Shed/Shelter/Stoke

An Audit for Your Creative Life

I always try to think of January as a growth opportunity, and this year I’m giving myself a little more rigor around it because I’m still fucking unemployed, and let me tell you, it sucks. I haven’t had much luck finding a job. My parameters are simple as I just want to be happy, creatively fulfilled, and around people.

I haven’t done well this year when I’m not around my family. I feel like a loser, even though I have been writing a lot. I got to study with a powerhouse, published a couple things, and have a solid chunk of a novel and an essay collection in the works—so it hasn’t been a complete wash. But with the job hunt, I’m either overqualified or no one even gets back to me for an interview. I know the holidays are weird, right? January will be better. I say it over and over.

I’ve been stuck in this place where I started out as a writer my whole life through many creative jobs and even writing online and for magazines, and then I got into advertising where I was still a writer—a real copywriter, and then a creative director kind of person, and then when our agency got acquired by IBM, I still was like that for a while and then it just turned into tech consulting and I felt lost in a huge company not being utilized for my creativity. I was just doing an assortment of things and mind you, I did learn quite a lot, traveled and I did get pushed out on skinny branches and I did realize I can do other kinds of writing. I mean, I even worked with Google on UX writing for over a year, but I just feel like I haven’t been in my craft for so long. Or I wonder what my craft is anymore. My purpose. I feel like I have been a high-level generalist and that feels, well, blah. I would love to work for a creative team or maybe I would love to just use my words and line them up and make money with them somehow. I don’t know, but anyways, next year I’m giving myself a little more structure. Because I am not going back to the blues. I have pulled out of the depression. Because it is depressing when you are laid off at 50. It really is depressing and I’m starting to feel the scarcity tickle on the back of my neck and that’s no fun but I do think I have some hustle left in me. Boss girl, no. Normal hustle maybe. Anyways, here’s my guide to growth opportunities in 2026. It’s a little scaffolding. Maybe you want to use it too.

Shed/Shelter/Stoke Audit for Your Creative Life

Let’s think about what protects and energizes our creative work in addition to what fucks with it.

SHED
The shedding and letting go of shit that no longer serves you. These could be projects that need to be released or abandoned for now. Maybe it is draining you. Maybe letting go of some of the toxic impulses you have about being right or old stories you have told about yourself. Comparison. You know it is more than the thief of joy, it is the serial killer of it. Rejection. Throw it away. Print out any rejections or criticisms and sit on them and fart on them. Say it with me, let go of shit that no longer serves me.

Make a list of what projects drain you, what dims you, who you compare yourself to and what timelines you think you should be on. Really look at it. Or write a letter to yourself. Tape it up somewhere.

Could look like:
(I like to give examples just so you know what I am doing. There is no wrong way through this journaling)