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Like those weird, out-of-place lines that pop into your head when you’re trying to write a thing.
Write them down! Sometimes they lead somewhere or grow into something incredible and you just don’t know that in the moment. Like David Lynch & the opening line for Lost Highway popping into his head, completely out of context at the time.
It takes some work to trust yourself on these things, but it's damn worth it.
Feb 16, 2025
Related Recs
Writing… Ideas…
One minute it flows out of you wildly - forcefully vomited thoughts that can’t be contained so they must be spilled. Ink to paper, notes app paragraphs.
Other times it can feel like beating your head against a wall repeatedly and still never breaking through to the other side - blood trickling down your forehead and all.
I truly don’t think there is any solution for this. Whatever your creative pursuit, the process will always feel painstaking until miraculously one day it doesn’t.
Unfortunately you don't get to choose when inspiration hits you like an tonne of bricks and before you know it the feeling is long gone.
Sometimes I like to write all my thoughts down in a stream of consciousness. It doesn't have to make any sense, and it usually doesn’t.
If you’re lucky you may find something in that chain of unfiltered thoughts that makes a lot of sense when recontextualized.
Be messy, because you’re never going to be perfect. It doesn’t always work out, but what else are you going to do about it?
Just write.
May 16, 2025
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I bought a book a while ago that I was really interested in, but when I sat down to read it, just wasn't feeling it. Instead of getting frustrated, I listened to the feeling, put the book back on my bookshelf and said to myself I'll pick it up when the time is right.
Cut to a few months later and I'm writing a script about dreams. I look at my bookshelf, wanting to read something knew, but not knowing what. And there it is, crammed way in there: the book. I pick it up. Lo and behold, the first story is a story all about dreams - a story that inspires and fuels me in my own writing.
Basically, what this taught me is to trust the process. Being open means that it will all happen when it's supposed to. You've just gotta let it in.
Sep 18, 2024
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I write lyrics/poems/prose/essays/the occasional substack/text based art/performance art and the most successful process I've found works for me is just 'hold a pen and hope that it happens'. I can't get any real ideas done on a laptop (my substacks are all drafted in bullet points by hand first). I don't write every day because I don't have the energy or time or enough that is important to say. I only write when I really get the urge in my fingertips and then I get my notebook and just open the page and get whatever out I can. Sometimes it's an idea I've been mulling over that finally comes out and others it's just nonsense sentences that eventually form something.
Basically my advice if you're struggling to get started is just whenever you think you want to do it, just hold a pen and a blank piece of paper and just do it. Maybe it'll be brilliant from the off. First lines are hard so don't worry about it if it's not, fourth lines are where it gets good. I definitely produce 70/30 shit/good writing and that's okay because who's reading it??
Also sometimes you go back a few months later and realise that what you thought was terrible was actually great all along it just needed a different context!
May 3, 2024
Top Recs from @bugbitesquared
The film has so many moments of the most haunting and affecting imagery I’ve ever seen, and beyond that is staying with me in some kind of a sea-change way, which I don’t fully grasp.
It’s freely available on YouTube (linked here). Kanopy, too. Go see it.
Feb 9, 2025
David Berman was incredible with words. A new rainy day track on loop, for me.
Feb 10, 2025
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This one’s a bit self-explanatory but I keep forgetting how helpful a good crying song is on rougher days. Not a bad thing to have in your back pocket.
Dec 2, 2024