(#1) The Joy Rise has arrived! + the power of coming to creativity sideways

Signed, Exhausted Looking For A Spark

Welcome

A very warm hello to The Joy Rise community! Thank you so much for joining me here.

Since I published The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart in 2018, I have been honoured to travel around Australia and the world meeting with and speaking to readers at bookshop events, signings and writers' festivals. It is one of the greatest gifts of being an author - connecting with fellow book lovers and experiencing the kindness, generosity, humanity and warmth I receive in response to sharing my stories. It’s a constant reminder to me of how necessary joy and connection are to our resilience and our capacity to stave off apathy. My hope is that through The Joy Rise we can continue our conversations started in signing lines or on my social media posts and take them even deeper. I’ll continue to write books, but this is the place where you’ll find me most regularly between books. 

I’m regularly asked: Why, and how, should I create? Creativity is an innate part of being human. It’s one of the most powerful ways we can respond to what stirs, fascinates and moves us in this life. We know this innately as children, but often, adulthood drives a wedge between us and this knowledge. Slowly, as we age, we can forget our connection to creativity. But creativity doesn’t forget us. As Carl Jung wrote:

“What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”

Me, aged 7, sitting for the first time at my very own first writing desk

To me, creativity is about remembering and consciously engaging with imagination. It doesn't have to be about finishing the manuscript or mastering a pottery class (although it certainly can be those things, too). It’s about recognising and allowing ourselves to enjoy that we're creating, even when we don't think we are. Creativity is a source in so much of our lives: we are using our creativity when we choose our clothes each day, when we parent, express care for a loved one, decide what to cook, how to spend time with friends, how we accompany ourselves when we are alone. Creativity is both an outer landscape we walk through every day, as well as an inner country of our own private making. I hope that The Joy Rise can help you reconnect with your inner country of creative calling.

What can I expect?

My newsletters are focused on creativity, and naming without shame the fears that stop us from making the stuff we love. Though I knew that I wanted to be a writer from the age of three, I lived for decades too scared to write. Learning how to write the stories I love despite the fears that kept me small and silent for so long has changed the way I live. My hope for my newsletters is that they might be a balm delivered to the inbox of anyone else whose artistic courage has ever felt flattened by fear. 

Subscriptions

From next month’s August newsletter onwards, I’m offering a paid upgrade option for subscribers. Subscriptions are AUD$10 per month, or discounted to AUD$100 when you subscribe annually (these prices will be automatically adjusted to your local currency). 

Paid subscriptions

Every fortnight paid subscribers will receive:

• First-to-know updates on my work including new book announcements, new published pieces, interviews, podcasts, and event/ticket announcements 

• This Writer’s Life - a monthly diary entry covering tidbits from my writing life, joys, challenges, and current work processes

• Fevers + Enthusiams - every month I’ll share something full of what Ray Bradbury called “fevers and enthusiasms”. This might be answering a reader’s questions about creativity, both as a letter and audio file, read by me. Or it might be a personal essay I’ve written, or a piece of my short fiction, or a conversation I’ve shared with a special guest, or video messages/reading from me to you. Or it might be occasional trivia, behind-the-scenes facts and deep dive treasures from my novels…plus more… 

• The Joy Rise Dog of the Month: a photo and introduction to my canine companions AKA Directors of Creativity and Writing Support

• Wild Geese: a list of where I’ve found joy and inspiration each month

• Occasional Zoom gatherings with me

• Community commenting and engagement on Substack

• Full archive of posts

Free subscriptions

Every month from August, free subscribers will receive:

• First-to-know updates on my work including new book announcements, new published pieces, interviews, podcasts, and event/ticket announcements

• Occasional free taster of my This Writer’s Life monthly diary 

• Occasional free taster of my exclusive essay or fiction piece or Q&A reader responses

• Occasional interview or podcast

Whether you are a free or paid subscriber, I’m so very grateful that you’re here.

For this inaugural issue of The Joy Rise, please enjoy a full newsletter as my welcome gift to you!

To prevent this first issue (with all of its introductory information) from becoming the length of a Russian tome, I’m going to keep this month’s note from my writing desk brief. I’m currently deep in the daydreaming space of creating new work, and have found myself reflecting on how I’ve written my books in the past. Each process has felt different and the same, much like grief. Much like joy. At this threshold with new work, I’ve been looking back on the last five years - in particular to August 2021, when I was overwhelmed and honoured to be interviewed on the beloved and iconic long-running series, Gardening Australia. To celebrate this first issue of The Joy Rise, and in the spirit of an introduction to my writing life, I thought to share this clip.

