From Breakdown to Breakthrough

Reframing our creative practices with author Todd Mitchell

“I have something more to learn.” —Todd Mitchell, author of Breakthrough: How to Overcome Doubt, Fear, and Resistance to Be Your Ultimate Creative Self

Preview: Emerging Form Episode 153 with Todd Mitchell

“I felt like I was failing my life purpose,” says author Todd Mitchell. “So I pushed myself to do more and more and pushed myself to a breakdown.” This story is at the heart of Mitchell’s new book, Breakthrough: How to Overcome Doubt, Fear, and Resistance to Be Your Ultimate Creative Self. In this week’s episode of Emerging Form (out this Thursday), we speak with the award-winning author about how to reassess our relationship with creativity, reinterpreting toxic myths of success, creating for intrinsic vs. extrinsic reasons, the ego’s relationship with creative practice, and revising our thoughts around failure.

Todd Mitchell is the American Fiction Award-winning author of several novels for young readers and adults including The Namer of Spirits (Owl Hollow Press), The Last Panther (Penguin Random House), The Traitor King (Scholastic), Backwards (Candlewick), and The Secret to Lying (Candlewick). In addition to writing books and comics, Todd works with artists, teachers, and writers on ways to enhance creativity. His newest non-fiction book, Breakthrough: How to Overcome Doubt, Fear, and Resistance to Be Your Ultimate Creative Self, is the culmination of decades of research into creative practices. Currently, Todd directs the Beginning Creative Writing Teaching Program at Colorado State University. You can visit him (and learn about his squirrel obsession) at www.ToddMitchellBooks.com.

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What We’re Reading and Listening to:

Rosemerry:

• The death of a child is unimaginable. And when it happens, so many of us are left wondering, how can I help? I am so grateful to Evermore for creating America’s First Government-Approved Community Bereavement
  Response Guide for Child Fatalities. If you are a teacher, social worker, first
  responder, reporter, minister or priest, employer or administrator, there are
  practical, actionable ways you can support the family and your community.

• I was so grateful to read Courtney Martin’s thoughtful blogpost on charitable giving … I am especially inspired by her ideas about getting friends together to collaborate on making a difference AND her wild idea about paying it forward.

Christie:

• I picked up a copy of The Correspondent by Virginia Evans on the recommendation of my favorite bookseller, Emily Sinclair at Paonia Books. This is an epistolary novel told through letters, mostly to and from Sybil Van Antwerp, a septuagenarian who is more at ease sharing through the written word than direct conversations with her family and friends. As the letters accumulate, the story of Sybil’s life unfolds — from her adoption at age 14 months to the death of her young son and her long career in law at a time when women’s contributions at work were underappreciated. In her last decade, she is pursued by two men and takes her time deciding which, if either, of them she will choose. Although some of the events feel inevitable as the story progresses, the characters are well-drawn and Sybil is more complex and interesting than she first seems. A quick, satisfying read.

• Emerging Form guest Cameron Walker has a lovely substack called A Little More Wonder and it’s wonder-full! I especially love Cameron’s essay, “The Things I Didn’t Carry” about the things we cherish.

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With Astonishing Tenderness

When, in the middle of the night,
you wake with the certainty you’ve
done it all wrong, when you wake
and see clearly all the places you’ve failed,
in that moment, when dreams will not return,
this is the chance for your softest voice—
the one you reserve for those you love most—
to say to you quietly, oh sweetheart,
this is not yet the end of the story.
Sleep will not come, but somehow,
in that wide awake moment there is peace—
the kind of peace that does not need
everything to be right before it arrives.
The peace that comes from not fighting
what is real. The peace that rises
in the dark on its sure dark wings
to meet you exactly as you are.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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A Note About Paid Subscriptions:

First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Only our paid subscribers receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support. This week we speak with Todd Mitchell about the role of doubt in creative practice, the random nature of commercial success and how the practice of radical acceptance might fuel your creativity.

If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!

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Two Questions:

(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)

1. How do you keep your creative practice sustainable?

2. What does success mean to you (creatively speaking)?

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Emerging Form is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.