Prompt 296. Choking Under Pressure
& the writer Erin McReynolds on a life in cartoons
Hi friend,
Until last week, my painting residency felt like a dream. I was reveling in this utter miracle: that two years out from my second bone marrow transplant, which was when I started painting, I was getting the opportunity to exhibit my art, that I had the time and dedicated studio space in which to make it, and that these large-scale paintings, which had so long loomed in the privacy of my mind’s eye, were coming to life.
Then I had a meeting with the curators of ArtYard, where my show will open in late June, and they asked me a perfectly natural question: “Are you planning to sell your paintings?” Suddenly, everything changed. I was no longer experiencing the paintings as my paintings, but I was seeing them instead through the eyes of an outsider, maybe even a potential buyer who would wonder, “Are these good? What’s their worth?”
This sent forth a torrent of fears. I recalled sitting at my desk with my quaran-pal Carmen, doing the final read-through of Between Two Kingdoms, and saying out loud, on the verge of tears, “I wanted this to be so much better.” I know now that wasn’t a clear-eyed assessment of the work, but a last-gasp effort to hold onto control. The opening of my art show is only six weeks away, and now that the end of my residency is in sight, I’m full of similar doubts. There’s comfort in knowing you can keep reworking something. You don’t judge a work-in-progress as good or bad, because you know it’s still becoming.
For the last couple of months, I’ve watched myself take risks and grow on the canvas. But that’s harder to maintain now. When a deadline gets close, I feel an immense pressure to get everything done quickly and unimpeachably. I get tight and controlled in a way that doesn’t serve the work. Rather than dropping a giant splotch of umber in the middle of the canvas and watching it spread, following its lead, I think, “I should do what I already know. I need to play it safe.”
The other thing that happens is that I start to anxiety-edit, which I know from experience I shouldn’t do. Several years ago, I went to Portland to give a talk, and I was in terrible shape. I had been sick for many weeks at that point—I’d had shingles, and I also had a terrible lingering cough. I told myself I was too busy to go to the doctor, even though Jon and my parents were both saying, “That cough does not sound good. And you’ve had it for far too long.” Finally I told them, “I just have to get through this talk—then I’ll get it checked out.”
Of course, I was not well enough to fly to Portland and speak—later confirmed by an admission to the hospital for flu-turned-sepsis—but I did it anyway. And in the hours leading up to my keynote, in a fit of anxiety, I started fiddling with my talk, swapping out details, switching up the structure, utterly confusing myself. I walked out onto the stage in a ballroom filled with people and started to speak, and then a few minutes in—well, I choked. My mind went completely blank. After what felt like an endless silence, I started mumbling and stumbling my way to the end. I honestly don’t know if I made any sense—I was in a humiliation black-out and have conveniently avoided reviving that memory in therapy. What I do know is that I allowed my fear and anxiety to take the reins, to get me worked up into such a frenzy that I lost all sense of direction and confidence and the ability to hear my own intuition.
But I’m better at engaging productively with my fears now, because I have tools, whether it’s lying on the floor, or drawing in the margins, or asking a trusted creative collaborator for feedback. This week, it was channeling my beloved friend Elizabeth Gilbert, who shared her practice of dialoguing with fear in our Studio Visit. “I see you, fear,” she says, “I know you’re trying to protect me, but you’re not in the driver’s seat.”
So this week, rather than trying to muscle through—which would have led me to anxiously rework the piece I’m currently painting, and likely make it worse—I said to myself, “I am feeling afraid right now, and that’s informing my perception of my work. I need to note that fear, and step away from this painting, whether that’s for the next couple of hours or a few days.” So I did that, and it not only defanged my fear but saved the painting. When I looked at it again the next day, I thought the face, which I was on the verge of completely erasing, was quite beautiful in the morning light. I still haven’t started working on it again, though. I switched instead to another painting that requires a kind of looseness and play. And as of now, I’ve decided I likely won’t sell the work, to preserve that purity of joy and experimentation.
And that brings me to today’s delightful essay and prompt from the writer Erin McReynolds. Composed for her first assignment in a cartooning class, it’s a short graphic memoir that tells the tale of being haunted by the legendary Anaïs Nin. If that doesn’t compel you to read on, I expect nothing could…
Sending love,
Suleika
P.S. I had the great honor of being profiled by Jennifer Senior in The Atlantic. Jen spent months working on this piece—my first time ever doing such an in depth profile. We talked about the big philosophical questions of life and death and marriage and dreaming big even when the survival math tells you not to. And also, how I like to reimagine the clanging and banging of an MRI machine as a visit to an avant-garde nightclub (the band: the Woodpecker Collective)! You can read it online here, or find it in the June 2024 print edition of The Atlantic with the headline “The Art of Survival.”
Some items of note—
Our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual hour for paid subscribers, is happening today—that’s Sunday, May 19, from 1-2pm ET. Our community manager
will be hosting, sharing an excerpt and prompt about the unexpected gift of lessons learned and re-learned. You can find everything you need to join here!If you missed this week’s small joy (our weekly chat where we celebrate one small joy we want to hold onto), you may need to update your Substack app! This week I wrote about a heart-bursting moment with my weird little wolfpack. Click below to add your voice to the chorus.
