When Writers Feel Like Shit: An Advice Column
I kind of feel like an idiot for writing this, because I am certainly not an expert on the topic. But I just had a conversation with a friend and fellow writer who is having a bad day, and I thought some of what we discussed might be inspirational for other people who, like us, spend most of our time spitting into a void.
Spitting into a void is a stupid phrase I read somewhere else another time, but it seems appropriate for people who write — or do anything creative — for a living. All day long, you’re outputting all of these words that you don’t know is anyone will ever read, and it’s fucking exhausting and discouraging. You spend most of your time feeling fear and desperation and self loathing — and very occasionally, when you write something you know is great, you feel sublime. And that’s what keeps you going.
For me, writing is less about some sort of “calling” and mostly about distracting myself from the gigantic dark mass that always threatens to settle over my brain in the form of boredom. If I have a bad day, when words don’t come easily, or I don’t have any ideas, I get terrified that I’ve lost my ability to write forever. Or, if I’m overwhelmed and burned out, and writing starts to feel like a chore, then I get terrified that even writing, the one good thing I could rely on to always be there, has abandoned me, and become just an ordinary job that I abhor.
I’ve gone through the cycle of extreme productivity and then extreme misery a few times in my brief — and mostly pathetic —writing career, so I knew that I had to take some steps to remedy the situation. The steps are below, and I think they really help if you’re feeling burned out or uninspired or like a fucking piece of shit that has come as far as they possibly can in life, and will never go any further.
1. Take a fucking day off, you idiot.
One of the problems of the rising generations is that we are all fucking programmed on tight schedules like we’re fucking micro television networks. We grew up waking up in the morning, suffering through modular days at school, going to after school activities or playdates, doing blocks of homework, and then sleeping on set schedules. Even if we watched television all day, we are still used to time blocks — the day dragged out in increments set by other people. I think that Ranciere, or one of those other French fuckers, called it synchronicity, or something — we are all programmed to be doing the exact same things at the exact same time all day, and it is fucking limiting.
On top of feeling like every second needs to be planned, we all have guilt that we’re not working hard enough, or accomplishing enough. My screenwriter friend calls it “middle class guilt,” and I call it the “plague of the hyper achievers.” Even if you’re a fucking idiot who has a monkey job, you still feel like, for instance, your weekend needs to be packed with activities. Brunch with the girls! Your amateur soccer league! Your fucking acquaintance’s 30th birthday party! Getting your vagina waxed! Haircuts! Trips to whole foods! If your weeks aren’t packed, then you feel like you’re not accomplishing anything. You are an outlier in society.
Which brings me to my point about creative people. Guess fucking what. You’re supposed to be an outlier in society. You’re supposed to be like, fuck you convention, I’m gonna take this day off, and go get drunk in a bar — don’t do that too much though, or else you’ll become an alcoholic. Or you’re like, fuck practicality, I’m going to try to raise my boat, which got sunk in the Gowanus canal during Sandy, using beach balls — my friend Shawn did that last week. Or you’re like, fuck you, email, I’m gonna go see a matinee movie! Or drive to the beach! Or go somewhere fucking weird like City Island! Or whatever it is that you’re interested in. Part of what makes you a creative person are your experiences you have in the world.
What I allowed myself last week was the assumption that being in the world with no purpose was part of my job. That sitting in front of my computer, trying to write and email and pitch and get more and more jobs is probably 50% of what I have to do. And the other 50% is observing and watching and having adventures and watching television shows. I fucking write about television shows all of the time! Buying both Seasons of Scandal on iTunes is fucking research!
So rather than sitting around feeling like shit, checking the Daily Mail and waiting for something to happen, I had a lot of fun last week. I drank wine at lunch. I sat in Barnes & Noble for five hours and read an entire book. I went to Physique 57. I let myself wake up naturally, rather than setting an alarm.
Anyway, though, seriously, you need to think of recharging your creative juice or whatever as part of your job, not as part of fucking around. If the only thing you did was work, you’d be like a fucking career paralegal, or some shit.