If you are [creating] without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half [creating]. For the first thing [an artist] should be is-- excited. [They] should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. 

- RAY BRADBURY

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This month I’m sharing a reader question and my letter in response. If you have a question, I’d love to hear from you - you can write to me  via my website. 

Naomi has written to me from Boonwurrung Country/Cape Paterson with this beautiful question.

Hi Holly,

I have loved your first two books. I am halfway through The House that Joy Built.

You may yet answer this in coming pages but do you ever find you are so tired you just can't muster the energy to create? I love to play with paints but lately just can't seem to get started. I sit and stare but feel like I need to find a spark somewhere to get going again.

Dear Naomi,

In 2008, I was 28 years old and trying to manage a period of intense post-traumatic stress, grief and upheaval in my life. All I wanted to do was write fiction - but when I got home at the end of a workday, the last thing I had the energy for was writing. I didn’t understand why. Writing was what I most wanted to do with my time, and yet when I had time, I couldn’t do it. 

It took me years to understand: more than the act of writing, I was too tired to face the aggressive storytelling of my inner critic that started up every time I tried to write. Having to face that force in myself is what caused me to stare at a blank page in my notebook, or The Blinking Cursor of Doom in MS Word, without writing or typing a thing. The logic was loud and clear: if I didn’t write - if I didn’t make myself vulnerable through my creativity - I wouldn’t have to deal with managing my negative self-talk. 

But, of course, heeding this logic and avoiding writing didn’t keep me ‘safe’ from those harmful stories. It just kept me small and suspended in a painful state of longing and denial within myself. Choosing to neglect the calling inside of me to write only fuelled the power of my inner critic further with ‘evidence’ of my not-enough-ness: I couldn’t even deal with my own inner narratives; how could I think I was good (brave/smart/strong etc) enough to write? The dominant answer: I needed to accept this ‘proof’ and never, ever try.  

Living in this noisy loop - wanting to write but not feeling able to write - continued, until I reached a boiling point. In total desperation, I decided to try and trick my inner critic: rather than approaching writing head on, I would approach writing sideways, which I refused to admit to myself I was doing. Thinking back now, I get a visual in my mind of approaching a terrified creature. That’s what state my mind was in then. 

My strategy was broad and simple: I’d put myself in the orbit of other people’s creativity. Whether reading and engaging with the images or words of other writers and artists in online communities, or taking a group yoga/pilates class and learning how to stretch my body in new ways, or going to exhibitions at small, local galleries and chatting to the staff, or strolling through markets and chatting to makers, or going to a theatre performance with a cast and crew Q&A… I willed myself into moments, places and situations where I absorbed the creativity and courage of others. Being in proximity to their art reminded me I wasn’t alone in wanting to write – it was human of me. But even more than that, something sparked in my heart: a tiny flame of inspiration. Eager to stoke it, I started reading about other writers and their writing processes. I came across author Ray Bradbury’s creative prompt he used in his early twenties: he began making long lists of nouns. 

These lists were the provocations, finally, that caused my better stuff to surface. I was feeling my way toward something honest, hidden under the trapdoor on the top of my skull.

The lists ran something like this:

THE LAKE. THE NIGHT. THE CRICKETS. THE RAVINE. THE ATTIC. THE BASEMENT. THE TRAPDOOR. THE BABY. THE CROWD. THE NIGHT TRAIN. THE FOG HORN. THE SCYTHE. THE CARNIVAL. THE CAROUSEL. THE DWARF. THE MIRROR MAZE. THE SKELETON.

When I finished reading, my body was covered in goosebumps. Could something so simple be enough? I remember how my heart pounded as I wrote nouns on a blank page in my notebook: flowers, fire, red dirt, ocean. They weren’t sentences. They weren’t novels. But they were my imagination on paper, which I found my inner critic couldn’t attack. They were just words! Singular words! And yet. Ray Bradbury and I were in on a secret together: we both knew each one was a key. The little flame in my heart burned strong, clear and bright. (It took another 6 years before I found the courage and will to use those keys to start writing the first draft of what became The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.)