Prompt 296. One Hundred Fifty-Eight by Erin McReynolds
After finishing a draft of my book, as I started the long slog of sending it out to agents, I felt the urge to do something completely creatively different. So I signed up for a cartooning class, and it is the absolute best! Here’s my first effort: a little graphic memoir about that time Anaïs Nin and my mom teamed up to get me to quit my job, move across the country, and start writing the book.
Your prompt for the week:
In 20 sentences or less, tell the story of a move you made—be it geographical, professional, romantic, or creative. Write about what led you to it and how it changed you. Then render each sentence as a cartoon.
If drawing in chronological order is not working, see which sentences bring a strong image to mind, then cartoon those first. It can help jog new ideas.
Other cartoons for inspiration—
Cartoons by Hilary
Liana Finck’s Instagram
If you’d like, you can post your response to today’s prompt in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals. As a reminder, we love seeing your work inspired by the Isolation Journals, but to preserve this as a community space, we request no promotion of outside projects.
Today’s Contributor—
Erin McReynolds is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. She has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, NC, and is an editor at American Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in The Sun, North American Review, Kenyon Review Online, and New Letters. An excerpt from her memoir was listed as a Notable in Best American Essays 2021.
If you’re new here—hi, I’m Suleika!
I’m the author of the memoir Between Two Kingdoms and the founder of the Isolation Journals, where we turn life’s interruptions into creative grist. Each Sunday, I send out this newsletter with an essay and journaling prompt from a guest contributor.
This weekly newsletter is free, with no ads or algorithms, just the support of this beloved community. If you upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll receive other valuable benefits, like:
creative courses and daily journaling challenges, like our New Year’s series On Rumi & Paradox
transformative workshops, like Letters from Love with Elizabeth Gilbert and On Joy, Sorrow, and Creative Alchemy with Susan Cain
the Hatch, our virtual creative hour where we gather for inspiration, connection, and accountability
my advice column, Dear Susu, where I answer your questions about writing and life and everything in between
our archive of sixteen Studio Visits with brilliant artists like the iconic poet Marie Howe and the astonishing multi-hyphenate Lena Dunham
additional writing from me, like My Year of Love photo essay, where I reflected on what I thought was the worst year of my life but in fact was so much more
most importantly: a way for people who find meaning in this work to support & sustain the Isolation Journals. If you have the means, I’d be grateful for your support!
Our Isolation Journal No. 1 and Surrender Tote
We designed a custom Isolation Journal with all our favorite features and a tote embroidered with my forever mantra to carry it around in—both pictured here out for a stroll on a glorious spring day. We have less than 50 totes remaining, so if you’ve had your eye on one, click the button below!
Dear Suleika, you and your partner Jon and all that is going on in your life & lives have been on my mind a lot lately. I saw Jon at the Jazz fest last month (stayed statued against the barrier separating me from the VIP for three shows prior to him coming on stage so I could claim that spot). He is by far, one of the most magical humans I've ever witnessed. And for me, the fact that you two are partnered makes the most profound and perfect sense. You both possess inner beauty and grace and allow it/them to flow and manifest creatively, weirdly, with risk and passionate energy. You are both astounding. I read the Atlantic article this last week and loved it. Old enough to be your mama, I was caught off guard by how proud of you I felt, and overwhelmed a bit by learning that I really didn't know the full extent of your health challenges...I knew the headlines, the chronology, but like all of us, we never know every single setback or misstep of our friends & families, much less the social connections we cultivate via www or from afar. Your artwork is extraordinary and so uniquely you. And that is the magic. You poured yourself onto canvas and have allowed us to witness. You are incredibly brave. There isn't a price tag you can put on brave, by creating and sharing, you have encountered the same bounty I imagine Jon witnesses in the studio, sitting at his piano, composing for you, drafting what's called to the stanza. You with prose, with your deep caring for others, & for animals, with a paintbrush or fingertip, with a studied placement of a dear object on a mantle. Thank you for everything you share with us. Ultimately, you teach, you inspire and in turn, you have grown love on the planet. ( what's funny is even on this Substack platform, little red dots appear underneath your name when typed, like your name needs to be fixed. Nothing's broken. You're human. ) I'm not a consistent contributor here, but I read the prompts weekly and write. Thank you.
I had a go making mine into a cartoon which I restacked onto my notes, but here’s the words. I really enjoyed this prompt!
At 17, I packed my bags and moved halfway down New Zealand. Pimply, uneasy, full of hope, and adventure. I arrived, to a city much bigger than the small coastal town I had grown up in. I missed the sound of the waves and the sight of the mountain from my bedroom window, I missed the calls of morepork owls in the bush. Instead, pigeons cooed painfully outside my window. And I cried, missing home, my family, and friends desperately. There was concrete everywhere. And so so many people I didn’t know. But slowly, surely as my severed and sore roots began to recover, they dug down into the shaky earth. Down into the city of earthquakes. But the unfamiliar faces soon became home; holding my gaze when my eyes got glassy, and crinkling with mine when I smiled. They came to know my tells, and I, theirs. We sat on the couch, side by side, my new friends and I. And I realised, that though I was far from home, friends could become kin — we’re water rippling in the same river. Going, growing, flowing.