Oh, hi friends!
I was chatting with a friend the other week and she called me a “picture of efficiency” (or something along those lines) and I’m pretty sure there was dead silence on my end of the phone for minutes? Hours? Decades?
Because that does not reflect how I see myself! At all!
(Despite this newsletter’s often encouraging tone, this has been my most creatively difficult year ever. Or at least that’s the story I’ve been telling myself…)
And so I wonder how true the story is that you’re telling yourself about yourself—and if others would tell you the same story.
My guess is you are doing a lot better than you think.
You’re performing better—in all respects—than you think.
And you probably have a friend or two out there who would tell you so.
But if you can’t find them at the moment, then I’ll say it:
I promise that you are doing a lot better than you think.
“When it comes time for me to write, I don’t outline and I don’t do any of that stuff. I just sit down and write. If it’s not honest emotionally then it’s not good, and that’s my only rule.”
—Shonda Rhimes
I’ve hated outlining since the sixth grade so I love a non-outlining queen. (h/t Paul Kix’s newsletter)
What More Do I Need?
A little antsy today (isn’t it obvious?) so I started bip-bopping around Spotify and YouTube to find something to soothe the soul.
Came across the great Liz Callaway singing Sondheim’s “What More Do I Need?” (from the musical Saturday Night). A perfect pick-me-up! And a reminder to listen, listen, listen.
Once I hated this city
Now it can't get me down
Slushy, humid and gritty
What a pretty
Town!
What, thought I, could be duller
More depressing, less gay?
Now my favorite color
Is gray!
A wall of rain as it turns to sleet
The lack of sun
On a one-
Way street
I love the grime all the time
And what more do I need?
My window pane has a lovely view
An inch of sky
And a fly
Or two
Why, I can see
Half a tree
And what more do I need?
And here’s a little addendum to the lyrics, from our perfectionist king in Finishing the Hat:
*One last sin, small and infrequent but a sin nonetheless: Adding needed syllables, as in “airplane.” I justified (to myself) the pronunciation on the grounds that this is the way the word was still being spelled in the twenties. Even if it weren’t such a flimsy excuse, each syllable has equal musical value, so that we hear a long “o” instead of a short one: air-o-plane instead of air-uh-plane, as it’s pronounced in real life. On the other hand, I’m pleased with the inner rhymes in “The lack of sun on a one-way street” and similar placed ones throughout the lyric; they lend speed and focus, which is what inner rhymes do best.”
May we lean into our inner rhymes and enjoy the ensuing speed and focus.