Dear Aunt Acid,
How does one learn to readjust one’s expectations as relates to personal happiness and sense of achievement/fulfillment? For the past 3.5 years, I have worked a dull 9-5 with the assumption that it would be “temporary,” but it is looking less and less like that is the case. During that time, I have attended grad school full-time (never completed due to financial problems), bought a house (so I have to make a certain amount of money), and have attempted to pursue freelance writing on the side.
I have always assumed I would be A Writer one day. Writing is something that I am good at, and I love to do it. But I have submitted to numerous online publications and have been met with a “no, thank you” every time. So now, in addition to the looming “What Am I Going To Do With My Life?,” there is also the “Am I Even A Good Writer?” My self-esteem is suffering big-time.
I have also been applying to new jobs because the one I am at, frankly, is in no way challenging, is not in a field I find interesting, and requires a 3-hour round-trip commute. But, the only jobs I seem “qualified” for are ones that are exactly the same, and I don’t want to be an EA for the rest of my life.
I’m completely lost. I can’t even talk about this with family and friends anymore, because I feel they have become weary of my disheartened outlook. I am almost 30, and while I know that it isn’t very old, it’s old enough that I would like to have some kind of career direction and fulfillment. Am I asking too much? Is there a way for me to realign what I want out of a career, even if that means being okay with picking up other people’s lunch every day until I die? At what point should I admit that I am not a strong enough writer to make it a career? Or do I just need a thicker skin?
I am totally drowning here. Please send help.
–Unpublished
Dear Unpublished,
In twelfth grade, my writing teacher asked us students to give explanations of why we wrote. Instead of an essay, I turned in a sentence: “Because if I slit my wrists, words would come out.” Charming, my teacher told me drily. And, sure, yes: teenage melodrama. But come on. Who among us can articulate why we’re driven to create, except to say that we are overstuffed with thoughts, or images, or music? We write because we need to, because the pulse is there.
There are a thousand good reasons to write: because we are in constant and evolving dialogue with the past; because we want to help shape the future; because we are Harold with the purple crayon, escaping into boats and hot air balloons, and without that purple crayon we would be stuck in our bedrooms looking forlornly out our windows at the moon.
There is only one bad reason to write, and that’s for external validation. That’s because, even if you start getting some, you’ll never have enough. Praise is like money: no one ever feels satisfied that they’ve gotten their fair share. Almost no one has the strength to walk away from that particular roulette table. Most of us just stand there, addicts becoming zombies, compulsively putting down our think pieces on black or red and hoping our number comes up.
This is to say that no number of publications, no list of accolades, no CV will convince you you’re a Writer if, in your own mind, you aren’t one. Likewise, if you do know, in your own mind, that you’re a Writer, no amount of rejection can take that away.
I understand that right now, self-esteem-wise, you’re feeling on par with a half-eaten hot dog. In this state, it probably won’t help to tell yourself, “I am a Writer, no matter what anyone says.” What might help, though, is taking an altogether different approach. Forget trying to create content for the damn internet, which is a fickle beast anyway and impossible to satisfy. You’ve been trying to tempt it long enough; for whatever reason, it hasn’t been interested. Choose a new goal.
You don’t say you read. Read. Too many people these days think they can separate input from output. You cannot trust a writer who doesn’t love books any more than a woman who claims to be proud of not having any female friends. Read indiscriminately. Read widely. Read lit mags, fan fiction, epic poems, screenplays: any and all of it can inspire you.
You don’t say you’ve taken writing classes. Take classes. Is there a subgenre you’ve always wanted to try, like comedy or speech writing? Teachers have never been more available, whether online or in person. Find them. Find mentors. The good ones carry knives, to puncture your ego and help you whittle down your sentences.
Work at what you’re doing, really work at it, in concert with people you respect, and you will get better. Ultimately that’s what it’s about: work, verb and noun alike. That’s the part you can control. Not coincidentally, that’s the part you can feel proud of, no matter what happens after.
As for the larger issue: the life you always thought you’d lead hasn’t materialized, and instead your choices have led you into a cul-de-sac. That’s hard. It’s also normal. The good news is that almost 30 is young, definitely young enough to back yourself out of the cul-de-sac and head somewhere new. I know PhDs who have returned to school to become MDs, lawyers who have rebooted themselves as game designers, ballroom dancers who have waltzed into law. Everywhere I look, in fact, someone is shifting gears, retraining to be a nurse, or a midwife, or a therapist. Change is the new stasis.
