Taste of Spring … and Hope

How do you reply 50 emails at once?

Hello you amazing light of Creation! (And 462 bots)

I’ve written over 1019 posts since starting this newsletter.

And a few days ago I asked you to write back, 50 humans wrote back, and 0 bots. I would love to reply you each personally, but that is like a month’s worth of newsletters, so instead I’m going to try to squeeze 50 of those replies into this post.

Now if you didn’t reply, I hope you would read on anyway, just to know that you are in amazing company!

It’s going to take a minute, so grab your favourite beverage, I like coffee!

And if this gets cut off in your email, there would be a link to read the rest of it in on the website, Okay grab your beverage, and I’ll see you there..

So how do you reply 50 emails at once?

Well first, I turned on some music, starting with this song.

“I will fight for you”, by Andy Grammar you can listen to it here(Apple, Spotify)

You can play it in the background if you want, I dedicate the song to you, let’s start there!

While listening to music, I read all your emails again and I just want to thank you for writing back from all over the world! Scotland, Spain, Norway, San Francisco, so many places.

I took notes of the impressions from all your letters, and I’ll be writing to those impressions.

A New Season…

For many of you, the seasons were changing from winter to spring. The sunshine, the first flowers, these are starting to offer you a glimmer of hope. I wonder if you felt like winter was not just a physical season, but something more like a zeitgeist, a ghost created by our collective stress from being bombarded by bad news and horrible events around the world.

Feels like we’re living through a long winter.

Have you felt that? I think you have, especially the way you say spring is coming and with it hope. And I wonder also if you mean more than the weather. I realise we can choose to feel that.

Not from the outside, but from the inside. From the letters that I got, that’s what it felt like. It felt hope, and maybe something even more powerful than that, something like faith, like you were going to create no mater what.

You told me stories of your struggles, grief, loss, change. In spite of it you have a spirit that wants to grow, wants to make something better, change is not coming from the outside, but from the inside of you.

I’ll tell you I cried more than once reading your emails, not because of your struggles, but because of your fight.

The Fight to Create

You told me about your creative practice.

From drawing with office stationery during Zoom Meetings, to being multi-faceted creatives making music and building communities, many of you are making music, one of you is a grammy nominee (more than once), some of you don’t even speak English, but where you are you’re part of a community restoring a derelict church, and turning it into an event space for culture, a center of art for everyone.

Some of you have ‘always been an artist’, some have 9-5 jobs but spend hours at night and call yourselves authors or artist, some have been an artist for 20 years, some have always been artist,some of you used to be an artist and no longer feel worthy of the label.

Some went for it a decade ago, but every door closed, so you gave up. BUT you got a realization, so you’re trying again

I looked at your art, I visited your websites and instagrams and read your stories.

There are no seasons in Malaysia where I come from, it’s just HOT!

But when I looked at your art, I got my ‘taste of spring’.

And by the way, some of you need to do yourself a favour, and put links to your work in your email signature! Not for me, but so anyone you write to can see your art!

Love

I stopped writing the daily emails, for a few days, because the one I was working on was too difficult to finish, it’s not like I was trying to write a masterpiece or anything, it was just the next email.

But I couldn’t find the words, or there were too many words and I couldn’t string them together. Maybe it’s more that that, maybe I hadn’t earned the right to write that piece. So I spent those few days doing work in my journal to earn that right, but that is for another day… I’m just reminding you that I stopped writing for, reasons.

I didn’t tell you the reasons.

But you wrote to ask if I was okay, when you didn’t get an email.

Some directly, some indirectly, but I got your message… and it filled me with love.

You’ve been so real with me I want to be real with you too, I’m in a kind of winter myself. I write this letter daily and each day 50-100 new people get on the mailing list. But before you wrote back I didn’t really know who you are, I kinda knew, but not really,

I didn’t know if the thousands of hours I spent writing this made a dent in anyone’s life, if it’s even what I should spend my time doing. (Thus the song, Apple, Spotify)

But when I didn’t write, you asked if I was okay.

And when I asked you to write back you did and with such passion and openness.

One reader lives in my home town of Penang.

Some months ago she wrote to me, saying that my ‘success’ was an inspiration. She was struggling to make ends meet, and she’s so talented and skilled, she’s responsible for her family’s’ income and she has a young son, and the expenses are piling up.

She asked me for help, she was told she would never make more than $2000 to make a book, months of work. Which would not be enough. So I gave her a free subscription and pointed to the collection of posts on how I broke through.

I hadn’t heard from her. I had forgotten the conversation, I have so many of these.

She wrote back. (She said I could share it) BOLD’S MINE

Hi Adam, I recently read your newsletter 'Write back!' and figured I owe you an update about what happened since I last (accidentally) messaged you.

Well, I followed everything you posted on your Substack.

I started working on my website, and I started emailing art directors everyday. Things started happening almost immediately. I submitted a manuscript to Flying Eye Books. Even though it got rejected, it helped put me on their radar and they gave me a job as a copy artist for one of their ongoing graphic novels series. I sent emails out to all the publishers I had worked with before and one got back to me with work for not just one but two books! That helped tide me over till Christmas. I also started applying to every agency I knew about, a lot of no replies but Astound.us responded and signed me on. Within a month of signing, I got an offer for 12k USD for a picture book via the agency. Please understand that back in September, a publisher had told me my work would never be worth more than 2k. Thank you thank you so much for your kind words and advice and your Substack.

It's really changed my life.

As a Malaysian who had zero international publishing experience, the thought of emailing art directors had never even occurred to me and I am so thankful that you shared your knowledge so freely. I recommend your Substack to nearly everyone I know who will listen (it's a bit hard as most of my Malaysian artist friends are not interested in children's books. ) Sincerely wishing you best of luck in all your future endeavors! I can't stress this enough.