2. Money is not the end goal.
The problem with freelancing is that you always feel like you have to be working. There’s nothing new about that — every freelancer has felt it since freelancing has existed. Because you have no steady income, you feel like you have to take every job you can get, for those fallow periods when you get no work at all. Because those fallow periods come, no matter how special or awesome you are.
But EHHHHH [that’s a buzzer sound], there’s a limit to how much you can work for money. Because if you’re only working for money, you end up taking jobs that pay the most, which are also usually the worst, and have nothing to do with what you’re interested in. All of your time becomes consumed by them, and you have no time to work on what you actually want to work on. Which for me, used to be a fantasy novel, but part of my revelation last week was that I just might not have it in me to write fiction. On a sidenote, I’m much more interested in real people’s stories than I am in creating character’s stories in my own head. I try to write fake stories all of the time, and they always bore me. It’s sort of a relief to admit that to myself.
Guess what happens when you start making money? You start spending money. Because unless you are fucking like, I don’t know, Joan Collins, you are not making a fortune. You’re making like an office manager’s salary. You won’t be able to buy a house or a car or a even maybe a bicycle or a designer purse or an IRA or even fucking health care. So what do you spend money on? Things like fucking brunch, from which you were excused when you were poor and living off $100 a week. And nothing breeds misery like brunch, in my opinion. And also, the more you’re miserable the more you want to drink — at least that’s how I feel — and drinking is also fucking expensive. Oh guess what else is expensive? Taxes. When you make $20,000 a year, you skate through tax season like you are a millionaire. And if you make less than $20,000, you even get health care for free. Once you get in office manager salary range, you’re completely fucked, as I’m going to find out this year.
Also, not having money or job prospects makes you fucking hungry as shit for work. And hunger just BREEDS creativity, because it makes you look at what you want as your end goal, and work towards that for yourself. I mean, sometimes having no money sucks, especially if you’re like trying to feed your children. But it can be good, because it really clarifies what you want from your life, and how you’re going to get there. I think. I don’t know, this is starting to sound entitled and selfish. But I’m telling you, I never have more ideas about what to write on this blog when no one is emailing me back, and no one is assigning me work, and I am pretty sure I am going to have to start hooking to make money for rent. Hooking with my boyfriend Caleb, that is.
But what I’m trying to say is that you should make enough money to live, and not make it a goal to make a lot more so you can buy more things. Things don’t make you happy! They just suffocate you. Seriously. So when you’re a writer, and you have a little nest egg to survive for a month or two or three because you’ve been working your ass off, give yourself a little break from worrying about things. Spend that time working on whatever it is you feel passionate about, because it’s your passion project that, if you’re any good, is going to be what makes your career in the end. (That’s what I tell myself, at least). Work attached with money always materializes, even after its gone missing.
Also, if you’re a fucking freelancer, you have a lot of money saving benefits built into your lifestyle — you don’t have to pay for commuting, you can always eat at home, and you can have like 3 clutch outfits you constantly recycle, and not have to worry about buying cute things to make other people at the office notice you, or some shit. Those clothes, you only have to wear on those rare occasions when you leave the house for a meeting. So there’s that. Why are you so fucking worried about things?
3. If you want to be a writer, pick up a goddamned book, and read.
I think the more you read, the more language gets infused in your brain. You automatically start to write better, just reading the language of other people. And it allows you to copy and experiment with voices, and make you more like the fucking Renaissance man of sentence construction, or some shit. Everyone knows this, so I don’t even know why I’m talking about this shit.
The real reason why you should read, however, is because it is inexpensive AND productive. It’s working without realizing you’re working. It’s the way you invest in your long term future, because as we noted before, unless you are a fucking awesome writer or Joan Collins, you are never going to have enough money in the bank to retire, or even live comfortably.
Another added benefit is that when you’re reading, you can’t be like drunk or stoned or spending money on pornography or even eating dinner out. You have to really be present, and present for a large chunk of time, and that’s awesome if you’re trying to save money or figure out a way to kill time when you’re not feeling good about writing, and need to take a mental break.
This post really fell apart at the end, thank you very much. But maybe this shit helps. It certainly helped me to kill the last hour, and had the added benefit of preventing me from watching television before 6pm, which is another one of my cardinal rules for productivity and happiness when you’re a freelance writer. The end.