You too can make a change. Start with a blank piece of paper and brainstorm everything you wish you could be doing instead of fetching people lunch. Write down the names and traits of the professionals you admire. List your own strengths. Recall the most fulfilling jobs or internships you’ve ever had and consider what they may have had in common. You’re looking for patterns, the data that will help you zoom in on the ideal combination of 1) what you like; 2) what you’re good at; and 3) what people will pay you to do.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, either. Take people out to coffee – old bosses, good friends, acquaintances from LinkedIn – and listen to them: how they made it to where they are, what suggestions they may have for you. Be patient. Be open. A lot of what you’ll hear won’t be applicable, but some crucial part of it will pick a lock inside of you and help you better understand yourself, what you actually want, and what you can achieve.
It may feel like you’re drowning. In reality, you’re just in shock from and exhausted by the same cold, choppy water as the rest of us. Few of us expected adulting to be this hard, especially if we kind of hoped we’d be Margaret Atwood by now, so you’re in good company: not drowning, but waving. The thing is, just because something is hard doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong, or that it’s not worth doing. So stop dog-paddling and go into a dead man’s float while you catch your breath for a moment and figure out what direction you want to go in. Then pick your head back up. Do the work. Swim.
–Aunt Acid
Aunt Acid’s advice is great but I would also add: sell your house. Or be prepared to, if need be. Don’t forget you can – you’ll just use the money you get from the sale to pay off the mortgage. Unless the house is in NYC (and even then), nothing like being tied down to one particular geographic location to really inhibit your job & career-change possibilities.
Absolutely.
Not only is the house holding you down, but you are travelling one and a half hours each way to a job you hate.
And if that commute is by car, you are also tying yourself down by having to pay for the vehicle.
And there is three hours lost that you can’t write. Or have fun.
Actually, I suspect however you are travelling that dead time is spent brooding. Never a good thing.
I didn’t feel like I could claim “writer” until had a few stories published. I would say “I write” or “I’ve always written” but I could claim the “I am” until I had that thing. I don’t think it’s all about external validation, but also partly being honest? Like, I also will say “I love gardening” but I wouldn’t say ‘I am a gardener” because I can grow some herbs/flowers on pots on my balcony but that’s the extent of it, I’m not paid for it, I didn’t go to horticulture school, I probably wouldn’t have the chops to take care of a full vegetable garden (my folks can.)
So I was… 34 before I could say ‘I am” about writing. Aunt Acid’s advice is sound, I would add to “take classes”: join writing groups, go on writing retreats, go to literary events. Knowing other writers who you can talk shop with helps immensely (and they can also be beta readers/introduce you to agents and publishers.)
And if you can’t find a local writing group… start one! I lead a Shut Up & Write group in my city and it’s very simple, and I get so much more writing done per hour there than I do at home, where talking a break means getting into some necessary but lengthy task like laundry.
I second the advice to read, read, and read some more. When I hit a lull in my writing or don’t feel inspired I set aside more time to read. It definitely sparks creativity and challenges me to incorporate different writing styles into what I’m working on.
ETA: Even if I end up reading something I hate, it was still worth while, because it forces me to put my money where my mouth is and write something better.
I agree with this advice, and to that I’d add: Figure out a way to MAKE opportunities for yourself. Maybe you start a blog, or join with a friend to start a website (like this one). If you have a specialty, find a way to market it.
My personal experience: I’m finishing up my PhD in musicology, and the academic market is dire. I do have a talent for describing music in words, which I’d turned into a side gig writing program notes. As I near the beginning of post-school life, I’m looking to get more clients and make more money. So, I built a website, explaining my approach, making a case for my services, and including writing samples.
Then–this is the hard part–I looked up orchestras and started sending them emails. I crafted a form letter (adapting it as necessary) with a link to my website, and I sent it to the staff member who seemed relevant. Most of them don’t respond. Some do, and tell me that they have no need for my services. But in all that, I have gotten a few precious positive responses that have led to new clients. It’s a great feeling, and it only happened because I got over rejection and made it happen.
