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This is What Makes You Worthy

March 27, 2017

Hi makers,

I wrote this for my writer’s list this week, but it applies to all makers, not just writers.

I had a bad virus this past week. Okay, I say bad, but it wasn’t the stomach flu, and it didn’t come with a high, terrible fever.

It just enervated me, leaving me spent and mostly useless. I lay around like a Victorian damsel on a fainting couch. I groaned intermittently, pleased with the hoarseness of my voice. I sighed a lot and blew my nose like the trumpets at the gates of Zion.

Then, when I started to feel better, I stayed down. (Okay, this is a lie. Friday night, I went to see Kate Tempest at a club and passed out after mainlining Gobstoppers, my first processed sugar in 3 months. Seriously. I didn’t even have a drink. Just. Passed. Out. I have to tell you, fainting is not as cool as it’s cracked up to be. In a moment that is funny in retrospect, I knew it was coming and apparently told my wife I thought I was going to faint — I barely remember this — so she had time to tell a stranger “Here, hold my drink,” as she caught me, which is why she still had her Manhattan after they carted me outside for air.)

So for the weekend, I kept resting.

Even though I felt guilty about it.

This is What Makes You Worthy of Being a Writer

You see, I measure my life by the Things I Do.

You might feel me on this one.

On Saturday, while resting, I made great cheese (coconut cheese that is healthy and tastes like the best/worst kind of nacho cheese ever – it is AMAZING) and terrible muffins, and besides that, I stayed in bed and watched The Americans on my phone.

It was okay that I stayed in bed, because I could look to an accomplishment. I had cooked. I had baked. That made me worthwhile, as a person.

On Sunday, I was almost better. I could have powered through almost anything, given the right dose of DayQuil and liberal distribution of hoarse groans.

But instead, I didn’t.

I just stayed down. I watched TV on my phone. I read. I napped a bit. I groaned pleasantly and petted the animals that piled happily on top of me.

I got NOTHING done. Not one single thing.

I was feeling awful about this, until I saw a tweet in my timeline. Bethany D. Lipka said, “If all you do today is take care of yourself, your day has been productive.”

This blew my mind.

Did she mean that lying in bed was actually a Thing To Do? A thing I could be proud of?

Yes, she certainly did.

So it got me thinking. Everyone is inherently worthy, with or without being productive.

This is something I’ve always believed.

Except about myself.

For me to be worthy, I have to make. (Many creative people feel this way. You might.) I have to sew a dress or bake bread or write a book or make a podcast.

Otherwise, how will my worth be tangible? How will I prove it?

This is what I realized this weekend: I need to work on loosening my grasp on this belief.

I am worthy when I write books.

I am also equally worthy when I do absolutely nothing.

We could dive into the field-lying-fallow metaphor, but that one has always rung hollow to me. Yo, have you met me? I AM NEVER GOING TO LET A FIELD LIE FALLOW. I will add fertilizer (organic!) to that shit (get it?) and get back in there as soon as possible.

So let’s use the sleep metaphor. Our brains and bodies need sleep. We have to rest. And sometimes, we need more rest than we’re used to giving ourselves.

I’m my own boss. (As of one year today! Today is my first anniversary of self-employment! This is a huge, happy, exciting thing to me!)

And I’m also my only full-time employee.

I’ve got to take care of the boss and the employee residing in this body. Sometimes I need a vacation even without going out of town. Sometimes I need an extra hour of sleep, or a whole weekend in bed.

Sometimes accomplishing nothing is the absolute best thing for me To Do.

I am worthy, no matter what I make or don’t make. No matter what I do or don’t accomplish. No matter what I write or don’t write.

So are you.

If you’re beating yourself up, stop it. You’re already worthy of being a writer. You ARE a writer. Write a little bit.

Rest, if you need it.

Then rest some more.

(Of course, ask yourself honestly if you’re resting or procrastinating. You’ll know the answer, deep in your heart. And depression is a different beast entirely. Good lord, if you’re fighting depressing and taking care of yourself by resting? GOOD FOR YOU. Don’t have a second of regret about that.)

