Letters for Creatives #19: Work-life integration and mental wellness

You are taking a risk if you are not taking care of yourself

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Hello, I am Celeste. Each week I write about marketing, creativity and writing. You can read the first and second interview for the Interview with an artist series.

Get inspired to write with January prompts here and have a chance to get your writing featured in a future newsletter after you sign up. You can read the archive as well.

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A mysterious group do these things to get inspired

Image: Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

Being able to not think about writing for 2 weeks is incredible. I am not going to lie. It gives me much more space to think, instead of panicking about what to write about next. The quality of the newsletter went down with all these links. I do not particularly like writing these posts with all the links in it. It does not feel right.

I could not change that since I either was interacting on social media, finding resources for you, thinking about or writing the newsletter. It takes away all the time where I do nothing and create. The last time I wrote poetry feels so distinct to me.

Importance of priority

This is when priority becomes important.

Which project do you want to finish first? Put more time in that project. You cannot have it all. Limit your time on social media if you have important projects. You can always go back and catch up. Again, you cannot catch up on everything if you follow more than 600 accounts. Try your best and do not feel guilty. All these advice are for me but also for you if you are burnt out.

I am fascinated by how work will evolve in the future and how ads captivate my attention. It is inspiring to see companies evolve and take employees mental wellness into account.

Future of work

This podcast on the future of work is incredible. Reza Saeedi had a great chat with Nick de Wilde on the future of work. It is so fascinating to hear what others think about the topic. If you are interested in the topic, definitely give it a listen.

This lecture by Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull is about how Pixar and other companies work to succeed. It requires a lot of things but having people who work well together is the main component that makes the company a success.

Catmull said that we should copy bad products and make them better, instead of copying the great ones. It reminds me of this James Bond ad that Peter McKinnon did. Even though the ad is great but I think McKinnon made it more dramatic for an ad. McKinnon is a master of making short films and I am fascinated by every short film he made.

At the end of the lecture, Catmull pointed out that something revolutionary happens when artists and technicians work together. It creates something new when you collaborate with someone from a different industry.

Featured poem

I released January prompts in December. Emily wrote an incredible piece using my prompt ‘awareness, growth, purpose, responsibility and forgiveness - peridot’. There is no capitalization and a full stop at the end of the prose as she intended to show the piece this way.

It is incredible to know that people get inspired by my prompts. Check out Emily’s work if you like her poem below. Looking forward to reading more poems or prose inspired by the prompts from you.

If voices had colours

you would have a silky golden voice, liquid to touch like sunlight glowing in the summer golden hours between strands of hair and trailing off as dusk settles against the tarmac

her voice would look like the glistening white of the first snowfall, cracking ice on a Canadian pond, the rustle of a wedding dress laced with hope and the squeak of cheese against her new teeth

his voice is made of beige hotel walls, bare trees whispering and snapping in the winter wind and rasping with cigarettes from the pack on the mantelpiece

her voice ages like fine red wine, full of berries and oak, rich until death and fragility makes her voice as ragged as the threadbare red kitchen rug, the tassels no longer demonstrate fancy finery

they had a truth which rumbled with purpose in peridot tones, forgiving sins and relinquishing responsibilities in a green reserved for dawn, for olives, for natural and unnatural stones

you will have a voice flooded by African violet petals, so small and so vibrant, you are full of growth and you put down roots immediately, you are so full of ideas.

Sign up for free if you want your poem or prose to be featured in a future newsletter issue, get a free poetry book Magic in the Mundane and a playlist for your writing sessions.

Hope you are well.

P.S. Soon, A New Day is available now. It is a collection of poetry, short stories, essays and memoirs around the center theme of new beginnings, rebirth and rising Phoenix. It is my honour to be a part of this anthology among other great writers. Hope that you like the book and leave a review if you want. It means a lot. Thank you.

Until next time,

Celeste

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Published in Soon, A New Day anthology | Capsized anthology

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Related:

Tips to arrange your time when you are a writer or artist

A mysterious group do these things to get inspired

Set intention with your time

Thank you for reading. Which kind of content do you like the most?

Issue that focuses on one topic

Issue that has tips and resource that I find

Interview with an artist

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