I know this sounds terribly bootstrappy, but…it’s doable. It may not amount to anything, but at the very least it can help you think about your writing in a different way. Good luck!
It’s all about the hustle, isn’t it? I need to work on my hustle. 🙂 I’m pretty happy scribbling my stories anyway, but it would be nice to be able to pay a light bill with it (mangled quote from Stephen King).
I would like to promote a program I find pretty invigorating for writers: National Novel Writing Month. Nanowrimo. Google it. They have programs throughout the year to spur writing, and a very supportive forum and social media presence. It’s totally free.
There is valid writing that isn’t for pay. I have a fanfiction that’s nineteen chapters and counting. It’s making people happy! They want more of it! That makes me just as much a writer as the co-written steampunk novella that accompanied a knitting book for which I also wrote patterns.
Also, I’m a playwright. You know how I got to be a playwright? I wrote burlesque plays, and then I booked a theater, and then I hired actors, and then I produced burlesque plays. I have five two-night sold-out runs under my belt now. I just had to do it, you know?
It’s hard and it took risk but it’s what I had to be doing.
You are making awesome life choices, is what I gathered from this comment.
Thank you! I try to live my life in such a way that if I was a character in a movie they would have to spend the first twenty minutes desperately trying to work in all my weird life skills and experiences that would pay off in the last half hour.
This is the best way of looking at life ever. Can I steal it?
By all means!
Seconded. I want to print this out and stick it on my wall, or get it tattooed somewhere I can see all the time, or (as seems to be the thing here on The Toast) get it cross-stitched on a pillow.
I’m in the middle of doing that right now! (the burlesque theater part) It’s really terrifying! I co-produced a burlesque play before that was awesome and more fulfilling than I could have imagined, but I had an award-winning slam poet writing the text parts. Now I have to do it because my collaborators are not comfortable writing.
Good god this is inspiring.
Hello, LW, are you me? Aside from the fact I’ve never been tempted to write thinkpieces we could be life-path doppelgangers.
The only useful thing anyone told me about anxiety around being a Real Writer is, if you’re writing, you’re a writer. A writer is a person who writes. It sounds like that’s you. Additionally, the times in my life when I’ve been least hung up on external validation have resulted in some of the work I’m most proud of. (This may or may not be true for you but my hunch is that it will be.)
Salon published an excellent expose at the lives of many working writers (spoiler alert: many full-time are financed by their spouses or family money) which might be worth a look too for you. Lots of writers without means struggle, not only in quantity of work but also quality. Having money frees up time. Time offers you more rewrites, more editing… better quality.
Plus, you’re an executive assistant in your 9-5 which seems like it might be rough on one’s self-esteem too. I don’t know though! I’ve never done that job specifically. But I do work at the bottom of a corporate totem pole in my field which can be dispiriting a LOT of the time.
You captured the feeling of “late-twenties despair” very well; I don’t doubt that you’ll eventually become published if that is your goal.
This is beautiful. I confess, I am put off by a lot of the, like, “#realtalk advice” that’s around these days about how HAVING DREAMS IS FOR PRIVILEGED PEOPLE YOU’RE LUCKY TO EVEN HAVE A JOB. This, though? This is realistic and kind and recognizes that it’s normal and healthy and GOOD to want more than just to survive.
There is plenty of encouragement out there to pursue the writerly thing, so I’ll go a more white-republican-uncle direction:
Work is a game you play to enable yourself to have the life you want. Your work is not your life, and it doesn’t have to be (shouldn’t be?) an identity. It’s a game. Assuming your job is temporary means you’re sidelining yourself before you get a chance to even TRY playing.
What would happen if you threw yourself into your day job? What does the route to higher-paying, more interesting work look like? What can you do to get there?
Can you cultivate yourself as a writer AND cultivate a day-job career that isn’t terrible?
The inimitable Betsy Lerner gave me (and a room full of eager aspiring writerly types), that it is vital to the life of a writer to work outside of writing. Which is kind of the same as white republican uncle advice, but with a less cynical twist. Working gives your purpose and opportunity to observe the world, and it makes your writing better in the long run. And, if you’re independently wealthy or can earn a living off of writing, she said to start volunteering somewhere. It’s important to be out there and be a part of the world. It’s important to keep your eyes up–too much time staring at a piece of paper can lead to your focus drifting down to your navel. I really carry this with me.
