Stepping Off Now: Lessons in the Art and Craft of Creativity
Stepping Off Now is a podcast about how to live your creative best life. I’m Kendra, a social scientist and writer. I spent decades feeling creatively unfulfilled while I pursued conventional life goals, culminating in severe burnout that took years to recover from. This podcast chronicles my journey in real time as I find my way home to my essential creative self. I discuss topics like harnessing the intuitive creative process, using creativity to manage mental health, and sorting through all the external pressures and expectations to figure out what YOU really want. My hope is that you’ll find inspiration and solace here. You are not alone, and you are stronger and wiser than you know! You can find out more by visiting my website, kendrapatterson.com.
Episodes
170 episodes
E167. Interview Episode! Featuring Kristin Kisska, Author of The Hint of Light
Note: my microphone wasn't working properly for the interview portion of this episode; I apologize for the less-than-ideal sound quality of my parts.At last the long-awaited first installment of my author interview series! KRIST...
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1:08:23
E166. Maintaining Motivation for Creative Work in Challenging Seasons
Here in Florida our challenging season is summer--it's both broiling hot and rainy. My backyard turns into a literal swamp. It can be hard to maintain motivation for our creative work when the weather and climate are so uncomfortable. Maybe in ...
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22:40
E165. How Doing Art Constitutes Resistance
As I contemplate ways I can resist against the forces of chaos and cruelty holding sway in society, I am sometimes dismayed by my own limits. But I am not utterly powerless. In this episode I discuss the many ways in which doing art can be a fo...
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27:51
E164. Is the Ability to Make Choices More Important to Art than Creativity?
Beyond passion, skill, and commitment, there is another quality that defines what it is to be an artist: the ability to make choices in your art and follow through on them. In this episode I contemplate how being stuck in art (and life) is ofte...
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20:43
E163. A New Theory of Talent
I've long thought that talent is the least important ingredient in artistic success (however you define that). The further I get in my writing career, the less it seems to matter whether I have any "natural" talent. What matters is consistent a...
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28:55
E162. Creative Practice and the Artist's Illusion
In which I share my thoughts on how creative practice helps us handle the often difficult conditions of the artist's life: how long and hard we have to work to establish ourselves, the mental health struggles many of us face, and the competitio...
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33:06
E161. What Taking on a Second Creative Practice Has Taught Me (+ Some Thoughts on Disruption)
I recently added a second creative practice to my roster of creative activities: watercolor painting. While I definitely felt ready for this big step, it has nonetheless served as a disruption in my life and to my understanding of the role of c...
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26:35
E160. Learning to Use Conceptual Tools as an Intuitive Creative: Is It Possible?
Creatives and artists can be roughly divided into two types: intuitive and conceptual. Many do successfully combine both styles, but I have never been able to. I am a strongly intuitive writer and have historically failed at incorporating conce...
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34:52
E159. What Role Do Artists Play in Society? It May Not Be What You Think
As the wheel of history lurches forward I've been thinking about what role I play in society as an artist. What do I contribute? How can I make a positive difference? Typically this kind of discussion focuses on the artist's art, but I've taken...
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26:21
E158. Interview Episode! What Health Looks Like Through the Lens of Creative Practice
In a twist on a classic interview episode, in this one friend of the pod Ann Wainscott returns to interview someone herself! Links from this episode:Switched on Pop's Madonna episode
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1:01:56
E157. Finding Psychological Safety in a Tumultuous World as a Sensitive Creative
When you are a highly sensitive gentle soul, the chaos and cruelty of the world can feel unbearable at times. How are we to protect ourselves while still engaging? In this episode I discuss this in light of my own thoughts on the recent US elec...
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30:04
E156. How I Learned to Take Myself Less Seriously...and More Seriously
Have you ever been told you take yourself too seriously? I heard this all the time growing up. And it was both right...and wrong. In this episode I discuss how I held myself back from reaching for my creative dreams both by taking myself too se...
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25:54
E155. Why You Really Really REALLY Shouldn't Listen to Advice (*With Some Exceptions)
I wasted years of my life following other people's advice about how I should be writing novels and developing my creative practice, and it mostly failed me. So finally I decided to chuck it all out the window, go against the grain, and listen t...
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49:49
E154. Does Structure Constrain or Free Us?
I am using my current project, novel #2, to master plot, my weakest area as a writer. In the past, I've been ambivalent and even felt antipathy toward applying commercial and Western-style plot structures to my novels, because I felt they const...
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30:51
E153. Preliminary Thoughts on Being a Neurodivergent Creative
In this episode I discuss my recent diagnosis of being neurodivergent, including why I pursued a formal diagnosis, what it entails, and its relationship to creativity and my art.
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33:48
E152. Are the Things We Suck At Actually Special Talents in Disguise?
With novel #1 winding its way toward publication (hopefully), I have officially begun work on novel #2...and I've realized I will have to approach writing it in an entirely different way. Not only that, I'm going to have to use a technique I ha...
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24:44
E151. When All You Have Is a Drum... Play
I'm not really sure how to summarize this episode, y'all...but you'll want to listen!Contact me
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20:35
E150. The OG Society Thought Experiment: Why and How We Share Our Art
Sometimes it can be difficult to see how our own societies and cultures influence us. I have this trick I use to help reveal some of those hidden influences that I call the OG Society Thought Experiment. I imagine how a small pre-capitalist "or...
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26:16
E149. Are Big Dreams Bad for Us? Learning to Not Miss the Stars
In this episode I take stock of where I am in my creative journey as I contemplate what lies beyond the dreams we hold for ourselves. Are dreams holding us back? Do they ultimately make our lives less happy and satisfying?
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22:08
E148. Looking for Your Lights in the Dark
Notice: The Kishōtenketsu Workshop I am doing with Andy Mort is coming up next week! You can find more info and sign up a this link. In this episode I discuss two women I've ...
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30:33
E147. In Search of Continuities in Our Artistic Identity
I recently discovered a notebook filled with poetry I wrote thirty (!) years ago, and in one fell swoop it reconfigured my understanding of myself as an artist. In this episode I contemplate the threads that define who we are as artists that we...
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33:12
E146. In Which I Read My Short Story "The Trash House"
In summer I like to mix it up on this podcast, so I decided to share some of my short stories. "The Trash House" is a women-centered retooling of the Japanese Kitsune (fox) folklore. Enjoy!
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42:28
E145. Re-Envisioning the Creative Journey through the Kishotenketsu Lens
Last episode I discussed the "conflict free" Japanese Kishotenketsu storytelling framework as a gentler alternative to the Western-style Hero's Journey. In this one I contrast the two as lenses through which we can interpret our creative lives....
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36:02
E144. Special Release: The Calming Effects of Kishotenketsu Narrative Structure
I'm dealing with some personal life stuff right now and so dug into my Patreon archive for an episode for you all today! In this one I discuss the Japanese (and more broadly Asian) narrative structure called Kishotenketsu. This is generally see...
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38:56
E143: The Writing Conference and Live Pitching Experience
Last week I made the trek down to Tampa to attend a writer's conference and live pitch my novel to two agents! This type of experience can be overwhelming for creatives who are highly sensitive or have other types of sensory processing co...
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36:09