The Creative Spiral
On putting things out into the world
Our teen daughter is sprawled on the kitchen floor again. Sometimes she ends up in a puddle there because she’s tired. Other times, she’s cuddling the dogs. This time, however, she’s nursing a vulnerability hangover.
Last Sunday, she spent six hours in her room recording a song in Logic, layering vocal tracks, playing keyboard parts, building beats. It’s a Billie Eilish-meets-The Cure vibe, moody and melodic. She recorded the vocals sitting in her empty bathtub. The line that struck me most was: You’re summer, I’m fall, fall, falling behind.1
I told her I loved it, heaping honest, effusive praise. It made me so happy I was teary. I’d spent years as a professional musician, and I felt this thrill, seeing that she’s a far more talented songwriter and musician than I ever was. Not ten minutes later, I turned from cooking dinner to find her all pretzeled up on the floor.
“The song is terrible,” she said, face in hands. “I can’t believe I even played it for you.”
I sat down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s a brilliant song,” I said, “but I don’t know if I can say anything to convince you. That’s the hard part about putting our heart out there, sharing things with other people. Honestly, I always feel exactly like this.”
I’ve felt this way sharing songs and essays both. Who doesn’t feel this way? Psychopaths? Every time I hit publish on Substack, I immediately want to take it back. Like Gob from Arrested Development, I tell myself, “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
It’s not for the meek, possibly not even for the sane. Luckily, I soon had an opportunity to show my daughter exactly how I handle things, just to make her feel better.
Just this week, in fact, a crazy thing happened. A really amazing, wonderful person became my very first paid subscriber. My initial reaction, after saying holy shit, and quickly snapping my laptop shut, was reopening it to google How to insert refund button Substack.
I’m full of undying gratitude for this person, as well as undying impostor syndrome, and the tiniest glimmer of a recognition that technically—if we’re being extremely, pedantically technical—this makes me a professional writer.
So I’m joining my daughter on the floor, because that’s what professional writers do when they’re up against it. We pretzel up on the floor, we wonder what we’ve done, and then we find out from other writers that this, over and over again, is pretty much the gig.
Lyrics by Evie Tourtelot, reprinted with her permission
I feel this one. Even my very successful artist friends report feeling anxiety, shame, nausea, etc. when launching their work into the world....
Haha, man, I most certainly could not have said it better than:
"We pretzel up on the floor, we wonder what we’ve done, and then we find out from other writers that this, over and over again, is pretty much the gig."
Great reflection, and major congrats on the first of many paid subscribers.