do it depressed 💪🫶🩷

Hello, my loves — I’ve missed you!

Running a newsletter is a funny thing. Unless you’ve got paid subscribers expecting to get their money’s worth, there’s really no one holding you accountable to the schedule you’ve set. That’s a blessing, in some ways, especially on those days when even getting through the “oh shit” to-do list (keeping the kids fed, paying the bills, perhaps even the occasional shower, if we’re feeling quite capable) feels like a challenge. It’s also a curse, because there’s no one to tell you, hey, get your fucking newsletter out, you haven’t sent one since February, and now it’s May!

Thus, here we are.

But we are, in fact, here, and I’m taking that as a good thing. Celebrating the small wins, where I can get them.

It’s been a hard few months. In this moment, it feels almost silly to say that — of course it’s been a hard few months. We’re witnessing a massive, systemic, unlawful attack on human rights, democratic institutions, and vulnerable communities. The planet is suffering as climate change continues to raise temperatures, create massive weather events with devastating impact on natural and human environments, and destroy the fragile ecosystems that sustain human and animal life. As creatives, we’re fighting a multi-pronged battle against the devaluing of our work: the invasion of AI into the tools we use to create, the theft of artistic and intellectual work to train large language models, the attempts to underpay and overwork the people who create the works that make it worth sticking it out through the Everything Else.

Given all of that, it feels more than a little uncomfortable to talk about the personal nonsense. It feels, very much, like making excuses — after all, so many other people are dealing with Much Bigger Problems with Much More Grace while remaining Significantly More Productive, so how can I sit here and tell you about how my depression kept me from writing to you over the past few months?

Just like this, apparently: My depression kept me from writing to you over the past few months.

When I started this newsletter back in December of 2023, I wrote,

In my heart of hearts, I still believe all of that. I do. But my feelings on that first, critical sentence, Creatives create because we can’t not, have…shifted.

Because it turns out (and yes, this is obvious, but here I am, once again feeling like I should be the exception to the rule, Leo Sun on full display) that creatives, sometimes, can’t create. Considering I’ve written about this very thing before, you’d think that I wouldn’t be so surprised that sometimes, depression — or trauma, or despair, or simply the overwhelming exhaustion of existing in the world — really does sap away our generative energy and leave us staring at the wall, wondering what happened to our ability to make beautiful things with our hands or our hearts or our minds. For those of us who are creative professionals, our creative output is tied to our ability to pay our bills and support our families and sustain our local communities, and that adds another layer of complication: the things we want to create, that might bring us the most joy or pull us most effectively out of the Sunken Places, might not be the things that we’re being paid to make.

For the last few months, the work of creation has been a task, not a joy. It’s been “set a timer for 45 minutes and turn off the internet and write, and after that, you can put your head down for 15 minutes and sink into the ground until it’s time to do it again.” In that time, I edited a book and turned in a short story and wrote edit letters for my manuscript clients — the work, in short, got done. But the delight, the spirit, the feeling of making something that matters, wasn’t there. When my cheer-readers and editors responded with excitement, or shared moments that resonated with their hearts, or gave me enthusiastic encouragement, I could barely muster up heart reactions to their messages, let alone match their energy or ask to hear more. Instead of the light and fire and sweetness of creating stories and characters, crafting something new that didn’t exist before, there was just weight, and weariness, and a wanting to be able to put it all away and come back in another time, in another world, where everything finally feels better.

Except, as we know, as we’ve seen, there is no magical moment in which everything is better. There’s only now, and what we do with that now, to make it matter.

So. Why am I telling you this?

Because I missed you. I really, really did.

Creating can be an isolating practice, but the best creatives are, more often than not, deeply connected to their communities. In our hardest moments, when the creation of something feels like dragging ourselves through a swamp rather than taking off into the sky, it’s our communities — of practice, of support, of love — that don’t just keep us accountable, but also help us move through each moment, no matter what. “Connection is the antidote to despair,” my friend and teacher told me in a conversation shortly after the 2024 election, and I genuinely, deeply, truly believe that she’s right. When weariness and grief and hopelessness descend, and tell us to isolate and withdraw, those are the moments when we need our communities the most. When we need to reach out, and be honest, and say, I’m still here, but it’s hard. I’m still here, but I miss our connections. I’m still here, but I need your help.

Part of the reason I focused this newsletter, the first in months, on depression — and creating through depression — is that I know I’m not alone in this experience. So many creatives, across every field of creativity, are struggling. Creating in this moment is hard, and despair is everywhere, and grief is heavy.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

Carrie Fisher, space mom and princess of my heart, once said about pursuing one’s dreams while mentally ill, “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”

Along those same lines, my invitation to you, if you’re in this boat with me, is: Stay depressed, but do it anyway.

Whatever the “it” is: The reaching out, to the communities that love you. The remembering, that your heart is big enough to hold both the despair and the delight. The leaning in, to those moments when creation is possible, when you feel that sweetness again, when the world feels right.

Take it a day at a time. A word at a time. We’re still here.

Let’s create.

questions on creating for good

what can you harvest from this moment?

taking inspiration from jenny slate, in an interview with Vulture:

shift your thinking. what if depression is not a barren field, but a wintering one? what insights can you gain from these quieter times, when you are called to rest, rather than produce? what seeds might you be able to plant, when the spring comes again?

when your usual creativity is out of reach, what can you do instead?

there are miles of distance between writing a novel and writing nothing, between painting a masterpiece and not picking up a pen. take away the judgment, the competitive spirit, the concept that something must be Business As Usual in order to Count. open yourself to new possibilities. why is a poem more important than a text message to a beloved friend?

what are you taking in, and how does it make you feel?

what are you reading these days? watching? listening to? how do you make those choices? are you checking the news because you feel a responsibility, and overwhelming yourself to the point of crisis in response? are you letting yourself connect to your pleasure centers? when you’re focusing on input, what does it feel like in your body? in your heart? what do you notice, and what can you do with those observations?

updates from shelly

Speaking of what we take in and how it makes us feel: I want to read your stories! My books are open for editorial clients, starting June 1. I’m going to be offering 10% off on all of my editing services for queer authors in June, but as a Creativity for Good subscriber, you can mention GoodPride15 in your contact form any time between now and June 1 and I’ll give you 15% on any editing package you book over the summer (in June, July, or August).

Finally, I want to share this lovely video that Katherine Ouellette took during a panel I spoke on at the Bow Market Book Fair back in March. Katherine tagged me in it the other day, and it was a lovely reminder that as much as I’m struggling, as much as I sometimes feel like I’m drowning, I’m still a hopeful person, writing hopeful stories.

I hope we all keep hoping.

one more housekeeping note

Between now and (assuming I can get my shit together which…well, see above 🙃), Creativity for Good will be migrating off of Substack and over to another platform. I have my fingers crossed that on your end, there shouldn’t be any disruption to your reading experience, but you may see a different sender in your inbox. See you on the other side, I hope! 💜

resources, links, and further reading

spotlight on: honoring our fallow periods

• read:

  • 7 Books on the Joys of Doing Nothing (Electric Lit)

  • “The Real Prayers Are Not the Words, But the Attention that Comes First” (Mary Oliver)

  • “Sorrow is Not My Name” (Ross Gay)

• listen:

  • Wintering by Katherine May, Read by Rebecca Lee (Lit Hub)

• donate:

  • National Association for Poetry TherapyThe National Association for Poetry Therapy, Inc. (NAPT) is an international and interdisciplinary nonprofit organization promoting growth and healing through written language, symbol, and story. NAPT members have forged an energetic community of healers, educators, and other helping professionals who value the applications of words and language.