Too Many Ideas, No Clear Direction And a Newsletter To Publish?

Introducing Editorial Centering Sessions: A Practice For Working With Creative Chaos and Sharing Your Work With the World

Jan 01, 2025

Sit down at my desk.

I stare at a photo of my grandmother from 1953, resting her hand on my father as a newborn babe. A collection of half-burned candle jars and votives crowds the space, and a large podcasting microphone sits next to the keyboard, reminding me that I intend to record audio for my essays.

I stand up.

I walk to the open window, then lean back in my grandfather’s recliner. Its leather has begun cracking in some spots. But the shape of the seat fits me. Ever since it rotated out of my parents’ house and into my office this summer, I’ve used his chair to create a sort of inner truce with myself.

The shape of the tree limbs outside traces a web across the front yard. The shade, the clapping of leaves and the sweetness of dew rising from the wet Earth — all the gifts of weather in Texas — drift through the open windows framed by climbing morning star jasmine.

It’s time for me to write, and yet I’m staring out a window.

This moment, familiar to so many of us, feels like wandering in the forest of my own mind when I most need to anchor down.

The childcare clock ticks away — precious time carved out for writing and publishing. Instead, indecision loops through my mind, keeping me anywhere but at the page.

Creative Chaos as a Language

Creative indecision has long been painted as a delicate, artsy-fartsy struggle. But often, it’s far from nice. In the good moments, I can be gentle with myself and let this inner girl wander, tracing leaves and curling into a safe and cozy chair.

Many times, though, my own indecision feels like an ocean crashing down or a high-rise building crumbling on top of me. Regardless of what obstacle is in my way, I have this sense that some gale force wind is pushing at my back, reminding me that I must reach my readers, and reach them soon!

The rhythms of running a newsletter, especially one tied to both creative aspirations and a professional career, can feel like their own storm. My list of competing priorities is endless, not to mention borderline maddening. At times, I feel ashamed at how frequently I feel like a beginner in this work – I wish my years of experience in editorial systems, marketing and digital publications would grant me immunity from the tides of doubt and confusion. I’ve been doing layers of this work professionally for nearly 20 years. It’s my career. And yet, at times, I find myself in doubt.

Newsletters are a different beast entirely from anything I ever worked on in the past. Because a project you are hired to work on for somebody else is not the same as your ideas, heart and voice woven into the backbone of your public work. Here you quickly learn: the rules of engagement are fluid and often wildly unpredictable.

What I’ve come to recognize is the chaos that rises to the surface in this heart- and self-rooted creative work isn’t random.

It signals something deeper.

I know this because I’ve observed myself as an entrepreneur and asked countless friends and strangers about the nature of their work — about what shifts the moment a creative sh*t storm seems to show up.

What is going on when everything that was working suddenly stops?

When a gently humming life, creative rhythm or writing practice just suddenly, seemingly, implodes?

Have you just gone somewhere creatively new? I ask.

Time and again, the answer is, of course, yes.

When this swirl of indecision began showing up regularly in the comments of The Editing Spectrum, that’s when a small writing gnome began tugging at my arms, insisting that I already knew a few ways to help.

If You’ve Felt This Creative Chaos, You’re Not Alone:

Ever sat down to write and been paralyzed by too many ideas and no clear direction?
Wondered whether to publish this before that?
Skipped several weeks of writing, frozen by a loop of drafts, distractions and self-doubt?

If so, please keep reading.

Learning the Shared Language of Mind and Body

I believe this creative chaos arises because many of us are learning to write from a more intuitive place — one that blends intellect and instinct, body and mind.

The trouble is, few of us were ever taught this shared language, nor encouraged to acknowledge, let alone work with, the body’s innate intelligence.

For writers, traditional publishing systems are built on clear operating rules.

Intuition, heart, believable dialogue and original detail shape our first drafts.

But final decisions — what stays, what goes — typically rest with someone else: the editors, the gatekeepers, the publishers.

Creative instinct has long been confined to the writer’s inner world, kept separate from the public-facing decisions of what gets shared.

But in spaces like Substack, the rules are different.

Now, we are the ultimate arbiters of our work: quality, rhythm, connection, risk and reward.

It’s an exhilarating yet dizzying exchange of power. Suddenly, we’re translating our gut feelings into writing, while also deciding where that writing fits in a publishing cadence, sustaining reader momentum and finding ways to invite engagement — or even asking to be paid for this work.

Where, in this tangle of shifting priorities, are we supposed to listen for inspiration? If this creative language is innate in all of us, how do we even begin to understand it?

In my experience, intuition often reveals itself in hindsight — a quiet sensation that was trying to speak, a signal brushed aside in the moment, but crystal-clear later: This wasn’t quite the right path.

