Unpublished

Welcome to the Jamesy and Amsy Q&A, in which we discuss high school romance, creative chemistry, business roles, blurred boundaries, editorial bluntness, Steam Deck timing, Space Story, travel chaos, alternative careers, and whether an ibis is from Egypt. It is not. We checked.
We talk about what it’s really like to work with your spouse when one of you is a vibes guy and the other is building probability models in his head. We get into how we make creative decisions, why we text each other business thoughts even when we’re in the same building, why travel wrecks our routines, and why collaboration can be both the greatest joy and the hardest part of our relationship.

Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

This episode is about saying: no, I cannot come to coffee at 12pm just because my calendar looks technically empty. I am busy being available to my art.
We talk about creative devotion, guilt, boundaries, people-pleasing, small business weirdness, the fact that no one understands what we do all day, and why creative labour often looks like wandering around, reading, staring into space, going to the gym, walking, thinking, resting, tinkering and occasionally fucking up.
We also discuss why people respect a traditional job more than a creative life, why devotion before success looks delusional, why you should not have to be Charli XCX before people leave you alone, and why artists may need to become just a little bit more diva-ish about the conditions their work requires.
Your creative time is not free time. Your art is allowed to come first.
Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

Welcome to the Creative Help Hotline. How can we help you?
In this Q&A episode, we answer your questions about being exhausted by muggle life, creating through depression and anxiety, losing momentum, comparing yourself to other artists, wondering why your family has not become your personal fan club, whether you need a degree to make art, how to make money from creative work, and whether success means you will be crushed under the admin boulder forever.
We also discuss a new alternative to the bare minimum strategy we have been married to, celiac superiority, making your own MFA, true fans, intuitive marketing, and remembering your power when gatekeepers start acting like they own your life.
Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

In this episode, we ask a strange and sincere question: could art help cure the manosphere?
We talk about lonely men, alpha influencers, Andrew Tate, online rage, economic hopelessness, shame, identity, patriarchy, creativity, and why so many young men are being sold power by people who are profit from their pain. We explore the idea that the manosphere gives men a poisonous identity, while creativity could offer them something better: community, vulnerability, agency, emotional range, progress, purpose, and a way to make meaning that does not depend on dominating anyone else.
This is not a neat conversation, and it is not an excuse for misogyny. It is an attempt to ask what might happen if more men were invited into art, softness, self-expression, and the power of making art.
Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

In this episode, we talk about creative energy, burnout, routines, self-preservation, and what it takes to build a sustainable creative life.
We explore why burnout is not always caused by doing too much. Sometimes it comes from working against your own rhythms, ignoring your needs, fighting your process, or trying to create in conditions that make you feel unsafe, depleted or disconnected from yourself. We talk about front-loading creative work, trusting low-energy days, mean inner critics, sensory needs, routines, and the real strange niche conditions that allow us to make art.
This is an episode for anyone who has ever felt embarrassed by the amount of structure, comfort, quiet, routine, coffee, sleep, water, lighting, solitude or control they need in order to function.
Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee