in his latest advice column, writer and editor Mason Currey responds to a message from a writer with post-project depression, who describes it as:

“I sit around for much too long, worried I’ll never make anything again, fearful that there is nothing left in my creative brain, terrified I’m a failure.”

having just completed a big writing goal in December before swiftly falling into a confused, January-flavored fog, i’m all ears.

Currey curates a range of advice from painter Helen Frankenthaler to psychiatrist Carl Jung to actor Daniel Day-Lewis. which is so great because, arguably, the most reassuring advice you can give someone is: “you are not alone in this.”

(it’s also reminiscent of the work he does in his spectacular book Daily Rituals, which catalogues the routines of inspired minds throughout history, highlighting their idiosyncrasies and drawing out the universal themes.)

in the end, i love what Currey says about the impulse to label these fallow periods “self-indulgent angst:”

“That’s like telling someone who just finished a marathon, and who’s standing on the side of the road huddled in one of those reflective silver space blankets, sipping from a paper cup of water and eating a sad little banana, ‘Hey, bud, stop slacking off and get started on your next race already, will ya?!?!’”

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