The most important shift I've ever made as a writer

Devotion & Discipline; a HUGE mascara update; oops I messed up my no-buy year but have hot recs to report. A novel that woke me UP.

As a young writer, I didn't think about the creative process much. In the same way I wrote sentences intuitively without being an expert on craft, I just sat down and wrote usually in a state of intense emotion. The first time I encountered a deadline for a piece of fiction was in a city college fiction workshop. The fiction had literally become homework, which actually felt pretty thrilling. It made something that previously was ephermous into something needed. People were going to read it and rip it to shreds on Wednesday. Better get to work!

Only later in my career did I become interested in the lifespan of the artist, how to create sustainability of practice through all phases and seasons. If at the heart of my writing is my sheer love for it (which it’s that and so much more) then how do I preserve this love for the thing amid the shifting waters of career, family, jobs, grief, etc (LIFE)? If the love isn’t preserved then something is going very wrong.

I’ve been writing seriously now since I was seventeen. I look back at writing a novel in high school (friends getting into romantic troubles in New York City, a place I’d never been lol) realizing that actually that is when my writing practice truly began. Where I moved from the dream of one day writing into actually writing. Now I’ve been at this for 21 years. And before that, I knew I wanted to be a writer. It’s hard to remember a time when it wasn't a central part of me.

But the need for longevity now, the need to find new ways to not only bolster my own practice but encourage others in theirs requires both discipline and devotion. In The Fountain, devotion has been on our minds and in our conversations, and is one of our energetic pillars that forms everything we do. It’s defined as love, loyalty, or enthusiasm. In a religious context, it's about worship and observance. I think of it as a return to the thing no matter what. Discipline, while its definition feels harsher, is about a sort of return, too. It's about training; it's about implementing systems; it’s about holding yourself to a high standard.

Yet there's something deeper here than just showing up—it's about how we show up. The energy we bring. The quality of our presence.

The Necessary Tension

Let's be clear: discipline itself isn't a problem. Structure, consistency, and committed practice are essential foundations for creative work. You simply cannot write a book without showing up consistently. The issue isn't whether discipline matters—it does—but rather the energy we bring to that discipline.

When we approach creative discipline from a place of self-coercion (“I should be writing”), obligation (“I have to finish this chapter”), or rigid expectations (“I must write 1,000 words today”), we activate stress responses in our brains burning precious cognitive resources just to keep us on task.

This kind of forced attention can have a reverse effect literally depleting our mental energy. It's why “disciplined” creative sessions often leave us feeling drained rather than fulfilled. And when we feel this way, it’s harder to get back to the page the next day. It’s harder to return.

The Energetics of Discipline vs. Devotion

What’s fascinating is how differently our nervous systems respond to seemingly similar activities depending on our relationship to them.

When we create from discipline alone, our bodies often display:

• Shallow breathing

• Tension in the shoulders, jaw, and neck

• A subtle vigilance, as if being monitored

• An underlying current of resistance

• Racing thoughts about “getting it right”

But when we create from devotion, the physical signatures shift:

• Deeper, more rhythmic breathing

• A subtle leaning in toward the work

• Relaxed facial muscles

• A sense of curiosity rather than urgency

• Focused attention that comes from interest, not force

Discipline without devotion often triggers low-grade fight-or-flight responses. Devotion, on the other hand, activates restoration, integration, and flow, the very places we must access if we want to get at our deepest, best work.

The Shift

If we consistently associate creative work with strain and obligation, we reinforce connections between creativity and discomfort. Over time, even thinking about our projects can trigger subtle resistance because our brains have learned that “creating = effort = potential pain.” This, I think, is where the idea that writing is so hard comes from.

Alternatively, when we approach creative work with devotion—with genuine curiosity, presence, and intrinsic motivation—we strengthen very different pathways. We teach our brains that creativity is a space of aliveness and engagement, even when challenging.

Finding the Integration Point

The most powerful creative practice doesn't choose between discipline and devotion—it integrates them. This integration happens at multiple levels:

In your language: Notice how you speak about your creative time. Are you “making yourself write” or “devoting time to your project”? These subtle linguistic shifts actually change brain activity patterns over time.

In your body: Before sitting down to work, take 30 seconds to check in with your physical state. Where are you holding tension? How's your breathing? Have you eaten?Drank water? Making small adjustments to your physical state helps shift from forced discipline to embodied devotion.

In your environment: How does your creative space feel? Have you designed it for efficiency alone, or does it invite your full presence? Small additions—a candle, a meaningful object, a comfortable chair—can signal to your brain that this is a space of devotion, not just discipline. For many years I had no designated space, so shout out to the writers writing in the coffee shop, in the car while a kid is napping, or on a dining room table. You don’t need to have an office to create a sense of container around the time. If it’s about energy, then you must create the energy you desire—having a mental mantra, using noise cancelling headphones with binaural beats, or evoking whatever ritual you can with the tools at your disposal (specific tea, turning the internet off, etc).

In your relationship to time: Discipline often maintains a tight relationship with the clock (“I'll write for exactly 60 minutes”). Devotion has a more spacious relationship with time, allowing for deep immersion. Can you create containers that honor both—scheduled time that allows for immersive experience? I am a big fan of blocking out time for your writing as if its an appointment and not scheduling things during that time. As Kim and I created The Fountain, we knew that it could quickly become all consuming. With a business, there is always something to be done, something that feels more urgent that our Work. We made it an agreement between ourselves that we would not have meetings together or record podcasts or anything in the morning hours after kid drop-off that, for both of us, is our key writing time. Paving the way for yourself is huge in creating sustainability and you won’t get to the end of the week feeling like the had you versus you having control of the week. It’s also somehow easier to schedule and preserve this time when it comes from a place of devotion.

