Why and how I write about creative practice

Exploring dedication vs. devotion and the cycle of the ouroboros

Welcome to SEE YOU—a companion for artists and thinkers with practical ideas, inspiration, and reflections on living an intentional creative life.

Craving writing clarity and companionship this spring? I invite you to join my writing group Ouroboros, which starts April 15. Today’s post is a free preview of the topics we’ll explore together in the group container!

Engaging in a creative act and writing about it are deeply intertwined practices to me. Though I create art in multiple mediums, writing has always been the most foundational practice that guides my awareness and direction.

This self-referential process of creation, documentation, and reflection reminds me of the ouroboros.

We Live in Cycles, 2025

An ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a snake (or sometimes a dragon) eating its own tail. The symbol is a circle, a never-ending loop that is often interpreted as the cycle of life.

I first learned about the ouroboros symbol at my engineering job. (Bear with me while I pull out my tech jargon…) Our frontend system had an “ouroboros error” that surfaced when an embedded iframe was trying to redirect to the external page, causing an unending loop of an infinite redirect. This example is an ouroboros gone wrong, forever trapped in a recursive state that consumes itself and endlessly recycles the same input and output.

But the ouroboros is not inherently a bad thing. The cycle represents transformation led through the self, digesting what it has created for itself and birthing new creations from that nourishment. By eating itself the snake is engaging in an alchemical process, integrating its lived experience and generating another version of itself.

Here’s what the ouroboros lifecycle looks like:

GENERATION → PROCESS → INTEGRATION → GENERATION

Commonly in creative practice we see others’ creations (generation) and process (documentation). The integration is often invisible, held privately in diaries and conversations with peers.

Why write about creative practice?

I publicly write about my creative practice because I am most fascinated by the integration phase. Writing is my way of integration, and without it I feel like an untethered balloon floating in a cloudy sky. If I don’t write, I don’t know where I’m going or why I’m creating.

When I do write, I am finally closing my fangs and starting to chew. I eat my creations from the past so they can be fertilized into new seeds, ready to be birthed into the next project. I pay attention to what felt easeful and what felt sticky. I jot down questions I want to linger on and others that I’m ready to say goodbye to. From this reflective process, the new shape of myself and my next creative act starts to take form.

In the spirit of embracing this full cycle through writing about creative practice, I named my forthcoming writing group Ouroboros. If you are an artist craving to write more, I invite you to join and discover the alchemical process of writing and reflection.

I want to write…now what?

Recently I vowed to blog on my website more often as a way of being “quietly public”.¹ I have consistently written this newsletter for years, so I am not a stranger to my writing process. But now that I have more spaciousness in my schedule, I feel ready to build my stamina and publish more than once a week.

As I consider this shift in my writing practice, I wondered whether I wanted to approach it with dedication or devotion. These two words have subtle differences in attentional quality that can shift how one engages with their writing practice.

PHASE 1: DEDICATION

When I first started to take my desire to write seriously, I thought in terms of goals and craft. I dedicated myself to the practice of writing.

I tracked the number of words I wrote every day, took classes and workshops, and read widely to understand what goes into good books and sentences. Diligence was the name of the game: steady, earnest effort towards a writing project.

While taking various workshops I started many writing projects that I still cherish today. I wrote essays, short stories, and even started a novel about a K-pop idol turned recluse. At the start of the pandemic I tried my best to uphold my dedicated efforts, writing 750 words every morning before starting my day job.

Dedication appealed to me because it spoke a language I understood. I could operate on a rigid schedule; the academic and corporate worlds trained me to do so. But as the pandemic dragged on and my mental health started tanking, writing my novel was no longer tenable. I found no enjoyment in the process of writing beyond checking off completed word counts.

Eight of Pentacles (Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck)

The dedicated, disciplined approach is represented in the tarot card Eight of Pentacles. The man hammers away making coins, steadily working in concentration. He appears completely focused on his task, no question in his head that he will continue to work until the work is complete.

There are many times in our creative practice when we need to work this way. Dedication is needed to carry the messy middle of a project into completion. I also believe it’s truly helpful to begin establishing a writing practice. Even a small “sprint” of writing 500 words every day for a week will do wonders in building up a writing habit.

But there are times we need to shift away from dedication into a more spiritual, heartfelt practice to remember why we wish to create at all.

PHASE 2: DEVOTION

When dedicating to a practice feels too heavy, rigid, or deadening, devotion extends her hand and offers a different path.

When I fell out of love with all of my writing projects in 2020, I turned to SEE YOU as my main writing container. I had initially started this newsletter project to document my weekly progress with The Artist’s Way, but wasn’t sure what to do with it once I completed the twelve week program.

“What if I show up and write to listen to myself, to discover what I want to say?”

This became my guiding question as I opened up the text editor every other week, writing a short essay to my fifty subscribers. I wrote about a variety of topics including K-pop and my family, social media anxiety, and humanity as part of nature. Each post comprised of whatever I was most fascinated with exploring at the time.

Through these newsletter essays I became more and more devoted to the act of writing. Rather than writing to actualize a project idea, I wrote to discover and clarify questions I had of myself and of the world.

Page of Pentacles (Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck)

In tarot, I consider the card of devotion to be the Page of Pentacles. Here is another man, but he is not caught in the work grind. He holds a coin with tenderness and fascination. There is real curiosity in his eyes, and he is grounded in body and nature as he tends to this attention.

Quiz time: Do I need dedication or devotion?

Dedication and devotion make a cyclical process, much like the ouroboros that feeds on itself. Applying yourself to a goal or a project with dedication will feed your love and devotion for the practice. And devoting to the practice in a curious, spacious way will allow your dedicated efforts to proceed more smoothly and joyfully.

To determine whether you need dedication or devotion in your current writing or creative practice, ask yourself the following:

• Am I craving spaciousness (A) or structure (B)?

• Am I discovering what I want to create (A) or am I committed to a project/goal (B)?

• If I were to read a book about my creative practice, would I reach for an inspirational book (A) or a how-to craft book (B)?

• When my project stalls, do I want to take a beat and let it breathe (A) or recommit quickly (B)?

• When I imagine my ideal writing session, am I exploring without clear sight of the destination (A) or making measurable progress (B)?

If you picked more A’s, you’re leaning towards devotion. If you picked more B’s, you’re craving more dedication.

Whichever result you get in this tiny quiz, see how it lands in your body. If you feel disappointed by the answer, it may not be the right one. But if you feel resistance with a hint of possibility, it’s usually a sign that you’re on the right path to grow in your practice.

Today’s post on dedication vs. devotion is the first in a series of topics in Ouroboros, my upcoming 7 week writing group for artists.

Applications for the spring 2026 season are open until April 5 midnight. All types of artists and writing levels are welcome. The first season is priced at $225. Need-based scholarships are available, and paid subscribers receive 10% off.

Please don’t be scared off by the application—it’s a short form meant to get to know you and your practice! To discover more about Ouroboros and apply, head here.

1. Today’s newsletter combines two blog posts I wrote over the past week!