In this episode, Fable and the Verbivore decided to scrap their recording plans for the week in favor of an informal catch up conversation on how we are doing as human beings as well as how our writing, reading, creating and general living is going.

We start by revisiting some themes that we discussed in our episode 10 at the beginning of 2020 and how weirdly on target they have been for us. In this conversation from early January, we talked about words or themes that we saw for this year. Bethany (Fable) connected with the words “into the woods” and Laura (the Verbivore) resonated with “into the unknown” from Frozen II. These themes have felt acurate in describing this year for us - both the overwhelming and uncertain sides as well as the exciting and challenging/growing side.

Throughout this conversation, we delve into the reality of what our creative and writing projects are looking like right now and how we’ve had to shift to meet our current situations. We explore what we are learning and doing - from the difficulties creating while in survival mode, to the importance of doing the work of consistently showing up to the page, the benefits of pivoting into the areas where traction and development are happening (research, studying the craft, and reading), and letting go of fear and trusting that the words will come.

We hope that you enjoy this episode where we get real with where we are at and what we are doing! Keep creating and putting your unique voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

As Fable mentioned in the introduction to this episode, this episode references a conversation that we had in Episode 10: Choosing a Word for the Year.

Fable references the Psychology theory of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. There are many great resources out there if you would like to research into this concept further, but here is an article that we thought was a good start:

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Explained - https://www.thoughtco.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4582571

The book by Elizabeth Gilbert that the Verbivore references when talking about the mystical side of writing is Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear. We reference this book originally in our conversation from Episode 22: Imitation as a way to find your voice.

Books Mentioned:

• Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)