Follow Your Fascination

Prompts for firing your creative curiosity + the limits of metaphor

It went something like this: I had never been much of an “exercise” person before pregnancy, but when I finally summoned the courage to read up on the labor process, I was good and spooked enough to start a birth prep program. I was astonished at how little I knew about the core and the pelvic floor and its inner workings prior to this, because these are strengths we rely on every single day, and I accidentally wrote a whole chapter in Even After Everything on these muscles and their greater metaphors for self-support in labor and in life.

Fast forward to hitting send on my proposal, inclusive of sample chapter 7 “Staying with Your Breath.” Read: I put this chapter about our (my?) pelvic floor on blast to all my publishing industry colleagues. Fun!

Let the reader understand: I did not set out to write an entire chapter about such personal physical realities in a book about love and loss and liturgical rhythms. In the end, I did so for one reason alone: I was following my fascination. I was brimming with a million questions and as I researched, I was astonished by what I learned, what I found, and what it might mean for all of us.

So today, for our close reading of Even After Everything, we’re talking craft tips for following your fascination, and respecting the limits of metaphor, with guidelines for how to craft responsible, honest comparisons.

For newcomers, you can read about what we’re covering in our winter seasonal intensive and our reading rhythms here. Anyone can become a paid subscriber, and you can cancel anytime.