CTRL+ALT+Spiral #4

This week, I spiraled … and it oddly enough wasn’t from writing. It was from running.

I ran 11.15km to the beach, sipped a Powerade, took some selfies… and then hit “stop” on my tracking app instead of “resume.”

Just like that, the momentum vanished.

The second half of the run?

Hot. Frustrating. Full of breaks.

My legs were tired sure but my mind had checked out first

So I sat on a bench.

Next to an older Korean woman who looked at me and said:

“You’re even sweating.”

I smiled. “Yeah, it’s too hot today.”

And as I got up to leave, she added:

“Be careful, it’s really hot.”

That brief moment (a stranger’s kindness in another language) softened the whole day.

✍️ In this week’s

CTRL+ALT+Spiral #4

I wrote about:

• Mental spirals that start mid-run (or mid-draft)

• The momentum we lose when we interrupt ourselves

• Why finishing something messy still counts as finishing

👉 Read the full spiral here

🧠 Creative Habit of the Week:

Finish things even if they’re messy.

A run. A paragraph. A post you’re overthinking.

The act of finishing (even awkwardly) protects momentum.

Until next spiral,

— Em

Modern writing habits for the creatively ambitious

📬 P.S. What’s your version of this run? Hit reply and tell me.

📎 P.P.S. You can browse past spirals and creative tools at CreativeMindHabits.com