I think there’s something to it – if I never read another novel whose protagonist is a novelist, it will be too soon.
Aaaaaamen
I once met a guy who was double-majoring in nursing and poetry. I wish I could remember his name; I bet his poetry is amazing.
This is a good and interesting question.
Also, from personal experience, if you spend all day working with words for someone else, it can be hard to make time/space/ or even have words left for the things you want to work on for yourself.
I get paid to write, I love my job, and I adore the sharp editorial eyes of my co-workers.
But I have written hardly anything outside of work for ages.
I wrote a lot more when I had jobs that were rote and boring. I would come home, sit down, and let the words that were brewing all day spill out.
I’m not complaining, but it’s an angle that may be worth considering, and ties in to samburgers’ point.
Yeah, I also have a day job that’s not particularly exciting, and my partner has urged me to try to get into comms (relatively easy to move around in government) and I thought about it and decided Nope. I’m not writing dry bureaucratic rhetoric all day and then coming home and feel like writing my non-dry queer SF. Let’s keep a nice clear boundary there.
Ooh, that bears out my theory that technical writing is a good kind of job for creative writers (who also have extremely good attention to detail and copy editing skills), because I don’t find it at all draining on my creative side. I’m relieved to go home and write fiction.
I really love what you said about “your work is not your life”, and the idea of throwing yourself into your current job, even if it sucks. I think of the phrase “you have to be interested to be interesting”–if you want to get a lot out of something, it helps to put a lot into something. My first job out of college was dull and a little soul-sucking, but when I put my best into my work (even if it wasn’t always rewarded), I felt better and more satisfied with day and what I had accomplished. And at the end of the day, remembering that I am more than my job is valuable–my job might not always be great, but it is the thing that pays for my yarn and knitting needles and nigts out with friends eating pad Thai, and sometimes that’s enough.
Since she was specifically mentioned, it’s worth noting that Margaret Atwood herself didn’t stop working in her career (which was, to be fair, academic) until she was fifty, after twenty years of working, after having published seven novels, plus poetry and short fiction and nonfiction and children’s books.
This isn’t to say that you, letter writer, should despair because you can’t imagine producing that much output in the next twenty years. It’s to say that working a day job doesn’t make you less a “real writer” than Margaret Atwood. Kafka was an insurance agent. Borges was a librarian. George Eliot was the editor of a literary review (and didn’t publish her first novel until she was forty.) Find a long-term career that fulfills you in some way, and allows you the time and emotional energy you need to do the work that you want to be doing.
It’s okay to be Gary Guergich from Parks and Rec. It’s okay.
I love that you say “Work is a game you play to enable yourself to have the life you want,” because it is exactly true.
Being a writer means that writing is your passion, not that it is your career. Just like being a gardener is not a career. (FYI, people who have horticulture degrees call themselves horticulturist, not gardeners.) Many people have passions that are not their careers – runners, painters, actors, birders. It’s important to understand this for two reasons.
1. it’s extremely difficult and rare to make a full-time living writing what you love. Unless what you love is technical or copy writing.
2. Being a writer, or having any hobby, requires a certain investment. Runners need running shoes. Gardeners buy plants, pots, seeds. Painters buy canvas and paint and medium. Writers buy books (craft books, fiction, poetry…). Many people go to conferences or events related to their hobbies. Having a day job gives you the money to not just survive (house, bills, food) but to buy whatever you want related to your hobby.
You are your own sponsor. Every time you get your paycheck and pay your mortgage, tell yourself you’re paying for your writing space. And because you’re paying for it yourself, no one but you can decide what you use it for.
Keep writing, keep working. Eventually you’ll get published.
So much good advice! Much of it is on track with what I counsel my authors & aspiring authors on a regular basis. I always turn to the greatest American writer of all time in such circumstances: Emily Dickinson (and you can fight me on it–her inventive, intuitive, and avant garde approach to language and meaning is not surpassed by anyone. She’s the greatest genius our soil has produced & I don’t think we even fully understand her yet, but I digress). There’s nothing moral about publishing your work; it doesn’t make your writing better or more real. ED didn’t publish widely in her lifetime, but no one would question if that made her less of a writer.
