Writing During Daytime & Knitting Myself to Sleep
“How many months of vacation do you need from your writing?” A direct, straight-forward question. I blinked. Not the me that asked the question, but the me that was blinking back. It got confusing, even for myself, although this wasn’t the first time I was role-playing as my own healer, collaborator and higher self. So, I decided that when “vulnerable-me” was speaking, I was hugging my unicorn plushie and when “boss-me” was speaking, my hands were free to take notes and fill the slides of my Canva presentation with somewhat of a “Not giving up on writing”-roadmap.
Do you give yourself intentional breaks from your creative projects? Or do you just wait until you burn out? Do you feel like you have full permission to quit and pivot? Or do you shame yourself for changing and no longer feeling the same inspiration?
“I think I need a few months every year where I don’t write, where I just learn and listen, where I do other stuff.”
“That’s not asking for too much. It’s actually an unrealistic expectation to be writing continually all throughout the year, no? So, how do you feel now about not having written in a while? Can you see it as part of your yearly vacation from writing?”
“I’ve not seen it from that perspective, to be honest. I feel relief. I feel some weight from my shoulders lifting. I feel a bit less shame.”
“So, now let’s look at your avoidance. Part of improving your writing, is loving the writing you’ve already done. Why does it scare you to read your own writing?”
“I don’t know. The more time passes with me not writing, the more those mean voices creep in. Logically, I know that my writing is not horrible, but somatically, I don’t.”
“So, you feel like you constantly have to prove your worth. The moment you pause, you suck. Can you see how that can stand in-between you resting without guilt when you’re not able to write?”
“Yes, I can see that. However, it’s hard for me to feel proud of my writing right now. To feel it in my body. In my bones. I feel like a scared little cat right now.”
“Maybe you’re scared because you care.”
“Yes, I do. Maybe too much.”
“Maybe that’s a gift. If you didn’t care too much, would you even write?”
“Good point, but I haven’t in a while.”
“So?”
“I don’t know how to come back from my writing hiatus. I don’t know how to get back into the flow. I used to write at night. Late. Until 4am or even until early morning.”
“And you don’t want to do that anymore?”
“Yes, but at the same time, I miss writing.”
“You don’t have to know every single step.
You just have to know the next step.”
I’ve filled the spaces where I used to write with drowsiness and sleep. I now knit myself to sleep. I now knit. Wow. I can write that and I have projects to show for it. I’ve made a lot of progress. In my knitting and therefore maybe my writing too. I now sleep. What a challenge it has been to ask myself to only write during daytime. Most of the times, I don’t write then. Days are short. Shorter than nights. I’ve realized that I deserve to sleep. I no longer want to sacrifice my sleep for my creativity.
This post is a result of me giving myself my own medicine. I now know what I would like to improve about my writing, because I’m learning to love my writing again. I’ve been reading through my old writing and seeing it through a less distorted lens.
Do you not only hare your gifts with the world, but also with yourself? Have you used that deep ability to listen, to listen to yourself? Have you given yourself the advice you most needed, when you were struggling?
Below I’ve collected a non-exhaustive list of quotes from my previous posts that I love:
Disability is not a choice and not a competition. It defies absolutely all stereotypes because there are all kinds of disabled people.
It’s important to cultivate community around more than just labels. That gives us a deeper sense of safety and belonging: To know that, even if we didn’t identify as something one day anymore, our community would still see and love us for who we are. We are not the labels, we are the journey we go on with or without them.
we can kill
but we don't have to
we can measure heroes*
by their greatest deeds of killing
but we don't have to
Writing isn’t a linear process and we don’t need to write a lot consistently for our writing to matter.
Sometimes, depression can be a sign that we’re part of communities that are misaligned. Sometimes having the courage to go it alone for a while can be what leads us to our unique writing voice.
Denying suffering doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means it’ll make itself known in other ways.
The strategies of self-care I discover when I’m at my most depressed, activated and dissociated stay around and are useful to me way beyond these painful seasons.
It’s as hard as trying to lift a car with sheer manual force to heal without support.
To me, the lack of inspiration to write indicates that I need to connect to what inspires me, outside of writing.
Something that helps me stay inspired in my writing is that I always allow myself to change. We don’t have to stay the same. Maybe our depression asks us to be someone different.
I hope the perception of autism changes so that people who look like me don't fall through the cracks.
I hope future generations will have it easier because people like me believed in themselves and fought back against prejudice. I'm autistic and a miss*diagnosis can't change that.
What I call myself can be different from what others call me. I’m used to being seen as delusional for saying that how I feel on the inside isn’t exactly what I appear like on the outside.
Autism is a spectrum. You can be autistic, even if you don’t stim. You can be autistic, even if you can maintain eye contact. You can be autistic, even if you [insert a single criteria that can never truly encompass the entire spectrum of diverse experiences].
Creativity is what has healed me, when systems have failed me.
I write for the people who don’t fit into any boxes, not even the box for the people who don’t fit into any boxes.
Being creative purely because you desire to — not knowing where it’s going to lead — is absolutely worth it.
Cleaning can wait. I need to sit in the mess: the dirty dishes, the scattered laundry, the missed deadlines. Sit. Like I have all the time in the world to rest. Sit. Like my room loves me back.
Where are you not allowing yourself to be messy? Are you holding back out of fear of what you might find in the backdrawers of your creative projects? Maybe what you once found hideous, you now find cute. Maybe what once fit, you’ve outgrown.
Instead of beating myself up over having such a slow writing process, I’ve decided to see it as the very essence of my writing. By being this slow, I can make my writing process a lot more collaborative.
Taking a step back and letting our soul wander is sometimes the most liberating thing we can do for our creativity.
I know that we sometimes want to have achieved all our goals already, but then life would be over already.
I have this weird faith that all we have to do is to get the ball rolling, but we don’t have to push it up the hill forcefully.
Maybe we have to think of committing to finishing our projects as committing to letting our projects go.
🌒🌓🌖🌕🌔🌗🌘
I love that my writing is healing, accessible and poetic. It is vulnerable, down-to-earth and full of wisdom that I generously share.
My intentions for my writing:
🌓 write more during daytime
🌘 keep track of time for myself
🌔 spend more time on my headlines
🌘 use narrative elements
🌗 refine my editing process
What do you love about your writing and what would you like to playfully work on?
Love,
Imọlẹ
At the moment, I barely have words for the co-occuring, interconnected crises going on. I’m in learning and listening mode. Reflecting on what I can do, but in the meantime, I’m supporting loved ones around me and that matters too. I think it matters to not lose sight of the micro acts of solidarity we can do every day.
If you’re interested in 1:1 sessions with me. I connect social justice and creative purpose. I support you in honoring your gifts that, trust me, the world needs. ❤