cadence

in a past life, i wrote an online newsletter for my twitter followers to get into a weekly writing cadence. i sent it every week for the first few months until i procrastinated one time. after that, my consistency fell off. the release date was every monday, but there were weeks where the newsletter would get posted on the following tuesday. that doesn't sound like a big deal, and it's really not. but back then i thought that it would... gasp... break my artistic integrity (???)



i used to believe that i was obligated to publish even i had nothing interesting to share because crafting a personal brand was my main priority. i wanted to be the kind of person who could post their 52nd issue and say i had never missed a week for 12 months. i also assumed that my 85 readers would think i'm lazy and uninteresting if i published a day late. of course, this doesn't really make sense. but i was 15 and hyper-conscious about my online identity.



later, i decided that if i had nothing to write about or interesting to share that week, i would simply not publish. if i remember correctly, i still tried to post every week. still, this decision felt liberating.



time constraints are useful in helping us raise our creative thresholds. but following our natural cadence and sitting longer with the threads of thought that we're trying to weave together lets us produce work that is fully embodied.



it seems that the creative process is about learning the dance to creative structure/rigour and impulse, whatever beat feels right.