This deserves a whole post to talk about! But yes, we now have a baby bi-monthly podcast! Soon to have a real intro and theme song!

Questions for Your Creative Practice

As you consider your own relationship with discipline and devotion, I invite you to explore:

• When do you feel most alive in your creative practice? What conditions support that aliveness?

• What would change if you approached your creative discipline as a container for devotion rather than an end in itself?

• What is one shift you can make TODAY to accommodate the writing life you truly desire?

Upcoming stuff and where to find me:

The Summer Intensive

This balance between structure and aliveness is precisely what we've designed our “100 Days to a Full Draft” Summer Intensive to support. Running from June 1st to September 8th, this program creates a powerful container of discipline—daily curriculum, weekly check-ins, accountability groups—while nurturing the energetics of devotion through custom Craft Clearings, community connection, and daily practices that engage your whole creative system, not just your willpower.

The 100-day container offers something special: sustained intensity within clear boundaries. There’s a beginning. There’s an end. And within that container, there's the possibility of complete transformation—both of your manuscript and your relationship to the creative process itself. And the curriculum is so beautiful, I’m kind of obsessed. I’ll be doing it too alongside everyone and can’t wait.

This intensity isn’t about pushing yourself to exhaustion. It’s about creating the conditions where devoted attention can flourish within the necessary structure of consistent practice. Where discipline serves devotion, rather than the other way around. Where you can practice the act of making space for your work in practical ways?

The Fountain’s May Meetup: The Connective Query Letter

Before our Summer Intensive begins, we have our May Meetup (for members/$33 a month) focused on “The Connective Query Letter.” We'll be dissecting the energetics of querying agents—a process that often pulls writers out of devotion and into just straight anxiety.

The truth is, anyone can write a query letter. Just google it! There’s tons of advice telling you what to do structurally and how long they should be and what they should include. But there’s less advice about your approach, the language you’re using, and the energy behind your process. When we act from scarcity and fear, we make unaligned decisions. When we move from a solid foundation of alignment and clarity, we can slow down and really identify what we want which shapes our entire direction. Because the energy you bring to sharing your work matters just as much as the energy you bring to creating it. Hope to see you there! We LOVED our April Meetup and have been so amazed at how this community is showing up.

Alright, I cracked!

If anyone’s been tracking this newsletter you may remember my commitment to not buying cosmetics or clothing this year. I’m here to tell you in fact that I have bought several items and yes, I am sure they were emotional purchases because TBH, shit has been a little hard around here lately. Everything is fine, but I am in a place of intensity in terms of my own grief/trauma healing journey, having a bit of a dark night of the soul you might say, am working with a wonderful new therapist doing some deep work I’ve never before encountered, and ya know. I just needed something. Shit. I’m not proud that I ditched my plan really but I sort of lost the devotion for it, and thought that maybe there were ways I could be a little softer with myself around it right now. I made it about three months though, and I learned a lot during that time. One thing I haven’t picked back up is the time I was using to look at clothes online and numbing in that way. The things I have purchased were in-person buys that came from a place of fun and being out and about with my daughter which feels very different than looking up realizing I’d been scrolling the deep hell of poshmark for two hours. That is something I do refuse to return to.

May things I’m loving

So with that, here’s what I bought and honestly am loving.

1. I may have found a mascara that rivals the No.7 Stay Perfect in terms of volume and buildability and length, HOWEVER, the No. 7 will still always be used for bottom lashes because this new guy isn’t 100 percent perfect like No. 7 and there are a few flakes by end of day. But not if I only do top lashes. I also tried the Ilia’s Limitless Lash and found it a little smeary for me. My eyes just smear mascara, it’s a whole thing! The shape of them or something, the proximity of lash to skin, I don’t know. But try this new one if you like a tubing mascara AND high glossy impact.

   

2. These jeans. I saw em on Mother’s Day out with the fam and I loved em. I had to have em. Maybe just maybe I wanted a present, okay. I love the whimsy. I feel they look even cuter IRL and the wash is a very convincing vintage Levi’s feel.

   

3. This book. Holy Moly. I really had fun with this one. The writing felt so fresh, so funny, so deeply alive. I was charmed by the inventive structure (an MFA student writing a thesis about her professors’ affairs, and you are reading that thesis) and just the sharp intelligence. This book was acquired by Jean Garnett who edited Madwoman and I trust Jean’s taste implicitly. This book has such style. It really woke me up. I suggest you preorder it immediately.

4. Finally this is something that I’m not loving but is low-key stressing me out. According to my algorithm we can now all agree that yoga and workout clothing is TOXIC. I mean, I knew this deep down, of course. All that synthetic. Sweating and absorbing…it was only a matter of time before the castle crumbled. My question to thee is are we finding less disgusting alternatives?? Like…I’m gonna keep wearing my collection of Beyond Yoga stuff but if we are moving toward more natural fibers in terms of workout clothing…What are we looking for? I don’t know. I feel like if anyone would know these answers it’s

   Amy
   so Amy, do you have thoughts here? (also I LOVE all of Amy’s recs).

   Alright. That’s all for today. I hope this season finds you in devotion to what you love. Let me know in the comments and come hang with us in The Fountain.

   xx, C