Rachel

Of course I wept on hearing this. It took me 20-30 years to ‘figure it out’.

Those years were FUCKING HARD! But if it meant that a stranger could change their life immediately and take care of their family. Then shit, I’m doing the right thing, not just going for my dreams but also writing about it, clearing a path for anyone who needed one. But more than that, those hard years are a blessing.

Other replies were less dramatic, but they told me the impression I made on them.

“Brightens my day”

“Keep up the good work”

“Your energy is mind boggling”

There are others many others who have written in the past about how their dreams went from winter to spring, and I had the privilege and honour to be a light that melted some of the snow.

Passion to Mission

Have a vision of yourself as a Thriving Artist

The combination of my struggle to write one newsletter, and hearing from you and knowing the impact of my work created a change in me. My passion is to become a thriving artist, (and I’m still early on the journey), has transformed into a mission.

And that mission is to eradicate this bullshit belief of ‘struggling artist’, and replace it with ‘thriving artist’.

Not for a few people, no, the mission is to absolutely annihilate the belief from existence.

Because it’s not even true.

It’s a false belief.

What is more valuable than the ability to turn winter into spring from the inside? That is what creators do! This bullshit belief of struggling artist is what makes artist afraid of Ai, if you believe to be an artist is to struggle, of course Ai will be seen as something else to struggle against. It’s the bullshit belief that accepts a $2000 job when It’s worth at least $12000

You have given me fuel.

I will need to figure out and demonstrate how to be a thriving artist — I haven’t figured it out yet.

But I must.

Because if I don’t someone’s child is going to have a sucky Christmas, someone else is going to have to do a job they hate, when they have the talent and passion to do something they love.

Someone else will have to do worse, they will have to do what they love and end up hating it because they are exploited for doing so. Hold that vision of yourself as a thriving artist. You work on that vision, and I’ll pave a way for us.

What is a Daily(ish) practice?

Some of you asked…

And that made me laughed, because it made me ask myself, YEAH, what is a daily practice? Some said they needed one, whatever it was. Some had practices. And those really inspired me.

I already mentioned a couple:

1. Drawing with office stationery during zoom calls.

2. Working for 3 hours at night after a nine to five job

And many of you for some strange reason have a practice of drawing for 10 minutes a day! Some have done it for 400 to 500 days. How likely do you think the people with a practice are to thrive?

If you’re new. my job here is to give you a Creative Prompt daily, paired with a reflection. Regular service resumes tomorrow! (It’s free)

Limiting beliefs

I wrote a while ago about how I will be reserving some of the days each month to do a Creative Sprint. The only differences between that and the free daily prompts is that it will be 5 days of prompts that deal with a particular theme. For the next one we’re going to look at Limiting Beliefs.

I’ll share a limiting belief I had about myself and how that creates a winter for me. And why I need to change that belief in order to fulfil our mission here. I’ll talk about how and where I’m stuck, and my plan and the changes I’m making to get unstuck.

You’ve given me fuel!

Oh, and I noticed many of you are interested in starting and growing newsletters too, while that is not the scope of this newsletter, I could spend a sprint on that.

Then you had some questions.

How did you start? Important moments, decisions and lessons?

This is a good prompt for me, I’ll use it in the future, but I have written a lot about it here.

How was my day/weekend?

I spent a lot of time journaling, praying, studying in search of a breakthrough. I got it, your emails were a big part of it. So thank you!

I also went swimming with my kid a lot.

And my favourite question was, Is it okay to reply an email?

Yes.

On Being Real

Even before clarifying my mission, I always saw this newsletter as a product and a service. And I pride myself with the regularity and format of it.

One reader resonated with the fact that it’s hard to keep that going and there are hard days. And that was part of it, I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped. If nobody wrote to ask for it, I don’t know if I would have started again. I did it a bit as a demonstration that perfection is not the goal.

That said, as a daily newsletter, daily IS a goal. So this is not the kind of thing you should expect from me. Expect daily.

But thank you for your grace and understanding during these few days.

And thank you also to the couple of paid subscribers who unsubscribed when I missed a day, I appreciate you for holding me to my own standard!

This was fun, I hope we can keep the conversation going. You’re always welcome to write back. And if you did write and this letter did not address something, write again, and I’ll try to address that.

It was amazing to get to know you as people, thank you!

PS: A song by Andy Grammar

… I will fight
I will fight for you
I always do, until my heart
Is black and blue

… And I will stay
I will stay with you
We'll make it to the other side
Like lovers do

… I'll reach my hands out in the dark
And wait for yours to interlock
I'll wait for you
I'll wait for you

… 'Cause I'm not givin' up
I'm not givin' up, givin' up
No not yet
Even when I'm down to my last breath
Even when they say there's nothin' left
So don't give up on

… I'm not givin' up
I'm not givin' up, givin' up
No not me
Even when nobody else believes
I'm not goin' down that easily
So don't give up on me

… And I will hold
I'll hold onto you
No matter what this world'll throw
It won't shake me loose

… I'll reach my hands out in the dark
And wait for yours to interlock
I'll wait for you
I'll wait for you

… 'Cause I'm not givin' up
I'm not givin' up, givin' up
No not yet
Even when I'm down to my last breath
Even when they say there's nothin' left
So don't give up on

… I'm not givin' up
I'm not givin' up, givin' up
No not me
Even when nobody else believes
I'm not goin' down that easily
So don't give up on me

… Whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah

… I will fight
I will fight for you
I always do until my heart
Is black and blue

Listen (Apple, Spotify)

The song is about you, singing to you. It’s also about your Creator singing to you.