings.
Auguste Ahebee, Sr (father): for being the love story that birthed me, for his Aquarian way of being willing to go against tradition and forge his own path when tradition didn’t serve him, for always finding something to laugh at, for pleasure through food, for being too sensitive for this damn world (we honor that!)
Step 2: For the next 10 minutes, I want you to create a list of living artists, creators, or humans (these can be people who personally know or complete strangers) who inspire you to do what you do. These should be people who have created things you admire, and specifically people who are creating things that are similar to the things you hope to create one day. For this prompt, one of the people I called on was writer and Black feminist, Alexis Pauline Gumbs:
Alexis Pauline Gumbs: for showing us how to reimagine the use of archives in the spirit of honoring our ancestor’s legacies, for modelling what a creative approach to business can be.
This exercise is so powerful for a multitude of reasons, but one of the reasons I really love this is that I can refer to these little spells whenever I feel like I’m alone in some part of my creative process. For example, If i feel like I am embarking on something I’ve never done before, I’ll look to the profile I wrote about my father and remember that I come from someone who fundamentally organized their life around a commitment to casting away things that were familiar when those were no longer the things that brought them closer to their desires or pleasures. And remembering and reaffirming that my father had success with these leaps gives me confidence to attempt new things in my own life.
For folks who are curious about this prompt, I encourage you to visit Cody’s website and do the entire Creative Ideation Portal from the beginning!
Some last thoughts
There is magic in just getting started. You got this and I am rooting for you!
If you find any of the prompts helpful or have questions about how to work with them, I’d love to hear from you!