A Scream of Love

 On Saturday, I went to the Hearst Center for the Arts and attended the first event for their 2025- 1016 Writer in Residence, Felicia Babb Cass, called "Quiet Power, True Fans". It was a really cold day, and it was surprising how many people showed up; more chairs had to be brought up to the tables and we all smooshed in a bit.

The room was filled with people who are creatives, not all of whom were writers--some of us want to be or are working toward it--but everyone there had done something creative. There were photographers and artists of all stripes there. It was an energetic room.

Felicia created a space where we could learn some basic things about figuring out marketing, which is the side of this whole writing thing I am not good at. For some one who almost went to college at the Art Institute of Chicago for music P&R, back in the day when you could get a degree in something like that, you would think I would know more about how this works. But I didn't go there, I didn't get the degree, and while I feel icky about promoting my stuff, I feel less icky about it after Felicia's program.

Felicia gave us exercises to do, questions to answer, and it all felt a lot less about demographics in terms of audience, and was more about the psychology of the writers you are trying to attract to your work. There was discussion of finding your sweet spot--the thing that is your passion and your expertise; content tilt; and audience pathways--taking a stranger to curious browser to engaged reader and finally a true fan.

It was fascinating to hear what other people thought, and while some of the people in the room are already published, some were in the process, we discovered that we all are in the same boat here, so we might as well just stay in the boat for the ride and learn from each other.

Felicia suggested that we do a 90 Day plan. She suggested choosing small concrete steps, with 'a gentle rhythm outlasting heroics'. The 90 Day Plan has three parts, visibility, engagement and deepening, and we are supposed to choose one action per category and do it. So here I am, writing about this as part of one of my actions.

I had an idea about talking to people about what they deeply and truly love, even if it's something weird or unusual that people might not think that person would be into that, or be an expert in that, or whatever. Like me with basketball. I may start there and just write about the things that truly bring me joy.

I was having a problem with a throughline from BE AUTOTELIC to smitten (which is what I am temporarily, permanently, whatever calling this), and as I was driving along this morning, from therapy to go get coffee before I had to pick up my son for his therapy, I realized the through line is love and joy, like Chuck Tingle said in a post early today 

BE AUTOTELIC is about loving what you do so much you do it no matter what. And smitten is about talking about what you love so much you are into it or do it no matter what. Love is the through line.

And based on how the world has been lately, love is going to continue to be the thing that gets us through.

The Central Authority

While I was working on my writing samples for a recent submission, I found myself wrestling with a particular sample. It came from the middle of a novel I am working on, and there were a lot of things that happened in the novel to get to where the sample began. I was conflicted on how to make this particularly fantastic section of writing make sense to anyone who might read it outside the context of the novel.

That's what I needed, I thought. Context. Put a little paragraph at the beginning to just set the stage for the writing sample.

The Central Authority, however, had other ideas. It wasn't surprising. The Central Authority always had other ideas, along with insults and put downs.

What I call the Central Authority some people call their inner critic, the inner judge. Certainly not the thing I call my conscious, because that at least seems neutral. No, the Central Authority thinks it runs the place, feeding my self-doubt, making me feel, for lack of a better term, like absolute shit and that I can't do anything right and why should I bother?

So the Central Authority thought that putting a context paragraph was a dumb idea. It insisted that I needed to shoehorn into the sample the information that would make the sample make sense, even though I felt that that would slow down the sample and take away from the sparkle that made it a great writing sample for a submission. But as usual, I listened to the Central Authority and spent two more whole days as I was running out of time for the submission window, to attempt to do what it wanted. When I was reaching critical mass.Against my better judgement.

When I was in college, and finals would roll around, I'd grind hard to get the best grade I could (nothing less than 100% would satisfy the Central Authority). I would study, long and hard, writing, copying, until I hit a wall. My brain was full, I was tired, and I knew if I didn't know what I needed to know by that very moment, I wasn't going to know it.

