I haven’t posted here since the beginning of the summer, and if you haven’t read that post you need to go there because it’s the most delicious salad that translates into fall with maybe just sturdier greens and some quinoa.

I’ll wait.

But now, this post, which doesn’t have anything to do with food, really, except that I have made white bean and kale soup, gluten-free bagels, and GF and vegan doughnut holes from Minimalist Baker (among other delights), and am working on a ruby chocolate truffle that may make it onto the blog (along with Ruby Chocolate World Peace Cookies, in progress). But this post is not about that.

This post is about this quote:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish
someone had told me. All of us who do creative work, we
get into it because we have good taste. But there is this
gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not
that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s
not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game,
is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints
you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.

Most people I know who do interesting, creative work
went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t
have this special thing that we want it to have. We all
go through this. And if you are just starting out or you
are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the
most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put
yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish
one story. It is only by going through a volume of work
that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good
as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to
do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take a while.
It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your
way through.” – Ira Glass

My creative work has gone through some changes with the publication of my book Healing Where You Are: An Introduction to Urban Foraging; the shitty voice in my head has been back for awhile now, and my creative practice in the past eight months or so has simply been to get it to STFU.

I do that by pressing on. By walking. By jotting things down and editing when I get the urge. By saying no to mercenary writing that sucks the life out of me and yes to putting paint on canvas. By starting big projects that might lead to bigger projects (spoiler alert: #tinycabinbiglife).

Have I done as much as I should? Could?

Not likely.

But winter is coming, and for me that just more opportunity to dig deeper. To fight my way through.

To let go, even.

Also to start baking again. So there’s that.

What’s unfolding for you? Curious to know how people are moving forward after the first pandemic years.