Hi, readers of the intangibles! I’m Allison Kirkland, and this publication was created to celebrate and explore the world of creative nonfiction and the writing life. I’m so glad you’re here.
Hi writers and readers,
I have a confession to make: I hardly wrote at all in January and February. I was under the weather for a big chunk of that time. I was also adjusting being back in the States after my time in England. I was in the process of grieving the death of a family member. And I was grieving the state of the world.
I am not sure if those big events were contributing to my writers block or not. Sometimes I can be consumed with big happenings in my life and the writing will still come. But not this time. This time it felt like my little creative motor had run out of gas and no matter how hard I searched I couldn’t find a gas station.
Most days I would sit for an hour or so in front of works-in-progress and just stare at them. This happened for weeks on end. It was particularly frustrating because being in Brighton was such a time of inspiration and reflection for me, and I returned with lot of ideas. I had big stories to tell. And yet, every time I sat at my computer it felt like the words just disappeared. Finally I started occupying my time with other things that I deem writing-adjacent: reading books, essays and short stories, tidying up my website, going for long walks, re-connecting with writer-friends to talk about writing.
This type of fallow period happens every now and then, and every time I am sure that this is the end of my creative life. I alert everyone I know: “I think I’m done writing. I think this is it. I have no ideas. I’ll never write again. Nothing is coming. It feels like I’m moving through molasses.”
My friends assure me that it’s not true.
“This time it really is,” I assure them. “I feel terrible. I know it’s a luxury to spend part of my days writing and now I’m wasting all that time when I could just get a regular job like everyone else.”
(This is called spiraling.)
“I think you’ll get back to it. Wait and see,” my friends always say. They’ve never been wrong. Suddenly, at the end of February, my creative motor clicked back on. Suddenly, I was full of ideas. Suddenly, I felt like writing again.
And then, the first week of March, I got word that a new personal essay of mine is going to be published in a literary journal that I greatly admire. My first essay acceptance of 2025, and it’s an essay that is particularly close to my heart!
Interestingly, this essay began as a Substack post draft months and months ago, but then as it further developed I sensed that it belonged somewhere else.
That’s just another reason why I love the accountability and the creative inspiration of being on Substack. Each time I open a new draft I never know what I might create or where it might find a home. I typically have 4 or 5 drafts in process at once. Some of those drafts don’t turn into anything — or at least not yet. Some of those drafts get completed and end up on my Substack. And some of them become personal essays that I submit elsewhere. Maybe some of these drafts will even end up in my memoir.
So thank you to all my readers, subscribers and especially my paid subscribers who see so much value in my work that they pay me with their hard earned cash. All of you contributed to the making of this latest essay, and I am grateful for your engagement and your patronage.
I’ll be sure to let all of you know when the essay is available to read.
And I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I don’t know where you might be in your writing practice at the moment. Maybe you’re feeling the flow. Maybe you’re lying fallow. If it’s the latter, here’s a little reminder that it won’t last forever.
Each month I offer a writing prompt and a reading recommendation or writing exercise for my paid subscribers, geared toward writers of creative nonfiction and memoir.
My hope is that these prompts and recommendations can be a resource for writers who might not currently be attending a writing class, but who still want to engage with the creative nonfiction world and with their writing practice on their own schedule.
The first step to finding authority and authenticity in your writing, after all, is to write and read. Take some time to notice what resonates with you, notice what you like and what nags at you in other essays, poems and books. Write a few lines or paragraphs yourself, within the safe confines of a prompt. You never know what starting these new habits might bring forth.
Writing Prompt:
A writing prompt is not meant to produce a finished essay or poem or piece of fiction. It’s meant to be a start. It’s meant to be a little writing sprint, a little writing muscle workout. Maybe it’ll become an essay or the start of a bigger project. But most likely it’ll be writing for the sake of writing, to connect to yourself and your imagination.
You won’t necessarily connect with every prompt, but remember to sit with the blank page, breathe through the discomfort of not knowing what to say, and use the whole 20 minutes to write. At the end of the 20 minutes you can pat yourself on the back because you committed to your writing practice today. That’s always enough.
Let’s take three minutes for prep. Before we work with prompts, especially if we are working outside of the classroom, we should take time to prepare. This pre-writing process is important because it sets the stage for the writing you're going to do.