It wasn't visible until I started creating again, but there’s a kind of empty that doesn’t look dramatic from the outside (or even very visible from the inside.)
I was still showing up. Doing the work. And moving things across the finish line.
But somewhere underneath the deadlines and deliverables and browser tabs, there was just this quiet.
Not tired, exactly. Not fully burnt to a crisp. Just… hollow.
Like the part of you that usually has a thought, an image, a weird little spark, a sentence fragment, a curiosity, or a craving to make something for no reason at all… has just stopped chiming in.
It's been a year since I started creating again just because. And as I've wrapped up a huge project and all my current creativity has some kind of deliverable attached (work or personal), I've been sitting with that feeling again.
I think part of why it feels so hard to explain is because productivity culture only gives us language for the output side of depletion.
It knows how to talk about overwork in terms of deadlines, workload, and exhaustion. It has a lot less to say about what happens when you’ve been in pure extraction mode for so long that your input side goes quiet.
And for me, that lands in a particularly tender place because of my history with creativity.
🌻 At five, I was building waterways through flowerbeds and designing parachutes for my brother’s action figures off the slide playhouse.
⌨️ At 11, I was spending summer afternoons writing stories on a typewriter about a teenage rockstar with a dinosaur sidekick and building a pulley system so I could turn off my bedroom light without getting out of bed.
📷 At 17, I was wandering the school halls with a camera and spending hours in the darkroom learning how to manipulate light and paper until an image into view.
🎂 At 21, I turned baking and a full-blown obsession with late-00s cake decorating into a word-of-mouth cake business.
🖋️ At 25, I was hand-lettering for a living and about to do my first big commercial project with HarperCollins because of a personal project called Silhouettes.
Then at 26, I got carpal tunnel.
And yes, I lost a business. But what feels bigger now, looking back, is that I lost my framework for creativity.
Somewhere along the way, I had fused being creative with an escape route from corporate life which turned producing creative work into a profession and demand.
So when that output vehicle disappeared, I didn’t know how to imagine creativity without a purpose, a paycheck, or a product attached to it.
I didn’t stop being creative because I wanted to. I stopped because I had absorbed a system that taught me output was the proof.
That’s what made the last 10 years feel like creative purgatory.
And honestly, you do not have to lose a career or a physical ability to fall into the same trap.
You only have to keep deferring the things that feed you because the work in front of you feels more urgent.
That’s the pattern I keep noticing in business too.
Most systems are built to manage output: the calendar, the sprint, the deadline, the deliverable, the launch. Input gets treated like dessert. A nice little reward for when “everything is done.”
But “everything” is never done.
Which means if input only happens after the work, it slowly disappears.
And then we call ourselves unmotivated, blocked, inconsistent, or burnt out—when sometimes what’s actually happening is much simpler and much sadder.
We’ve been asking ourselves to keep drawing from a well we haven’t refilled.
And I don’t mean this in the usual “refill your cup” way. It’s not about earning a rest after you finish your to-do list or taking time to yourself after a draining event. It’s about remembering that creative input is a necessary part of the work, not a reward for surviving it.
Because input isn’t the opposite of output. It’s the source material for it.
🫶 The things you consume because they delight you.
🫶 The things you make badly or privately or just because.
🫶 The things that wake up some corner of your brain that has nothing to prove.
🫶 Those things aren’t extra.
They’re part of how sustainable work happens in the first place.
And if your input side has gone quiet lately, I don’t think that means you’re failing.
I think it might mean you’ve been living inside a system that needs to bend a little more to support you.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
What has your input side looked like lately — not what should count as input, but what has actually been feeding you?
When was the last time you made, consumed, or followed something creative with no purpose attached to it?
What shifts, emotionally or practically, when you imagine input as non-negotiable instead of optional?
Currently Obsessed
Candy Buttons. I finally watched Stumble and I fear it’s going to be added to the pile of shows I fall in love with that never get renewed, but definitely one of my favorite sitcoms this year. If you love a mockumentary, cheer, a rag-tag group fo college kids, or Kristen Chenoweth—you’ll probably enjoy it too.
National Library Week. April 19-25th is National Library Week here in the US. Reading changed my life as a kid. It changed my life again as an adult 3 years ago because of a random visit to my local library. You can celebrate by visiting your local library, finally sign up for Libby so you can checkout eBooks, or spread the word to friends.
Not consuming much. I took a break last week after wrapping up my new project and aside from crocheting, eating good food, watching a few shows, and staying informed but not overwhelmed by the black mirror bullshit that is reality, I’ve been in a very low-consumption mode. Do nothing hours, low-stimulation time in a dark room, etc. Highly recommend if life is feeling a little bananas.
P.S.
A Cozy Ruckus is where we go deeper with essays like this every Sunday. On Tuesdays, I share the more practical side with behind‑the‑scenes looks at what I’m building and implementing, plus occasional invitations over on The Bridge.