Publishing’s only purpose is to connect to readers and fulfill the needs of an audience. When you’re ready to put your audience’s needs before your writing needs, then go forth. When you’re at the place where the audience is necessary to the work, then go for it. But before that moment, keep writing. No industry or internet editor can take that away from you.
I forgot to say: writing (often) gets good when the author has lived a little. It’s important to have something to write about. I just checked, and 80% of my clients are over 40. In nonfiction, that’s often because it takes time to hone an expertise. In fiction, it’s because it takes time to develop one’s voice, to find something to say. I decline a lot of writing that feels green, that lacks self-assurance, clarity, wisdom. Those are the things I look for, so I wouldn’t get hung up on the age thing.
“There’s nothing moral about publishing your work; it doesn’t make your writing better or more real.”
Amen!
I see you with your Stevie Smith reference. (The icing on an already great cake of an article.)
This is 98% SO BEAUTIFUL and I completely agree that seeking external validation for one’s writing is a losing game. But this part troubled me:
“Find mentors. The good ones carry knives, to puncture your ego and help you whittle down your sentences.”
A lot of traditional writing workshops and programs are SO damaging to people’s unique voices and self-esteem. It’s counterproductive. I <3 Amherst Writers and Artists, but there are others that are focused on the process of writing, the pleasure and depth of sinking into one’s own world – while creating a safe space to share that world with others.
I don’t know — I think the knives good mentors can be incredibly beneficial to writers (especially emerging ones) in the long run, even if they hurt at the time. Ultimately, a writer’s self-esteem matters less than the quality of what they can learn to do with a paragraph/line of poetry/etc. after a lot of time, attention, reading and revising, right?
I don’t do real (read: literary) writing these days — I quit after the death of a lover five years ago — but when I did I was grateful for everyone who was genuinely interested in helping me “whittle down my sentences,” as Aunt Acid says.
I completely agree with you about the deadening effects of a lot of writing programs. But in my experience, the writers who are most insistent about the value of their unique voices are often the least talented, so I’m wary of those strains of self-indulgence too.
I mean, it depends a lot on whether your goal is “to be the best writer I can possibly learn to be” or “to be a good writer and also a happy, functional person”! It matters WAY more to me whether I am happy and like myself than whether I ever write a single perfect line of poetry.
You can have both – the happiness, the self-esteem, and the perfect line of poetry.
You have to learn to separate yourself from the work. To love criticism. This is easiest if you have gentle teachers, at least at first. The ones who will say ‘you have a lot of potential…but’. And then after enough of this, you don’t need the compliment. You have the confidence. They can go straight in with the knives and you love it. You even find too many compliments frustrating!
I have several published stories but if anyone out there wants to see my hundreds-long rejection list I’d be happy to share it. There’s some perspective that this LW needs, too, and it can be attained gently and with humor: even successful writers are not immune to rejection and in fact a lot of award-winning short stories (my particular world) were rejected dozens of times by markets all over the map before the right editor picked it up and it got the right audience.
Remember that with publishing it’s not just about exposure in general, it’s about exposure in specific. Look for editors who seem to love what you love, who sound interesting just to email with, and readers who like things you are influenced by and see what and who they’re reading. It’s really 100% okay to be niche!
I just checked, and Margaret Atwood published her first novel when she was 30. So you’ve still got time!
I really needed this advice today. Just here to say thanks 🙂
The good ones carry knives, to puncture your ego and help you whittle down your sentences.
This punched me right in the feels. This was my college writing prof, who has passed on now, but who was an amazing influence in every way. Not least of which the way he would ruthlessly extract your adverbs and unnecessary adjectives. It stung at the time, but it was supposed to, you know? The sting means it’s working 😉
What worked for me was to stop asking “am I an X?” and to start asking “what do I need to do, and how am I going to do it?”
Don’t worry about whether you’re a writer. That’s not a question you can answer yet. Just do what you need to do. I bet you real money it works.
Unpublished doesn’t say what kind of Writer she wants to be: novelist? Poet? Investigative journalist? Until she defines what kind of writing she wants to pursue, she won’t have a clear path. Once she does, she can use your advice to take the appropirate path. I’d bet $5 she could even stay at her company and find writing jobs, if she looked hard enough and figured out how to lateral her way into the positions. The world needs good writers in companies, nonprofits, schools, government agencies, pretty much everywhere. Using communications skills – whether god given or studiously learned – to advance good in the world is an admirable thing. Will it make you famous? Maybe not. Will it pay your bills? Yes. Will it give you the satisfaction that you crave know that you’re doing something you love? Most definitely.
