from ❤️🔥 Jess: I bring you love and deeper understanding
Writing has been harder since I finished the book. In truth, it was hard before the deadline, too, which is why it took me so long to be done for real. Writing has always come in waves for me. I've worked through a lot of shame about not being a writer with a schedule, with a daily habit.
Even morning pages, which I've carried with me since 2010--they come and go.
Last week, I made my first YouTube video about exactly what I've learned from more than a decade of morning pages. I believe the practice is important, invaluable, but I also believe in taking a break.
Over the last few months, as I've been experimenting with live streams, with Reels, and now with YouTube, my writing has fallen aside as my main focus. I'm getting better at talking on camera--which doesn't come as a complete surprise. My dayjob is talking in front of classrooms. And what is the internet if not a giant classroom?
It's not like I don't miss those heady days in 2020, when the writing came easily, when I loved sitting down to this newsletter. But I wouldn't go back there for anything. Of course I wrote more in 2020; I had more time off. I was desperate for other people's voices.
Today is my first Thursday off of the year. My students are taking a break, and the whole day is spread out in front of me now. There's no prep, no teaching, no plans.
Except for this newsletter. I cherish this Thursday habit. I love writing a little update to you, then hearing back about what you think. What you're working on, too.
Everything I put out into the world is a wish for connection, and I'm feeling it today.
❤️🔥 Jess
Jess Driscoll
Your internet penpal
The last time I wrote, I told you I was going to a concert. These tickets had been in limbo since April 2020. It was a fantastic show: Joel Plaskett and Mo Kenney playing side-by-side, each taking turns to sing their own songs, rather than doing the regular opener/headliner routine. But it was also a hot show. Summer went long this year, well into October, and I was sweating before I got into the crowded venue. A handful of us were wearing masks. I kept mine on as long as I could. Then I sat...
Tonight, I’m going to a concert. I was supposed to see Joel Plaskett in April 2020. It was rescheduled for November 2020, then held in pandemic limbo until I got an email notification last week. This is the last piece of the beforetimes. The last bridge between then and now. The album being promoted is more than two years old now. It was the first vinyl I bought during my year of music, the year that forced me to buy a turntable just to bring more voices into my quarantine life. I’m gonna go...
It’s just before 6am, and I’m waiting for the light. That’s the thing about video. Unless you have a full studio set up, you can’t film until the sun is up. You can’t work to get ahead whenever you want. You have to wait for good conditions. In that sense, video is the perfect medium for us procrastinators. We love waiting. We love a credible excuse not to work. “Sorry, it’s cloudy; I can’t make a video today.” But the truth is that I could’ve made a video yesterday or the day before that....