Happy March, AMBITION warriors. Spring is springing, birds are chirping outside my window. I've had the privilege of getting to have my windows open again since it's not frigid outside, and fresh air really is a balm.
(Though we did have a wild climate swing this week where it was 80 degrees one day, and then it snowed the next. You can't make this up.)
Even though she's never been featured in AMBITION (yet!), I don't know if I've ever mentioned, but I have such a deep admiration for singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers. I've been comfort-binging her discography lately -- highly recommend if you haven't checked her out. I feel a sort of spiritual affinity, a kinship with her, as we're close to the same age and well, we're both Maggies. But she also speaks so passionately and similarly to making music as I do about storytelling, and with near perfect symmetrical timing, she just sent out her newsletter for the first time in months yesterday. Apropos of the delays going on in this neck of the woods, I wanted to share some sentiments that really resonated with me.
From M.R.'s latest newsletter, "silencing the noise of nostalgia" (Mar. 13), emphasis mine, [ swapped music for writing ]:
This has been the longest incubation process I’ve ever been through and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been painful. I miss [ writing ] more than anything. I miss the conviction and the sense of identity that comes when I know so truly how to express my insides on the outside. There’s been a lot of tears. In January, I was crying so hard on the phone to a friend about it that I got a nosebleed, which felt like the equivalent of my brain working so hard to solve a puzzle that it physically emitted steam.
(Granted, I'm not a crier -- I cry maybe twice a year -- but mentally I Felt That).
At its core, a creative life is about searching. Fumbling around in the dark with a flashlight looking for something shiny that can set your soul on fire. In my creative frustration, my instinct has been to “work harder.” Show up to the [ outlines ] everyday and let it be messy, put paint on the walls, make some things you love and some things you hate. But by the end of January, I had run out of steam on that as well.
I don’t think this [ project ] is a problem my brain can solve. It’s not something I can “work harder” at. I’m learning that it’s actually about letting it happen. Being kind to myself. The whole process has been kind of a self-love bootcamp, as corny as that might sound. Learning to trust myself and trust the pace of the slow drip of sweet water from the muses that can make up a [ story ]. I’ve been learning about craft. How to be an editor. How to allow myself to get it wrong out loud and trust that one day, I’ll get it right. And knowing that I won’t let it come out before I know in my bones that it’s right. Or that it’s sitting in its own harmonic resonance (because as I’m learning, there is no “right”).
I’ve been going back to the beginning. Working alone. Working with my college friends. I re-listened to all my albums for the first time since completing them. That was a trip. Maybe its own newsletter at some point. What that really did for me is debunk the myth that I was better at the start of my career when I was all young confidence and blind instinct. The albums are great, and I’m so proud of them, but I’m 100% clear that I’m at my best right now. And there’s something really exciting about silencing the noise of nostalgia.
What Maggie R. says about going back to the beginning is true here, too. While I've been incubating on the final season and the time jump, letting all the creative juices steep and fielding conduit calls from Dylan (when he actually picks up the phone to let me back in), I've been reflecting too. Revisiting dynamics and elements of the show that I've been so proud of and loved so much; opening back up dusty old memory boxes of ideas for this series and its sprawling world that I was so excited about shelved for one reason or another. Remembering why I love it so much, why this project feels so special. How it brought all of us together, in this vast and insane planet we're living on right now. It's not a sensation of Heated Rivalry proportions, no, but it's got its own magic. It's just right. It connects with the people who are meant to find it, this tiny rabbit hole in a stage-lit corner of the internet.
All this to say, thanks for your patience, as always. Thanks for investing in this silly little fake show, that maybe isn't so silly and so little anymore (once you've hit 2 million words, "little" feels like a blatant misnomer, lol). And I promise you, with a few tricks up my sleeve (including some I'll share imminently), what's to come is 100% going to be at its best. The wait, I hope, will be worth it.
With the utmost humble sincerity,