If all you do today is take care of yourself, you’re being productive.

I believe this. And I’m going to try to remember it, too.

Take care of yourselves, dear ones.

love,

Rachael

PS – There will be no writer’s email next weekend – it’s my eleven-year wedding anniversary, and we’re leaving the dogs with a sitter and going up the coast. To rest. And to soak in the hot tub. To read books and dance by moonlight and celebrate each other.

PPS – The weeks after that might be sporadic, too, since I’ll be in Venice for two weeks, on retreat. OH YEAH. That will be less restful, since I’m leading the retreat, but I’ve built in time afterward for a retreat of my own, in which there will be much writing and even more napping.

This Is What We Get Wrong About Writing

March 5, 2017

I just finished writing a Patreon essay. You may have heard me talking about them on my podcast. I love writing them so much though they’re not easy to write (is anything?).

Image that says This is What We Get Wrong About Writing with typewriter

In this latest Patreon essay, I write about how bad we are, as humans, at predicting what will actually make us happy. I won’t go into the science of it here, but this is the main takeaway: We guess wildly at what will make us happy, and then we get it wrong, over and over again. It’s human nature, and it’s part of the way we work.

It might sound familiar to you.

We dream of the totally free Saturday afternoon when the spouse has the kids, and you have the cafe. You know exactly how it will go. You’ll get there, grab your favorite chair by the outlet, and you’ll proceed to write the brilliant prose you know you’re capable of. It will be everything you’ve been waiting for.

Fact is, it doesn’t go like that, does it? Even when the seat is open, and your computer is plugged in, and your latte is perfect, something isn’t quite right. It’s your brain. It won’t settle. It won’t do what you need it to do which is to get some goddamn words on the page that don’t suck all the suckitude of suckery sucktown.

We predict what will make us happy (or sad) and we are wrong, over and over again.

It helps me to know this.

Nothing is going to go the exact way I imagine it, either for the good or the bad, and that kind of lets me off the worry hook.

Brain science shows us that the thing you fear the most won’t be as bad as you think it will be. It also shows us that the fantasy–the lottery win, the subsequent small-island purchase–also won’t be as good as we think it will.

That means all you have is now. This imperfect, perfect moment you’re sitting in right now.

Now is all.

Don’t wait for after retirement. Or next weekend. Or when the kids are in grade school. Whatever you’re waiting for, it’s not enough.

If you’re waiting for a future time, when you’ll be a better writer with more discipline and courage and creativity?

The only way you’re going to be one is to write messily, sloppily, and badly NOW.

Go write something. Anything. A blog post. A letter to your aunt who would die of shock if she got something in the mail from you. A love letter. A letter to the editor. A Facebook post that says something instead just a status update. The first chapter of your book (it will be terrible! It’s supposed to be, I promise!).

You have right now. And it’s better than okay–it’s all you need.

Onward!

xo, Rachael

PS – Curious about the longform essay on this which includes things like the way I use my ADHD for my writing benefit? You can read it (or listen to the MP3) here for as little as a buck.

On Social Activism and Resisting

January 30, 2017

Hi there, my darlings.

How are you? No, I mean it. How are you?

It’s so rough out there right now.

I woke up on Saturday morning with nothing to do until the evening, when we had tickets to see Ira Glass at City Arts and Lectures. I planned to lounge in bed. I’d cleared work from my plate until Monday, and I was going to have a Day Off. I was counting on pajamas and muffins and knitting and maybe some cleaning out of books.

Instead, I read about the Muslim Ban. I got more and more upset, as you probably did, too.

What has happened in a week and a half? The brand new White House policy advisor, Steve Miller, actually organized white supremacist events at Duke University with Richard Spencer (the Nazi who got punched last week).

Steve Bannon, the ex-Breitbart alt-right (read: Nazi), has the same status of the secretary of state as of this weekend. He has not been vetted. At all. (There’s a theory that says he’s setting us up for an attack by ISIS. No sitting president has ever lost reelection in wartime.) And he’s in the driver’s seat now, not Trump.

