Before we get into tonight’s New Moon, a few quick notes:

First, if you’re a paid subscriber, make sure you are logged into beehiiv (the website) in order to read full paywalled posts in your email! Keep me posted on any issues.

Second, for everybody: my FREE 30-day IG challenge BUILD YOUR STAMINA BACK starts tomorrow, Monday the 15th! Get hype! We’re writing!

And now: for the New Moon.

Practice makes perfect: probably one of the most simultaneously helpful and damaging axioms Americans are taught as children.

Damaging, because perfection — and certainly a perfect career, lived over the span of decades — does not exist.

But helpful, because practice — which is to say: routine, ritual, daily devotion — is the only thing that yields mastery.

Not inherent talent, or your high school English teacher telling you that you should write a book. Not privilege, like early access to arts education and parents who believed in your dreams. Those things are helpful, yes, but if practice is not in play, nothing will ultimately come of the writing, the art, the sport, the work.

Talent does not beat work ethic.

And the working writer knows that work ethic, not talent, is the key to her success.

Which is to say: practice.

If the Knicks only played when they were inspired, they wouldn’t have just won the championship. Imagine a world where Serena Williams or Simone Biles or A’ja Wilson only practice their craft when they “feel” like it.

And yet artists use the absence of inspiration as an excuse for not writing all the fucking time.

I’m not talking about not feeling inspired because you’re grieving a loss or are stressed to the max because of moving or changing jobs or stuff going on with your partner or kids. I’m not talking about the incredibly normal interruptions of life.

I’m talking about writers who spend more time talking about writing than actually fucking writing.

Consider this entire email (and 30-day IG challenge) a loving call-in to rise to your creative capacity.

Don’t get it twisted: I am not telling you to suffer for your art. I’m not saying to work yourself to the bone.

I am telling you that, simply put, it is the DOING that makes a writer — not the ~dreaming~ about doing, and certainly not the ~goal~ of ~someday~ putting pen to paper.

This is great news, actually, because the only difference between “aspiring writer” and “writer” is PRACTICE.

The person who shows up to the work. (And also knows how to pace themselves in the work! I can see those of you who are on the other side of a book launch feeling guilty! Stop it!)

The person who actually confronts their fear of failure, or of not being good enough, and writes that shitty first draft ANYWAY.

THAT person is a writer.

The good news? Talent and privilege have virtually nothing to do with it. They can help, yes. But most of the working writers I came up with who are still in the game are still here because we are stubborn motherfuckers.

(Consider how Jalen Brunson — who just led the Knicks to victory — was, after being drafted, widely considered too short to ~ever~ have a successful career. But: stubborn!)

We have carved out a practice, a devotion, a routine that is a priority in our lives.

To feel the fear and write anyway.

To risk making writing a priority rather than a “someday I’ll get around to it.”

The New Moon in Gemini says, you have one million ideas and you can absolutely implement at least one of them (hint: the one you care most about — this moon is ruled by heart-driven Mercury in Cancer).

The New Moon in Gemini says, and who exactly is gonna stop you?

The New Moon in Gemini says, perfectionism is actually boring (like, SO boring?), so isn’t it time you stopped claiming it.

(If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them.)

The New Moon in Gemini says, what if you tried?

Like, just tried.

And didn’t judge yourself for taking a creative risk.

Risk-taking is what builds stamina, and rejection tolerance, and the mental and emotional and spiritual endurance to work on a book in the dark for years before anyone sees it. Creative risks develop craft, because so often the risk is to be a beginner at something, to risk not being good on the first try.

Those same risks deepen your intimacy and trust with your work AND your creativity.

And Gemini loves a risk, baby.

Maybe it’s signing up for a class. Or simply taking time to watch YouTube lectures on writing from famous authors… and then actually doing one of the writing exercises.

Maybe it’s writing in a genre or category you’ve never written in before. (Try to write a poem! An opening scene in a screenplay! A battle! A love scene!)

Or doing my 30-day IG challenge to (as it literally says in the title) BUILD YOUR STAMINA BACK.

Whatever it looks like, I’d like to invite you to risk being “bad” at something, in the hopes that the PROCESS and PRACTICE of experimentation will actually teach you about your own writing and creativity.

Truly: what’s the worst that could happen?

(Lots of love, and Happy New Moon.)

Feeling inspired to get back to the writing? Join me on IG for the 30-day BUILD YOUR STAMINA BACK challenge! We start tomorrow!

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