Never on schedule but always on time
A reminder to be patient
When I first fell in love with writing, it was poetry. I couldn’t get enough of the outsized punch a few stanzas could throw. In one sitting I could come away with a piece that felt complete if short of perfect. And the dopamine kept me coming back week after week.
I wanted to share that feeling so I wasn’t shy about publishing first drafts. It was more of an accountability check than a celebration. Pencils down and show us what you’ve got.
Because life gets in the way. Inspiration comes and goes. But you can always show up and see what’s been waiting to click into place. This letter is like that sometimes. Like paddling into a wave until you feel it pushing you far harder than the energy you put into it.
This week it wasn’t. I abandoned several false starts. Tried to revive 500 nonsensical words from a month ago. Battled my pre-holiday weekend brain to the bitter end.
But it was a good reminder to be patient with the artists I want to hear from again. We all want Rihanna to drop her next album and it would’ve been great if George R.R. Martin had finished Game of Thrones before Benioff and Weiss lit it on fire and shoved it out to sea, but there’s a difference between the art that demands release from you and the product that’s put out to meet an extrinsic demand.
There’s creation and there’s production. Deluge and drought. This is a little of both.
So I’ll continue putting out the words that I can’t hold in, and I’m grateful as ever that you’re reading.
❤️
JBN