There are strong signs that this is a coup.

Read that again.

There are signs that this is a literal coup, well-planned and orchestrated by Bannon. THIS ARTICLE says more and is scary as hell.

Saturday morning, watching all of it unfold, I felt hopeless.

Furious.

Helpless.

Yes, we should call our representatives and congresspeople, we know that. Calls are worth way more than paper letters, and emails/Tweets/FB messages are all but ineffective. (I didn’t know until this week that if you do write paper letters, send them to their regional, state-level office rather than DC. Good info.)

But my congressperson who’s waffling on voting No on Sessions and Tillerman is Diane Feinstein. None of her offices are answering their phones. At all. You get messages that say the voice mail is full.

The voice mail is full! There’s nothing you can do with that! You can keep calling, hoping a live body will answer (in DC, in SF, in LA, in SD, even in Fresno) but no one does.

I felt so hopeless I felt sick.

Then I saw the march planned at SFO. When I saw the FB page, only 9 said they were going. That was okay. I talked to Lala (who couldn’t go–she went on Sunday) about contingencies in case of my arrest. I made a hasty sign.

I went to BART and made my way there to find I wasn’t the only one.

For a while, we stayed on our sides of the street, letting traffic flow.

Then, led by a tiny elderly Asian woman who waited for the cops to get distracted and then stepped into the street. She gave a little “come on” sign with her hands and we all did.

It was a loud crowd, the chants never stopping, the mic-checks almost drowned out by the sheer righteous anger that surrounded us.

The ban is not our America.

It’s not what this country was founded on.

It felt good to fight. To resist. To yell as loudly as we could, “No ban! No wall! Sanctuary for all!”

And it’s just the start, my friends. We have at least four years of this to come.

What do we do now to resist?

Protests are important (and let’s face it, they can be soul-mending and even fun).

Calling your elected officials is essential. (We’re finally learning how to use our smart phones to make calls!)

But what else?

This is what I’m doing to make a difference:

Call: On the off-chance you haven’t seen this already, start with 5calls.org. You just put in your zip, and you get info on who to call with what message.

Swing Districts: Control of the House in 2018 depends on a few swing districts, and it’s time to start thinking about that NOW. Go HERE to find out the one closest to you, and then get to work there. (I’m CA Dist 7, see you in Modesto!)

Put “social activism” on your To Do list every day. Cross it off after you’ve made contact with someone. Today I crossed it off after sending a fax to Diane Feinstein (apparently faxes are good for something!) through this site from which you can fax both house and senate.

Arrest: Are you in a place of privilege that you could be arrested if need be? Lala and I are (no kids, no jobs that would punish us for doing so), but we are putting into place to set up care for the animals. (We’ll use IFTTT to send a text blast to the relevant people who have our house keys. A beloved friend who can’t be arrested but wants to help is our bail money. She’s set it aside on purpose, keeping it liquid for this reason, for those she loves.) Related: I’ve been a good girl my whole life. Kept my nose clean. It’s fucking NUTS that this is the conversation we’re having.

Start learning about that same privilege. I can only speak to white women, but start here. Already feel you’re a good intersectional feminist and ally? Level up here.

Get organized, on a grass-roots level. I’m part of a local crafting group, and this was done in the first meeting:

Write down the social topics that matter to you (it might be a long list)
Have people sign up for those they’re most interested in.
Get a leader for each topic.
Each leader disseminates that info to the people interested, with news and plans of action.

By dividing, we can conquer. My particular group meets once a week for an hour and a half, in person. Knitting is in our hands and we’re taking action.

Every HOUR it seems like the news gets worse, and we can’t all fight all the things all the time. But we can help each other hit the high points, break through the noise, and take action.

Together.

Don’t despair.

I know that’s hard, but there are more of us, who value the rights all of human beings, than there are of them.

