From the Wellspring

On sending a book out into the dark

Dear Living Dark reader,

Writing at the Wellspring is out in the world today.

A book about writing, yes, but also about inner guidance, the daemon muse, struggles with inertia and silence, the tension between spirituality and creative expression, understanding block and Resistance, aligning with the very axis of cosmic creation, and uncovering your deep purpose so that you can live meaningfully in a collapsing world.

At heart, it’s about what it means to live and create without a script—living and writing “into the dark”—in an age of perpetual noise and distraction that demands constant performance and certainty.

BookLife from Publishers Weekly describes it as “an intimate journey into the mystery of creativity and spirit.” Joanna Penn calls it “a guide for writers who welcome the dark and hunger for meaning.” JF Martel calls it “a guide for writers unlike any other.” Kat (Katrijn) Van Oudheusden says it’s “important to any writer ready to see through the self illusion and realize the freedom this brings to any creative work.” Clintavo finds it “the most illuminating book on creativity I’ve read in a long time.” Amanda Saint says, “If you’re seeking permission to trust the dark unknown that guides your work, and your way of being in the world, this book offers profound companionship on that journey.” Some of the readers who encountered the book in its earliest form in the course I taught from the pre-publication manuscript last year — an audience of writers, artists, educators, and more — found it “revolutionary,” “the perfect book for this moment in my life,” and “a gift to anyone with a core creative longing.”

One of my favorite musical or creative works anywhere in the world, Blue Öyster Cult’s Imaginos, speaks at one point of “a disease with a long incubation.” The same principle (minus, I hope the pathological framing) definitely applies here. This book grew slowly, as you know if you’ve been with me here for a while. Some of Wellspring’s content was adapted from the earliest posts that I published here in 2022, with other parts coming from more recent Living Dark essays. It also includes material from private journal entries that I wrote decades ago. It’s been nearly two years since I invoked your help in coming up with a title for the project. Victoria Nelson, in her darkly glorious The Secret Life of Puppets, states cryptically that the book evolved into a “Lovecraftian entity” during the long years it took her to birth it. All my books have had long gestational and creation periods, but the gestation and birth of Wellspring was unlike any other. Maybe I understand Victoria’s meaning from the inside more sharply now than I did before.

And about that disease with a long incubation: As I told the 30 or so people who attended yesterday’s online launch party at Weirdosphere, Wellspring finally came together in a volcanic rush in the summer of 2024 when, after several months during which I knew a book was forming but could only dimly discern its desired shape, I was knocked off my feet by my first-ever case of COVID-19. This brought about two weeks of seclusion during which I was sicker than I had ever been in my adult life, unable to speak (because of laryngitis—also a first for me), and reduced to near total external inactivity, just sitting or lying down in a fog of malaise. In his classic interview “Triangulating the Daemon,” Thomas Ligotti, when asked if he has any particular muse, replied, “Yes. Sickness of the body and the mind.” On the former count, at least (sickness of the body), I have now experienced the visitation of that particular creative spirit. During those two weeks of illness, and for the two to three weeks afterward, the book’s outline became clear, a torrent of creative energy began to pour through me, and the thing wrote and assembled itself like dark lightning. All the editorial shaping I did on it in the months afterward was just a cosmetic retouching of something that had largely delivered itself whole.

Thank you to everyone who has read along here, joined conversations, attended the launch gathering, or quietly followed this project from the margins for however long you’ve been present. I’m grateful to send this one out.

By the way, if I recall correctly, in all my quarter century of writing and publishing books, I have never once directly asked for reviews. Writing at the Wellspring is my first journey into self-publishing after having always gone the traditional route, and I’m told that reviews now matter in ways they once didn’t. I’ll simply say this: If you find value in the book and feel moved to say so publicly, I’m grateful. And if not, I trust that the book will reach whoever it needs to reach. Maybe you’re one of those readers.

If you’ve felt called toward your work but unsure how to proceed…

If you’ve sensed that creativity is bound up with something spiritual, or even existential…

If you’ve suspected that silence itself might be part of the work…

If you wonder whether your creative impulse can have any meaning in a world of titanic upheaval where the very desire to write or make art can seem pathetically marginal and self-centered—

then this book may be meant for you.

Thank you again for being part of this. You can find Writing at the Wellspring wherever books are sold.

Warm regards,

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“[An] intimate journey into the mystery of creativity and spirit… Cardin weaves practical methods, personal stories, literary references, and mystical insights into a lyrical meditation on what it means to create from the depths of the soul… both deeply personal and universally resonant.” — BookLife review (Publishers Weekly)

“A guide for writers who welcome the dark and hunger for meaning.
— Joanna Penn

“I can’t think of any [other books] that link the creative act so uniquely or persuasively with spirituality.”
— Victoria Nelson

“A meditation on the silence and darkness out of which all creative acts emerge....A guide for writers unlike any other.”
— J. F. Martel

“Important to any writer ready to see through the self illusion and realize the freedom this brings to any creative work.”
— Katrijn van Oudheusden

Available from all the major bookstores—Amazon, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, more—in paperback and electronic editions