43 | Find The Courage To Be Honest In Your Creativity with Heather Havrilesky

Create Out Loud With Jennifer Louden

Has your work ever been greeted by a firestorm of furiously polarized tweets, both in fierce support and rampant opposition to what you have to say? In addition to being scathingly funny, bitingly honest, and sharply observant, author, essayist, and humorist Heather Havrilesky's work has always been provocative. And her latest memoir, Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage does not disappoint.

By writing honestly (and hilariously) about motherhood, marriage, and the contemporary female experience, Heather has amassed passionate supporters (Jen among them), in addition to nasty critics. But at the end of the day, shouldn't that be our chief aim as artists? In this episode, Jen and Heather unpack HOW creatives can truly get to the root of honesty in our work, so we too can inspire our audience.

• How Heather handles negativity and misreading of her work
• Sometimes the beauty of writing is learning how you feel on the page
• Writing honestly to accept what you’re made of
• Readers can see through everything so you’re better off being honest
• How the editorial process of her latest memoir helped her grow closer to her husband
• Why Jen was afraid to ask Heather to be on the podcast
• How self-acceptance feeds your creativity
• The form and structure of Foreverland, and how it shifted from a collection of essays to a narrative experience
• How Heather has navigated her career and why she feels like she’s just starting to take her writing more seriously, 25+ years in
• Taking an experimental approach to writing and learning as she goes
• Writing about and for women with more and more madness and freedom over time
• Can you stand behind your work?
• Comparing yourself to people you admire and professional envy

Visit jenniferlouden.com/podcastkit to get instant access to a collection of audios that will:

• help you with some of the most common struggles we creatives have to manage including fear of choosing,
• falling into compare and despair, managing the inner critic (s),
• and feeling too exposed and vulnerable when you put yourself or your work into the world.