Be Brave & Write Beautifully

Two tiny lessons for building a creative life of words

Writing in the Dark turns two years old on December 1!

In celebration of that big birthday, I’m sharing, over the next couple of weeks (here and on Notes), some short and very slightly updated highlights from the in-depth two-part series (Part One, Part Two) I wrote last year on how I built Writing in the Dark (and, more broadly, the principles by which I build my entire creative life).

To note, Writing in the Dark has more than tripled in size across all metrics since this time last year, but these core lessons remain exactly the same.

Here are two—with more to come. ❤️

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Be Brave

When I founded my writing school in 2012 and started registering for my first-ever week-long writing retreat (I had never even attended a writing retreat, let alone led one!), I had no idea if anyone would sign up (I described that unnerving experience in detail in an interview with Hippocampus a couple of years ago). But the part that’s relevant now is how a good friend said to me, when she saw my retreat promo on Facebook, that I was very brave to be doing it.

“Well, I haven’t really invested any money or anything,” I told her. “My deposit for the lodging is fully refundable if no one registers. There’s not much at stake.”

My friend nodded, then said softly that it wasn’t money she was talking about. It was the possibility of me putting myself out there and failing. The possibility how that would look for me. How that would feel. What people would think.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “There’s that. I know what you mean, but oh well.”

You see, by then, I’d already come to understand, even before I knew the name for the spotlight effect, that no one was paying as much attention to me as I might believe they are in my most self-conscious moments. I’d already made peace with the possibility of failing, which is what allowed me to offer that retreat in the first place. And by the way, it sold out and I went on to lead it nine more summers, until that programming was disrupted by the pandemic, after which I have led many different retreats, some even bigger, including international ones, all beautiful and transformative.

Being brave means different things to different people, but I think it almost always means being willing to try new things, make mistakes, and embrace failure. It really is okay to fail, I promise.

Remind me to tell you about the time, many years ago, when I had a nonfiction book deal with Simon and Schuster, and my cowriter and good friend called me to tell me—after a call with her agent, who was representing us, and who’d just spoken to our editor—“Jeannine, she hated it. I mean, she really hated it.” Guess who’d done most of the writing at that point? That’s right. I had. Anyway, the contract was killed and the book never happened. I share this to counterbalance the retreat story. Not every story of risking failure ends happily. But I am still here, still writing, still being brave.

Ultimately, as you’ve heard before, courage is about letting ourselves be afraid and doing things anyway. Being scared of what you’re writing and facing it anyway. Being afraid your writing isn’t good enough or it’s too late or you’ll never make it and persevering anyway. Being worried about whether it all means anything anymore, and forging on anyway.

I love this venn diagram meme that shows where the magic happens. I remind myself of it all the time, and then I keep going.

Write Beautifully

What it means to write beautifully will vary depending on your topic and genre. In some instances, beauty might simply mean writing that is clear, factual, easy to read, and high value. Note that the value part is a whole other topic, and an important I’ve written about before. Value can apply to almost anything you might be writing as long as you care enough. Value is about putting your heart into it, whatever it is.

My genre is creative and literary, so I work hard to ensure that even in my craft posts, or reflective posts like this one, I find some small way, in at least one or two lines, to stretch for a scrap of beauty, whether I reach it or not.

After all, I know not everything I write is going to be a literary masterpiece—alas. That’s especially true here on Substack, where I’m writing a newsletter, after all, and where I publish 3 to 5 times a week. But I do at least make a point of playing with language in everything I write.

It’s almost a rebellion, really, to insist that language can do more than simply communicate. That to do language can mean more than just saying words. It’s a defiance, in a sense, to insist on caring about words and to stubbornly love the thrill of the chase, the chase after writing that wrings you out and leaves you in a heap of dishwater and memories in the basin of that old porcelain farm sink where you once stood to rinse sour milk from plastic sippy cups, where you stared into space toward the far end of the porch and the horizon of another marriage, another life, and grieved the old self whose next chapters you would never write.

Love,

Jeannine

PS If you want to keep creating through uncertainty, please join us now for Writing in the Dark’s The Art of the Scene intensive for paid members. You can upgrade here anytime to write with us in our safe, light-filled community.

We also have some upcoming live events for paid members (all on Zoom):

• Nov 25 1-2pm CT Silent Write-In

• Dec 13 12-1:30pm CT Open-Mic Salon

• Dec 16 1-2pm CT Silent Write-In

Again, we hope you’ll join us at these rebelliously festive year-end events. Thank you always for writing together.