In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot — and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.

—David Bayles

Thank you to all who joined Second Sunday yesterday! Below is the replay and notes. Our next session will be on Sunday, August 9—topic TBA.

As mentioned on the call, Starting this Thursday, July 16, I’m hosting biweekly cowriting sessions from 12-1:15 pm ET. Bring whatever you’re working on, we’ll write for an hour, and then connect afterward for 15 mins (no obligation). I’ll drop the Zoom link into our chat a couple of hours before we start.

This is the beginning of building a more formal Writers Group here at Love Story.

Open to all paid subscribers.

Quotes

• “In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot — and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.” —David Bayles, Art & Fear

• “So, yeah—here’s a trick: Stop complaining. First of all, it’s annoying. Every artist complains, so it’s a dead and boring topic. Second, of course it’s difficult to create things; if it wasn’t difficult, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t be special or interesting.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

• I told the universe (and anyone who would listen) that I was committed to living a creative life not in order to save the world, not as an act of protest, not to become famous, not to gain entrance to the canon, not to challenge the system, not to show the bastards, not to prove to my family that I was worthy, not as a form of deep therapeutic emotional catharsis…but simply because I liked it. So try saying this: ‘I enjoy by creativity.’” —Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

• I also read a long excerpt from the introduction Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life to underscore the tremendous effort and uncertainty inherent to the writing process

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In the meantime, I think we’ll continue to focus on various aspects of writing in upcoming Second Sunday meetings. Paid subscribers get access to all live calls and recordings.

Writing Is a Way to Interact With Our Longings

This month, I wanted to focus on writing as a way to connect to, better understand, work with, and—for some of us—even satisfy our longings. I’ve been thinking about the concept of longing for some time, and about four months ago, after a massive download about my book, realized it’s the core theme of it.

The word longing comes from the Old English verb langian or longian, meaning both “to grow long” and “to yearn for.” Historically, it paints a physical picture of the soul stretching out, or extending itself, toward something that is distant or missing—an extension of time or space, like reaching across a distance.

Writing is a way to interact with our longings. I believe this is the core of why I do it—and for some of us, the act of writing itself is a distinct longing. Sometimes the satisfaction comes from the act of expression itself—getting as close as we can to putting language to an experience, and in that process creating a new understanding, an integration, or digestion of the thing. And then, of course, there’s the transmission from writer to reader, which feeds our need for connection and understanding.

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To join future Second Sunday gatherings, become a paid subscriber.

Highlights

• 12:00 min - Does the urge to drink ever creep back in long-term recovery? After celebrating 5 years, one member reflected on the discomfort that can resurface even after years. We discussed that recovery requires consistent tending, the way anything that matters does (a relationship, our bodies, our mental health). As time goes on, we forget how hard it was, the urgency fades. That’s why staying connected (not just in emergencies, but regularly) makes all the difference.

• 42:00 - Does sobriety ever stop feeling so consuming? And do I get tired of talking about it? Short answer: yes, it does get less consuming, and yes, I have become tired at various points. This was a fun one to answer.

• 48:00 - Being sober through a brutal breakup. One member shared that she’s just days out from ending a relationship, and the waves of pain are brutal. I felt this, being a couple of years out from my own devastating breakup. (We love you, Erin.)

• 54:00 - How do you shift from sobriety as a goal to sobriety as a life? Someone approaching her one-year mark asked what to do when that first year milestone energy disappears. There’s no formula, but the short answer: you do it because you have to.

• 1:09 - How do you stay sober when your partner still drinks? One member talked about navigating almost a year of sobriety while living with a drinking spouse. Her approach: detachment, not management, not being the alcohol police, doing her own thing. The room affirmed it — trying to manage someone else’s drinking doesn’t work, and protecting your own sobriety is the job.

A few things mentioned:

• The Luckiest Club is currently enrolling for summer programs for sobriety support. The Sober 90 is for the early days, The Sober Steady is for the middle stretch where motivation fades and things start to get hard, and The Sober Life is focused on emotional sobriety.

• My Push Off From Here retreat at Kripalu in October is sold out, but you can attend virtually, AND there’s another one in the works.

• A TLC sobriety-focused retreat is in the works for April 9–11, 2027 at Kripalu in Stockbridge, MA—details coming soon.

• The novel Yesteryear—the current #1 NYT fiction bestseller, dark and smart, and possibly the seed of a future Love Story C

  ook club! (I was up in the middle of the night thinking about this!!!!)

Watch The Replay

Listen

Love,
Laura

P.S. I am going to run my 10-week Book Proposal Lab course once more this year. If you’re serious about writing a non-fiction book and interested in the course, please weigh in one what date you prefer.

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

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