The Central Authority, however, would go into straight panic mode, stirring up my anxiety, requesting more caffeine and sugar, and demanding I go until the very last minute, cramming my tired brain full.

And that's where I was with the sample, but I knew that if I continued trying to do what the Central Authority said, I might just ruin it.

Those two days trying to do the Central Authority's bidding was painful as it goaded me on. You can't be done. It's not good enough. You're not good enough. You need to keep going until it's perfect.

This is what it felt like:


Can't Help Myself


Somewhere in the comments, it said that it took this machine three days of running 24/7 to break down, cleaning up its own 'blood' while bleeding out.

That's how the Central Authority works for me.

At the end of the second day, I was panicking, running out of time, feeling absolutely terrible about myself and writing and like I should probably just quit writing, because I couldn't get this one simple sample done. Those pages on their own were just fine, but no, the Central Authority had to be right. I must be doing something wrong.

I messaged my bestie, V, and this was our exchange:



And then I discovered the first rule of Be Autotelic. I was grossed out by the word 'rule'. The word 'rule' feels very contrary to creating for the sake of being creative. So I am going to call it a Gut Instinct.

Gut Instinct #1:

Trust your voice.

When I say voice, I mean writing voice. Totally different from the Central Authority. The writing voice is sometimes quiet and soothing, sometimes shouting and raucous, doing cartwheels as you try to get down what it is saying is part of the story before doing flips into the next section.

Trust what your voice is telling you to do, even if it breaks the rules. I know I just said rules are contrary to Being Autotelic, and they are, but when it comes to writing, you do need to learn some rules. Like how stories are structured and characters are created. Then after you learn the rules, you can break them. Evaporate them. Trust your voice.

Someone out there wants your writing. Someone out there is waiting for your writing. Maybe your writing is exactly what will make them feel seen, like there's someone else out there exactly like them, and for the first time, maybe they will see they aren't alone. And there is so much power in that.



But in order to do that, you have to break the rules you've learned, defy the Central Authority, and just create.

How to Be Autotelic

Okay, so I know I said there are no rules, and really, there aren't, but there are some things that are simply true in my experience. Again, your mileage may vary.

I spoke about this here to some extent, but now I need to get on my soapbox and complain about the world.

And I realize these are first world problems, as I sit in a very nice public library while my tweens attend a tween program, in the middle of America, while the rest of the world is busy being at war, killing people, starving people, committing genocide. But I am also human, and I need to have something that is my own little thing and complaining about how art is (de)valued in this country is my jam, so just bear with me.

Amie McNee, an artist, author and speaker, wrote an AMAZING piece for Writer's Digest in March 2025, "The Case for Creating When the World is on Fire" and she said the following:

"In a world that tries to usurp and monopolize your attention, the only way to get some agency is to become a creator. Creating is an act of rebellion against a world that wants you entirely stuck to your phone...It's taken back what's been stolen from you--your time, your energy, your attention..."

You can also hear McNee speak on the topic here, and it is well worth the 15 minutes it will take.

The world does NOT want you to create, for good reason. There's not necessarily money to be made in spending your time off social media, off the internet, and not selling you things you don't need for problems you don't actually have. The more time you spend on creating something you love, the less advertising dollars there are for those who earn them.

McNee is probably my favorite writer right now. Her whole thing is "making art is activism". She explodes with "your words are powerful forces for shaping people, encouraging empathy, provoking humanity and demanding attention".

You do NOT need to monetize your existence and your creations. Maybe you crochet or knit for enjoyment. Maybe you create lovely blankets and scarves and hats, and you do this because it helps you feel better about yourself and the world and it burns your anxiety. Maybe you give these items as gifts. And at some point, you are going to hear someone gush over how beautiful your creations are (because they most definitely are). And some of those someones are going to suggest that you sell your creations. That you should set up an Etsy site and then everyone in the WORLD can buy your beautiful creations.

And there's nothing wrong with that. You can sell your creations. You get your money. That is fine.

