Creative Compost 🌱

Recursive Reframing & Unmasking

Last month I started an experiment.

Over the last year I’ve struggled with figuring out how Substack fits into my creative ecosystem. There are things I love about Substack. I love the ease of discussion and conversation. I love the invitation to write longform content. I also love that you can also post podcasts and videos and photo essays. The problem is I want to do it all…

Remember this meme?

This is problematic.

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My capacity has shifted greatly since I began.

When I started “blogging” on Substack my kiddo was in Montessori school and I had hours each weekday to do focused and creative work.

Now I’ve taken on home educating a twice exceptional student¹ whilst trying to make enough art to regulate my nervous system and find creative community.

I’m doing this with a part time university job (online courses thank heavens) without any child care, baby sitter, or even a family member who can watch our kid for us.

That’s mostly fine, because we’ve reached a stage where Davy is happy to play LEGO while I work or listen to an audiobook while I grade papers.

But the reality is I have much less time than I had a couple years ago when I started. Particularly for projects like podcasting or filming videos. As much as I’d like to do them I need most of the time that I do have (when Nathan is off work) to rest.

Shocking I know. Also…

It takes me a while to realize my shifting capacity means projects need to change shape.

I’m getting better at this. I’m much less likely to push into burn out these days.

BUT I still carry all of those intentions as something I “should” be making. Long form blog posts, YouTube videos, my Neurodivergent Spacetime podcast. (One day y’all!)

To my credit I’ve been making microshifts for a while.

But what I’m realizing is that my output has to change radically. Also…

I don’t really have a creative business. I have a collection of passion projects.

This has been a long time struggle for me.

I fell in with the creative entrepreneur crowd (and made some lovely friends) in my early blogging days. But I carried the “shoulds” from that context for a long time.

• Yes, I’ve self published a book.

• Yes, I put together a Self Publishing 101 course (not to make money really - just because y’all asked).

• Yes, I have a tiny niche community over on Discord.

I’m lucky that lately these have more of less broken even. But none of these were driven by profit.² They all bubbled out of my creative ecosystem.

To be clear: there’s nothing wrong with monetizing your creativity and making a career out of it. But also…

Why do we only value creativity that is profitable?

I have a whole rant on this that will probably surface as a long form blog post later this year. But it boils down to this…

I’m trying to recenter my creative practice.

I want to continue stripping away “best practices” related to sales and growth. And to align my time and efforts toward what I care most about. Right now that means I want to…

• Make things I’m passionate about (like

  Neurokind
  & the Entwined anthology).

• Spend more time falling into research rabbit holes.

• Allow myself to be the eclectic weirdo that I truly am.

• Stop striving for a “professional” level of perfectionism. (This one is truly hard for me. I usually proofread a bajillion times. You can expect more typos if I’m brave enough to do this.)³

• Publish and archive long form posts on my own website.

This was a very long winded way to say… Things are changing a bit.

Long time readers will remember various “rebrands” and “pivots”, but this time I don’t have a master plan.

I am just figuring it out as I go.

That’s scary. But no matter how much I try I can’t figure this out on my head. I have to do this on my feet.

For now… this email is becoming a monthly-ish digest.

I’ll be sharing a round up of things I’ve added to my digital compost heap (my interpretation of a digital garden). This means you’ll be seeing notes from ongoing research, works in progress, and ideas I’m noodling around with.

Raw and unpolished.

Remember that time my real life compost heap sprouted a papaya tree?

That was wild. That’s just what kind of space for serendipity I want to open up for my creative process.

This week I sorted subscribers into two groups.

One group will get monthly digests via Substack. (That’s probably you.)

One group will get weekly emails from Beehiiv. (If you’d rather weekly emails you can sign up for those here.)

I sorted you based on Substack filters for how active you’ve been and how many emails you’ve opened. (I know adblockers mess up the data so if I guessed wrong please rearrange yourselves.)

This is all an ongoing experiment.

I’m nervous to change email platforms because engagement might go down. Comments keep me motivated and one of my motivations to create and share online is for connection.

On the other hand I’m concerned about Substack becoming noisier. They continue to make choices that are transforming Substack from a blogging platform to a social media. I’ve been considering alternatives ever since they introduced Notes.

This experiment is a middle way.

I’m not keen to grow much larger than I am. I like knowing who y’all are. I like recognizing your names and joyfully replying to comments without feeling like it’s my job.

Before doing the split my stats said 80% of y’all were reading in your email inbox. If that’s true maybe I’m overestimating what Substack is bringing to the table.

There’s only one way to find out.

Originally I intended to write a short introduction to your first monthly digest. Ha! I’ve waffled on too long to do that now. Sorry for the lack of images. That’s not like me. But it’s past my bedtime.⁴ And I’m not aiming for perfection right now.

I’m just doing what I can.

If you want to see what kind of stuff I’ll be sharing check out my latest update on Beehiiv or grab a shovel and help yourself to some creative compost.

That’s all for now.

I’d love to hear from you if something resonates.

Or share a link to a rabbit hole you’ve been enjoying.

Cheers,

1. I realized recently Davy’s reading vocabulary is at a 4th grade level. He is 4 years old. Pray for me.

2. I want to recognize my own financial privilege - why I don’t feel pressure to monetize my creativity at the moment. This is (partly) because of my university job and (mostly) because of my husband’s programming job. Sometime in the future that may change. But I’m doing a lot of unpaid labor in parenting and educating at the moment and something has to give.

3. I was not. I need to see the Wizard for some courage.

4. Late nights are one of the only windows of quiet time I have. Perks to home educating is that we don’t have to wake up early for a school run so I’m reconnecting to my inner night owl. I tried the early bird thing, but it is not in my DNA.