Two Sylvias' Weekly Muse: June 22, 2025

Issue 163

Hello, Muse Readers!

Does this sound familiar? Just before you hit the submit button to enter your manuscript in a contest, just before you share a vulnerable poem with your writing group, just before you try composing a sonnet for the first time—your body tightens, your mind freezes, and a voice says: Don’t do it. That moment is what Julien Smith writes about in his eBook titled The Flinch. His central premise revolves around the voice that tells us “don’t do it”—what he refers to as “the flinch”: the gut reaction of fear, hesitation, and avoidance we might experience when we are faced with discomfort, risk, or challenge, like when we suddenly decide not to submit our manuscript to a contest.

Smith argues that this “flinch reflex,” which originally evolved to keep us physically safe, now often stops us from doing things that can help us grow by keeping us in our comfort zone—whether that’s having a difficult conversation with a partner, taking a risk by changing careers, or pushing thr…