I think this is really good advice. If the goal is just to write, then that can be accomplished in a lot of different ways careers. Although it isn’t a career path I would recommend for many reasons, as a lawyer, I get to write a lot. Research/writing takes up more of my time than any other type of work, and has led to my most satisfying professional experiences.
I want to add to the excellent advice here. There’s nothing wrong with giving up on a creative field. There’s no moral value attached to being a “creative” person in the sense of creating artistic objects that have value to others. My life got a lot better once I abandoned my probably-doomed, definitely-difficult dream of being a professional musician. Instead, I devoted myself to a subjectively creative life that made me happy, no matter how many people saw it – I live creatively now, instead of being tethered to one spot and one profession, and it’s brought me so much more joy. My whole childhood was full of people telling me how “creative” I was, and sure maybe I am, but really what they meant was “your creating art objects for others is the only way for me to integrate your weirdness into my frame of reference for acceptable behaviour.” Just like pretty isn’t the rent you pay for existing as a woman, creative isn’t the rent you pay for existing as a weirdo, and you don’t have to play that game.
Yo, THIS 100%, and I say that as a “professional” artist (or whatever)!
I read this comment last night and had to come back and reread it this morning. Thank you for expressing this so perfectly.
While LW said that she didn’t want a new job that was the same as her current one, that 3 hour commute really catches my eye. Finding another job much closer to home would go a long way towards enabling a writing career. Even if you spend most of those 3 hours brainstorming, that isn’t the same as writing, revising, or editing. I’ve got a 4-book series planned from start to finish, but only about 20 pages written.
While it might be yet another EA position, every company has its own culture & switching employers might give you more of a frisson than you would anticipate.
Unless you’re commuting by train, LW, in which case, buy a tablet or something and see if you can make that writing time! Or reading time, at least.
Yaaaaaaasssssssss! Yes yes yes. Replace “musician” with “actor” and that is almost exactly me.
Also, this idea among creatives that the only way to be legit is to be paid for your art is ridiculous, and the idea perpetuated by performers that those of us who elect not to pursue it as a profession do so because we “can’t hack it” is incredibly damaging. There is exactly nothing wrong with keeping one’s art a small, private vehicle for personal happiness, and anyone who will tell you otherwise is not a person you need in your life.
Great advice! Two things to add:
1. I had an excellent experience in Cat Rambo’s writing workshops. I’m afraid I don’t know how to do links, but she does online writing workshops through video chat on specific topics related to either novel-writing or short-story writing. For example, “Character Building for Genre Writers” and “Description and Delivering Information.” Her own writing is excellent (she’s the former editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction ) and she balances encouragement with sharp, specific critique.
2. I have a blog on tumblr which is 90% fandom stuff and 10% political / activism stuff. I don’t get paid for it, but I definitely feel the ego boost when people like or reblog something Ive written, or better yet, respond and start a conversation. Even though people say social media wastes time, you might consider it because it might jump-start your confidence.
Concur with Aunt Acid’s advice overall; for supplemental reading & additional insight/inspiration, I’d also point you to this pair of writing-related advice from Dear Sugar
Write Like a Motherf*cker http://therumpus.net/2010/08/dear-sugar-the-rumpu…
We Are All Savages Inside http://therumpus.net/2011/03/dear-sugar-the-rumpu…
Sounds like you'd be perfect! It's certainly not a profession just for creative writers. I hope it all works out!
I had a friend who went through something similar recently, except she was applying to PA school and had been working on it for 3-4 years and had to come to terms with the fact she was never going to be a PA. This led to a very low point in her life because she had always been defining herself from the outside rather than defining who she was as a person from the inside. So I would add to all of the write more read more talk more suggestions is to concentrate who you are as a person which can easily include enjoying writing.
What is a PA?
My inner editor just kicked in. Don’t use an acronym until you have spelled out the acronym.
Example: Indian Affairs and Northern Development Canada (INAC).
Thanks! I have to say that creativity is great for finding COOL ways of explaining stuff, but I hope that being clear and appropriately pitched to the audience will make my stuff useful.