The problem starts when you are constantly expected to monetize your creativity as a complement. Like the best thing you could possibly do with your beautiful creations is sell them. Don't give them away. Set up a table at the farmer's market. People are well meaning and then do mean this as a compliment. And yes, there is probably a need for your creations.

But if creating helps your mental health, and it feels good to just do it, when you make it your job, it can rob you of the joy you get, the encouragement you get, the happiness you get from giving your creations.

The world expects that if you create something, and you get good at it, that the next natural step is to sell it. To make your livelihood from that. And a lot of people do. But YOU DON'T HAVE TO.

Additionally, especially as you grow into an adult (which is a dang trap if you aren't already aware), you realize that you have to have a job in order to live. You need to make money to have a place to live, clothes to wear, food to eat, a way to travel to and from your job and your place to live, and money for existing. So you have to give some of your 24 hours in a day to a job. And you have to give some of your 24 hours in a day to sleep. The average is 8 hours for each (yes, I know that in this day and age that 8 hours for work alone is NOT enough for people to make basic ends met, UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME NOW!, and all that, but for the sake of easier math, this is what I am going with. Please don't cancel me for needing math to be simple.)

So if we do 40 hours a week for work, and you do 8 hours a day for sleep, what do you do with the rest of the time? It gets even more complicated if you have to have more than one job, if you have a hobby or sport that you devote time to, and don't EVEN get me started on having a family or medical needs because this damn post will NEVER end.

So you have 604,800 seconds in a week. Try using some of those seconds to create. If you do some of those seconds consistently enough, you can build a practice.



And that, in the simplest of terms, is how you be autotelic. You take some of the seconds you don't have to use for everything else in life, you use them consistently to be creative, on your own terms.

What is Autotelic?

When I was in college and I saw on the syllabus that there would be a paper involved in the class I was taking, I was over the moon. Everyone else was groaning and grumbling, and I just sat there, giggling to myself, already planning how I was going to approach the research. First day of class, I was nerding out. I love research. I love learning.


One of the best parts of being a journalist was doing research. I loved interviewing musicians and actors and artists and writing up profiles on them based on the interview, but I also loved doing research. Getting into magazines and books, the older the better because they would smell AMAZING, reading about the subjects of my interview. I had learned how to research, what to look for, where to find the best quotes that would stand out in the small space a newsprint journalist would have to write in.


And when I had to write a paper for a class, whether it was about frogs and how the impact on their health and numbers spelled danger for humans as well, or about how The Merchant of Venice was a comedy in it's time (then it was, but now, not so much), I got out my note cards and I had an elaborate way of documenting which source was which, and made stacks and stacks of them. Then I would go back to my outline and pull out cards, stacking them all together, forming a paper I would write from the stack of cards. I went to the University of Iowa, and I enjoyed the fantastic library they have there. I would prowl the stacks, inhaling deeply the scent of books and knowledge, enjoying being in the large open room full of tables and chairs and people learning. We were working together, but seperate, and it was just exhilarating. I would spend way more hours than I would ever need to even on the shortest of paper. I should have bought stock in index card companies.


Of course, this was more than 20 years ago now, and there's lots of different ways to do research, and if I had to do research now (I still do! A lot! And it's not even always just an avoidance technique to keep from having to actually work on my writing), I would do it in a similar way except now I use notebooks instead of index cards (sometimes). But each source gets a designation so I can remember where I got the information and document properly (this is always very important).


What does that have to do with Be Autotelic? Because I had to do some research because I had NEVER heard that word before.


Back in December 2023, there was a post in the Star Trek Wholesomeposting group on FaceBook, featuring the following picture.







It's of Nana Visitor, the actor who played Colonel Kira Nyris on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. The poster had compiled a number of photos that had been autographed for his daughter who was graduating from college as a gift for her.


Visitor wrote: Be autotelic, be passionate about what you choose, speak kindly to yourself, your brain never stops growing if you focus it.


Be Autotelic. What the heck is that?


From Merriam Webster, autotelic: having a purpose in and not apart from itself.