The language of intuition is deeply personal and specific, hard for outsiders to translate. It takes years to notice the connective tissue between mind and body, let alone to trust what it’s saying.

So how do we find it?

Intuition doesn’t come with a manual. Worse, the world often works to drown out the subtle language that passes between body and mind. Building fluency takes time, diligence and — on some level — a stubborn confidence in your own trustworthiness.

It’s a singular, solitary process, but it doesn’t always have to be explored alone.

Can Intuition Be Strategic?

When I am pulled in directions away from my writing, to sitting in my grandfather’s chair, to tracing the shape of leaves or even when I run away entirely from my writing for weeks at a time — this chaos is often trying to tell me something about what I need to write next.

It’s not an indictment about my weaknesses.

It’s a language from within trying to give me direction.

So, when that chaos signals, when our intuition is trying to surface, how do we let that happen in a measured sort of way so that it doesn’t overwhelm us — so that it could even, possibly, be useful?

I believe the answer lies in intentional practice.

Like any language that is learned, you start by practicing with the basic building blocks — and discover your own alphabet that eventually turns into words and then into sentences and so on. I’ve had to create my own inner mechanism for translating thought to feeling to intuition to writing to publishing and back again.

And thanks to the wonderful questions and inspiration of this community, I’ve been working to develop a meeting place for taking the ground of creative chaos and turning it into actionable creative plans. I have no interest in forcing inspiration into a rigid mold — but what I am compelled by is the idea that intuition is a language we can learn and practice immersively, together. That each piece of writing and even the moments where we connect with readers — they all are longing to come to life.

We just have to harness our creative chaos language skills and listen. I think we can work with intuition’s natural rhythms to guide our writing and publishing path.

So let me share how I think we can do that and tell you a bit about what I’ve been developing so we can step into this space together.

Editorial Centering Sessions: A Path Through Creative Chaos

Launching this January outside The Editing Spectrum, I’ll be hosting Editorial Centering Sessions, the goal being to help writers turn the messy beauty of creative chaos into essays, reflections and (yes, perhaps!) newsletter posts. These group sessions will create room for you to recognize when creative chaos is trying to help you say “no” or “not right now” or “not ever” to topics that aren’t ready for publishing. This work is intuitive, personal — and you are in charge of what you bring, how you engage and what you choose to publish.

Here’s what you can expect in a session (each one will look a little different, but will follow these four basic mechanisms):

Grounding Exercise
We’ll begin with a guided somatic awareness practice, helping you connect with your body’s signals and creative rhythms.
Theme Discovery
Through journaling prompts and guided reflections, you’ll identify a theme that feels resonant right now — a starting point for your writing.
Tactical Planning
Together, we’ll shape your theme into actionable writing ideas — essays, newsletter posts, poems or community discussions. The focus will be on forms that feel authentic, productive for the medium and not prescriptive.
Collaborative Feedback
You’ll have the chance to share your ideas and refine them with feedback from both me and the group.

These sessions aren’t about “fixing” chaos or forcing productivity. They’re about learning to honor intuition as a messenger that might want to be shaped into a tangible piece of writing.

Why This Matters for Your Newsletter

At its best, a newsletter is a bridge — a shared space where your voice connects with your readers’ minds and hearts. But without intentionality, creative chaos can destabilize that bridge.

The goal of these sessions is to strengthen your foundation as a writer and curator of your own work. And along the way, I also hope that each of us will develop friendliness toward the creative chaos that often shows up as part of this work of being human. When we learn to work with chaos rather than against it, I know from experience that we also create better writing — and we become better at inviting readers into the process with us. As you can imagine, there are somewhat limitless layers to uncover when we do this work.

From my own experience, I can tell you that when I befriend creative chaos; when I listen to the language between mind and body; and when I work with the interplay of creative inspiration, things have a way of expanding and stabilizing at the same time. I don’t have an exact formula for how it happens. I just know the ingredients and setting to help invite others to explore and hopefully uncover the same things.

Practical Details About the Sessions

These Editorial Centering Sessions are part of my expanding editorial and creative advising work outside The Editing Spectrum. Each session will be capped at 50 participants.

They will not be included in my newsletter memberships, but as a gesture of thanks, my paid members will always have priority access to sign up before I make the sign-up link available to the public.

➡️ Paid members: you can sign up today inside the Spectrum Vault.

Here are some details about the first session:

11 a.m. CST | Jan. 17, 2025 | 90 minute session | Hosted on Zoom

📆 If the concept of Editorial Centering Sessions is resonating with you, I have opened some space to start offering these in a 1:1 setting.

Have You Wrestled With Creative Chaos?

If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

➡️ How do you find your way through the fog of ideas and self-doubt?

Let’s keep this conversation going — share this with someone who might need a little encouragement in their creative journey.