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The Release: Creativity and Freedom After the Writing Is Done
The release is the stage when writers share the soul of their project—its gift. Here’s how to thrive and best serve your work once the writing is done.
In The Release, award-winning author and teacher Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew invites writers to lift their heads out of the product-oriented sandbox and find an alternative way to play. By returning writers to their original delight and guiding them in an ongoing creative practice, Andrew helps form habits of mind, heart, and body to support a project’s final flourishing, free from the burdens of seeking validation and measuring worth.
With the same skill and compassion she brought to her other resources for writers—Writing the Sacred The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir and Living A Writer's Craft as Spiritual Practice—Andrew writes with deep empathy for the emotional journey when a work is done, through celebration and grief, decisions around publication, the angst of receiving negative feedback or rejection, and the sometimes surprising challenges that come with success.
Anyone—amateurs and professionals alike, those who intend to publish and those who do not, those with book-length manuscripts and those with haiku written on paper scraps—can do this practice. This book is for anyone who wants to release their work with love.
In The Release, award-winning author and teacher Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew invites writers to lift their heads out of the product-oriented sandbox and find an alternative way to play. By returning writers to their original delight and guiding them in an ongoing creative practice, Andrew helps form habits of mind, heart, and body to support a project’s final flourishing, free from the burdens of seeking validation and measuring worth.
With the same skill and compassion she brought to her other resources for writers—Writing the Sacred The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir and Living A Writer's Craft as Spiritual Practice—Andrew writes with deep empathy for the emotional journey when a work is done, through celebration and grief, decisions around publication, the angst of receiving negative feedback or rejection, and the sometimes surprising challenges that come with success.
Anyone—amateurs and professionals alike, those who intend to publish and those who do not, those with book-length manuscripts and those with haiku written on paper scraps—can do this practice. This book is for anyone who wants to release their work with love.
- GenresWritingNonfiction
288 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2024
2 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
8 books142 followersHello, fellow readers! I'm using Goodreads to track my reading, to find like-minded book-lovers who want to share titles, and to connect with readers of my books. Feel free to follow my reviews or become a virtual friend.
As a writer, I'm passionate about creating stories that nourish the soul. I love exploring how faith functions, both inside and outside of religious traditions, and depicting the life of the Spirit at our culture's margins.
As a writer, I'm passionate about creating stories that nourish the soul. I love exploring how faith functions, both inside and outside of religious traditions, and depicting the life of the Spirit at our culture's margins.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 17, 2024
An insightful, inspiring guide for writers who want to think deeply about their work in the world
*Highly recommended for any writers considering how they will put their writing out in the world and also for anyone in publishing who is willing to question the industry's driving forces.*
This book offers wisdom, encouragement, and challenging questions to any writer trying to decide what to do with their writing. Incorporating insights and lessons from her many years of experience as a writer and a teacher of writers, Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew digs into the conflicting forces that face creative individuals who yearn to reach an audience and have their work make a difference. She directly addresses the way a writer's publishing experience—whether deemed a success or a failure—can damage the creative spirit.
The author boldly offers an alternative approach to the conventional view that publishing with the goal of commercial success is the highest goal of a writer. Citing Lewis Hyde and Robin Wall Kimmerer, she argues that the gift economy is a life-giving model for writers and shows how the core exchanges within it counteract the destructiveness of capitalism.
She proposes that the gift of creativity must move to be fully realized. As she explains, "Aliveness in our art is synonymous with its movement." She urges writers to nurture the gift, with specific guidance in chapters like "Give Thanks," "Exercise Integrity," and "Form Community."
And yet she is also realistic about the nature of being an artist in a capitalist economy. She highlights the situation of those who are marginalized in society as well as commercial publishing, and acknowledges how they can't afford to ignore the market economy. She encourages writers to find a way to balance the opposing forces of the market and gift economies, so that "the market supports the artist without destroying the gift."