And from Wikipedia, we learn that autotelic is from the Greek autoteles, "having an end in itself, having one's own authority, final and unconditional".


Mihaly Robert Czikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian-American psychologist, describes people who are internally driven and who exhibit a sense of purpose and curiosity as autotelic. This differs from being externally driven, having comfort, wealth, power, money or fame as their main motivating forces.


Czikszentmihalyi further writes that an autotelic person doesn't need things like wealth, fame, power or entertainment because they experience flow in all areas of life. They don't depend on external rewards. They are fully involved in living life. They are more independent and less vulnerable to manipulation.


In other words, autotelic people are like kids when they are creating. Austin Kleon, an artist who draws who wrote Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work and the book I am quoting from, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad, wrote in this book about how his son when he was quite young would draw constantly. And he would make piles upon piles of drawings, and would just toss them aside when he was done. He didn't care what happened to them. Creating these drawings was the most important part, the doing.


I do have some issues with some of the ideas Czikszentmihalyi espouses. A lot of it is quite esoteric and high falutin' and feels like it's too smart for anyone to deal with. And while it sounds nice, it doesn't really jive with our world and its view on art.


And I am going to get to THAT in another post, but what I want to say here is that Be Autotelic is about creating for the sake of creating. Not to sell something, not to entertain, not to impress someone and make them fall in love with you (although I am certain that is what some people do try, particularly as a writer in Iowa City, at least 20 years ago anyway). You create to create. The end.

Creating in a World That Doesn't Want You to Create

 If you're anything like me, you might be finding it difficult to create because *gestures widely* have you seen the state of the world? The quality of existential dread is definitely *chef's kiss*. 

I used to read and write dystopian novels. Dystopian was my absolute jam. "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood and "How High We Go in the Dark" by Sequoia Nagamatsu absolutely altered me as a writer and a person. 

But now that I'm living in one? Not so much. The last piece of dystopian fiction I worked on was called 'Magical Bodies' and I really really really had hope for that one. The story was flowing and coming together, but then reality took that sharp turn (which, in retrospect, was not so sharp), and I sat with this novel in front of me, with ideas and characters ready to go and I just...couldn't. That was in 2022.

So I sat and tried to make it work, but I couldn't, and then I got depressed and what happened after that I will address in another post because it's all linked together. I just couldn't write. And it was not good. I was lost without the ability to write dystopian fiction.

I finally broke through also in 2022 with another novel, one that is still in progress, 'In Pieces'. It felt strange because 'In Pieces' took me back to the original genre I wrote in, but felt silly as a 49 year old writing in: romance. But this one had a twist, because (thankfully) I have evolved past that 13 year old who was writing in the style of V.C. Andrews and Harlequin romances: a romance about mental illness. And it was going along. Still not feeling quite correct, but at least I was writing. 'In Pieces' went on the back burner in November 2024, when I started working on 'Summer of '89'.

Then I found I was writing a Youngish Adult novel about going to summer camp in 1989, and is based in part on events that happened to me growing up in the evangelical church I grew up in and spent time going to summer camp with. I'm happy with how it's going, but I have been working on it nonstop for six months and it might be time to let it breathe a bit. Ironically, I was able to better capture this work during the winter.

So that was a long way to get back to creating in a world that doesn't want you to create.

That's what this blog is about, among other things, but I chiefly would like to have this be a place where you as someone who is actively creative or on the back burner creative, or thought you couldn't be creative because you've never done it, or you tried, and it didn't work well, but something keeps bringing you back to creating.

And for those who are still in progress, because we honestly all are still in progress. I am learning to do this thing no matter what also. 

So maybe all of us artists, whether active, on pause or wondering if they should make the creative leap, can be together and maybe work our way through this world on fire.

And you might notice that this blog has a fun, peculiar name: Autotelic. That will be my next post, but what I will say about it now is that this is what I am going to live by now. An autotelic life is what I need, and maybe, it's what you need too.