how to do nothing
i wrote (almost) every day for over a week, and it wrecked me
one of the most common (and, i think, most dangerous) pieces of writing advice is “write every day.” there are many variants on this advice, but they all boil down to the idea that if you truly want to write, you must develop a regular practice.
sounds good on the surface.
but i am here to say NO. no, you do not need to write for three hours every day. no, you do not need to write 2,000 words every day. you do not have to write for three minutes! you do not need to write two words!
of course, sometimes you will write every day. i just came off a streak of at least ten days (i didn’t really keep track beyond excitedly texting the girls) and my brain—and body—are exhausted. so on saturday i declared my intention to take the day off.
and then i did not know what to do with myself. like, at all.
i was cranky, distracted, and downright bored nearly all day. i managed to hurt my own feelings multiple times by thinking too much about all the bad things that could happen—i might not sell my novel, i might never sell any novels, i might spend the rest of my life being told editors love everything about my work but don’t want to publish it. you know. in the end, the day was saved only by an afternoon trip to the movies (we saw sinners, it's incredible).
the fact is, if i write every day, i have to keep writing every single day or else i get like…this. and since i already struggle to participate in any facet of my own life that isn’t writing, that’s a hard pass for me. i require breaks and i bet you do too. i need time to remember to enjoy things. to go to the movies. to look at art. to have conversations without being unreasonably offended if no one asks me about my wip.
the only things i want to do every single day are eat and sleep and tell my cat i love her, and even then i would greatly appreciate it if i could not need to make dinner every fucking day.
which brings me to a rage-filled reminder that the vast majority of the people who say you have to write every day are able to say that because they don’t have to devote bandwidth to figuring out dinner. they probably aren’t doing their own cooking at all, or their laundry or dishes or taxes. (okay, fine, i don’t do a lot of those things, but that’s because i have a family. they take up a lot of my mental space but on the plus side they do handle a lot of the physical work. unfortunately, this doesn’t help my brain.)
men who don’t type their own letters don’t get to tell their amanuenses how to write.
(that’s one of my favorite essays i’ve ever written. go ahead and click through.)
on sunday i had a second day off, this time because i had actual factual plans. i went to the la times festival of books! i've lived in los angeles for 23 years and this is the first time i’ve ever gone and all it took was someone saying “meet me there” (classic annika). i saw a panel discussion! i wandered around! i bought one (1) book! and then i had dinner with two romance author friends and we talked shit about publishing and i said i’d hurt my own feelings about being on sub and instead of being confused, cat nodded sagely and we talked some more shit.
perfect day. thought about writing constantly, but like. in a good way.