Her book challenges the status quo of the publishing industry, elevates the heart and soul of the writer as the adjudicator of what is valuable in artistic effort, and ultimately celebrates the power of the creative gift to transform both the writer and the reader.
The Release will inspire and encourage writers who want to grapple with their deepest desires as well as fears—it guides them to discern their own moral vision for their creative work. The book also challenges the conventional wisdom of the publishing industry and all those who believe that commercial success is the best measure of a writer's value.
*Highly recommended for any writers considering how they will put their writing out in the world and also for anyone in publishing who is willing to question the industry's driving forces.*
This book offers wisdom, encouragement, and challenging questions to any writer trying to decide what to do with their writing. Incorporating insights and lessons from her many years of experience as a writer and a teacher of writers, Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew digs into the conflicting forces that face creative individuals who yearn to reach an audience and have their work make a difference. She directly addresses the way a writer's publishing experience—whether deemed a success or a failure—can damage the creative spirit.
The author boldly offers an alternative approach to the conventional view that publishing with the goal of commercial success is the highest goal of a writer. Citing Lewis Hyde and Robin Wall Kimmerer, she argues that the gift economy is a life-giving model for writers and shows how the core exchanges within it counteract the destructiveness of capitalism.
She proposes that the gift of creativity must move to be fully realized. As she explains, "Aliveness in our art is synonymous with its movement." She urges writers to nurture the gift, with specific guidance in chapters like "Give Thanks," "Exercise Integrity," and "Form Community."
And yet she is also realistic about the nature of being an artist in a capitalist economy. She highlights the situation of those who are marginalized in society as well as commercial publishing, and acknowledges how they can't afford to ignore the market economy. She encourages writers to find a way to balance the opposing forces of the market and gift economies, so that "the market supports the artist without destroying the gift."
Her book challenges the status quo of the publishing industry, elevates the heart and soul of the writer as the adjudicator of what is valuable in artistic effort, and ultimately celebrates the power of the creative gift to transform both the writer and the reader.
The Release will inspire and encourage writers who want to grapple with their deepest desires as well as fears—it guides them to discern their own moral vision for their creative work. The book also challenges the conventional wisdom of the publishing industry and all those who believe that commercial success is the best measure of a writer's value.
October 1, 2024
The process of releasing a book or other creative work is not always easy, comfortable, or unmixed celebration and fulfillment. As I've experienced myself, there are feelings of anxiety, insecurity, conflict, and disappointment when a book or other creative work is released to the public. And there can also be difficult feelings surrounding work that can’t be released for some reason. What to do with these emotions, in a healthy creative process?
Andrew invites us to reframe writing as a gift and to consider ways the gift needs to move — whether it’s out into the world, or into and through the soul of the writer. She asserts that creativity does not end when the writing is done, but enters a new phase that can nourish and stimulate us just as much as the process of generating and revising work does. And she offers a wealth of practical suggestions as to how to encourage that to happen. This book has already made a difference in my own writing process, and I look forward to revisiting its principles with every new project, to help re-orient me in the direction of gratitude, abundance, and joy.
Andrew invites us to reframe writing as a gift and to consider ways the gift needs to move — whether it’s out into the world, or into and through the soul of the writer. She asserts that creativity does not end when the writing is done, but enters a new phase that can nourish and stimulate us just as much as the process of generating and revising work does. And she offers a wealth of practical suggestions as to how to encourage that to happen. This book has already made a difference in my own writing process, and I look forward to revisiting its principles with every new project, to help re-orient me in the direction of gratitude, abundance, and joy.
February 23, 2025
Highly recommend for anyone who writes a book and then struggles with it’s release to the world in any way.
August 30, 2025
The insight, wisdom and understanding that the author brings to the creative process is extraordinary. In this recent work EJA uses a visualization of creative writing as a generous gift. There are sections on Intention and Practice with valuable prompts, reflection questions and quotations. This book itself is a gift worth sharing with every writer you know.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews