Dear Reader,

As you look forward to the holidays...

I hope you're thinking about how you'll make room for your version of creative expression.

And here's what I mean by that: When my teaching job became so ridiculous that everyone (I mean, seriously everyone) would tell me I couldn't possibly be expected to do all that (but I was expected to, and I was trying my hardest)... I started painting the walls. Repeatedly. It got really compulsive. And then to save my house, my budget, my children's sanity, and my marriage, I joined my church choir on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis and started thinking about writing books, which I did on Sundays in the choir loft. Ok, I took notes to keep myself from falling asleep because I was so tired and everyone was looking at me. Because again, choir loft in the front of the church. But also, many, many of those notes made it into my two books. I wrote them on old invoices from my artist grandfather's sign painting studio on Nicollet Avenue, which I salvaged from his garage maybe a year before he died.

And I swear the Divine was whispering to me, calling my art into being. It saved my life when I was otherwise drowning.

The thing is, where you make your version of art is up to you. But it's in you, and I suspect it's crying for you to express it. Or, as Molly Darling says on my podcast this week, if she couldn't make art, she would explode. I would agree.

So how do we make room in our lives for creativity now?

Seems to me that as we make holiday plans, arranging and rearranging things, it's a perfect time for us all to ponder that question. It can be something so much smaller than we imagine. Lately I've been painting my nails.

​Here's my conversation with Molly.

​

​

Thanks for listening. For those of you feeling called to write...

In this episode we talked about my online Writing Circle platform, which Molly helped me to streamline starting a year ago. Molly's guidance couldn't have been more timely. One year later, I am prepared to work with writers who have things to say and are starting to understand what I'm telling you: YOU are the vessel for your voice; you are the only source of its expression.

And you're living on this planet right now. There's no time like the present to write.

Thanks to a right-sized library space to support our Writing Circle calls, I can prioritize the work I care most about:

• ​the podcasts you're seeing with far more regularity,
• ​my work with clients to bring forth their stories,
• writing my next two forthcoming books.

I'm here to share what real-life writing looks like for me so that you can ponder what it looks like for you.

Maybe our Circle for Real-Life Writers can help you. Check it out here.

​

​

I look forward to seeing what wants to come through you.

Travel safely.

Love, Amy