Next time you find yourself exhausted and in search of a spark, I wonder if a sideways approach might appeal to you. You might not have to trick yourself into it like I did - maybe a head-on awareness of gathering kindling will work for you. I’m imagining a Google-Image-search for your favourite paint colour? Borrowing books from your local library about your favourite painters and what they overcame to make their art? Giving yourself 15 minutes while dinner is cooking to paint a colour swatch of your favourite hues in your art journal? Even writing down the names of the paints that most appeal to you? Or maybe you’d enjoy writing your own painting-related list of nouns… 

As I end this letter, remembering the power of my inner critic’s stories in 2008 and how I subverted them, I’m compelled to share this quote from Philippa Perry’s How to Stay Sane which, when I read it in 2013, changed my life:  

The great thing about a story is that it is flexible. We can change a story from one that does not help us to one that does. If the script we have lived by in the past does not work for us anymore we do not need to accept it as our script of the future. For example, the belief that we are unworthy of being loved and belonging is just that, a belief. This belief, this story we tell ourselves, can be edited. 

Naomi, even when you’re tired, you’re still an artist, full of yet-to-be-painted art. Nurturing the joy that painting brings you is your spark. I’m cheering you on. 

Love,

Holly

Something you might not know about me is that in addition to some very good humans, I also live with six very, very good dogs…

… who I’ve thanked in the Acknowledgements of all of my books. Truth is, I couldn’t have written any of my books without the love, support, comfort, relief and joy that my dogs have brought me while I was writing. And so, without further ado, it’s a pleasure to introduce you to our inaugural The Joy Rise Dog of the Month:

Tilly

Also known as Teapot. Writing companion, confidante, living hot water bottle, snorter, groaner, listener, tail thumper, comforter, deadpan queen and blatant ignorer of ‘no dogs in here’ rule.

Dog of the Month is not for me and my canine kin alone! Do you have a dog or animal in your life that enriches your world (and, perhaps, creativity) with their unconditional love and support? I’ll share your dog/animal family or mine each month.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

Over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

- MARY OLIVER

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Each month, I’ll share with you something that has called to my imagination and heart. It might be something I’ve read / watched / listened to, or it might be a creative process, a new ritual or an artwork that I can’t stop thinking about. 

Reading

Writers matter a little bit, but great stories told well matter hugely. There has never been a civilisation that has managed without fiction, and this is because the best fiction changes us in ways that we often only dimly understand.

- MELISSA LUCASHENKO

As I read acclaimed Aboriginal author Melissa Lucashenko explaining why we urgently need big, inclusive Australian stories, my mind lit up like plankton. Her latest essay in Griffith Review, On the same page, right? is electric. You can read it here.

Watching

Minx, a recent series from HBO Max, is set in 1970s Los Angeles. Joyce, a driven, earnest young feminist, joins forces with Doug, a low-rent publisher, to create the first erotic magazine for women. This is a bubbly, big-hearted, outrageous, wonderful, relatable series, full of colour, fabulous wardrobes, snappy dialogue, and more prosthetic penises (!!) than you’ve likely ever seen (please consider this a warning). I laughed, I cringed and I was overjoyed at times by this show.

Listening

Ya Tseen is the Indigenous electro-soul moniker of Nicholas Galanin. Born in Sitka, Alaska, Nicholas is Tlingit (Klinkit) and Unangax (Oo-nun-gahx) and creates art from his perspective as an Indigenous man. My introduction to his work has been his 2021 album, Indian Yard. The Guardian calls it “psych pop mixed with giant political art and potent, tender and all about togetherness”. To me, it’s fresh and energising as it’s outside of my usual listening tastes. I can’t stop listening to / singing this: “If you walk away, things will never change,” from Light the Torch, the second track on album.

On my cork board

I think that any act of creation assists our creative capacities in general-even if it's just that, when I read your poem, I create images in my mind.

- ELAINE SCARRY, in The Paris Review

We must recognize and nurture the creative parts of each other without always understanding what will be created.

- AUDRE LORDE, Sister Outsider

I just want to say thank you to my mother, who said to me, darling you can be whatever you want to be, as long as you’re outrageous.

- PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE, 2017 BAFTA acceptance speech

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That’s it! Our very first dispatch. I’ve had so much fun bringing this to you - I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. 

Coming next month…

A musing on first lines, opening scenes and the answer to the question: Hey Holly, what are you writing next?

My website is always open - please let me know what would you like to read from me here? We’re building The Joy Rise together.  

With a light left on,