Keep fighting. (And keep talking. Comments open. Polite comments of all types will be kept and cherished. But come into my house with fists swinging, and I’ll delete you right out of my house, and you won’t even get a gluten-free muffin to go.)

And remember to put on your own oxygen mask first. Too much? Step away. Rest. Read something light. Take a bath. Then come back swinging. We’re in this together, petals. We’ve got this.

Writing Rituals: Allowing them to change

January 28, 2017

I got an email earlier this week from someone trying to sell me something that asked me what my writing routine was. The goal of that email (not this blog post!) was to get me to buy a piece of software that would improve my writing rituals. (Before you ask, you don’t need the software, I promise, or I would totally tell you about it.)

But it got me thinking about rituals.

A ritual is a ceremony that is made of actions performed in a prescribed manner.

And oh, lordy, do I love a ritual.

I have so many rituals in my life. A sampling:

The way I push the dogs out of my office every morning to lay out my yoga mat and move my body around for thirty minutes.
The way I heat my oatmeal for four minutes exactly, and then add the frozen blueberries so I get an infusion of insta-cool which means I can get to the eating part of my day faster.
The way I polish my glasses when thinking about emotion, as if that would make it easier for me to see.

I like rituals with everything, everywhere.

When I’m in a strange city, I set up a routine on the very first day. I unpack my clothes, putting them into drawers and setting my paperwork in order on whatever desk I have nearby. I find a new “favorite” cafe and go back often. I used to bring a scented candle when I traveled until I almost started my agent’s apartment on fire (true story) and now I don’t bring extra flames with me. I even unpack in a tent.

And I really love my writing routine, which is always changing.

I know that’s contrary to the usual advice of “always play the same music” or “always have the same scent in the air.” Shouldn’t writing rituals be rules that you’ve set yourself and that you follow, hard and fast?

Look. Life isn’t static. It’s always, always changing. If I’d made myself stick to the same cafe where I used to get excellent work done, I’d be there right now, hating the smell of onions (they added cooked food to the menu) and distracted by the woman talking to herself while wearing intricately crafted items made from foil (bless her, but I can’t tune her out even with white noise turned up to 11).

If I’d made myself stick to writing at 4am, I’d BE VERY SAD AND TIRED.

If I’d made myself stick to writing when the mood struck, I’d have no books written at all.

Old writing rituals die. New ones rise to take their place. That’s natural.

I’ve recently learned that the best routine for me in writing is putting my feet up. Who knew? It seems, for me, that sitting with feet down means email and tasks. Feet up (or standing) means making new words. (You can’t really do the feet-up thing if you’re in a cafe or you turn into one of THOSE people, like the people who Skype without headphones in public.)

My routine, though solid and predictable on a daily basis, changes over the long term. It’s always moving, always a work in progress.

That’s okay. That’s good. That’s life.

I will admit that a few things always remain, though, and I’ll list them here in case they’re of use to you:

I use Write or Die to catch my first drafts. No jump-scares, no kamikaze mode, I just have the screen go to red when I’m not writing, and I get a puppy image when I’m done.
I use Post-its like some people put parmesan on pasta — everywhere, with gusto.
I write in silence at home, and with white noise when I’m out. (Years ago, I used to write with music, but I can hear the rhythm of my words better with no melody.)
I use Sharpwriter pencils. Always Sharpwriter. Plain, cheap, basic, reliable. (Like me!)
Scent is helpful for me, so I burn incense or put a pan of cinnamon/clove water on a low burner (CAUTION: FLAMES!). It’s not so much what it smells like as the fact that the air just smells nice.

Don’t worry if you’re still finding your way into your perfect writing routine. If it’s changing, that’s good.

Play.

Explore.

Experiment.

I’d love to know your writing rituals. Leave a comment!

Take a Novel Writing Class at Berkeley (online) With Me!

January 24, 2017

Next week, on February 2, 2017, my class Developing the Novel starts at UC Berkeley Extension!

Explore the craft of longer fiction and how to meet its creative challenges. Each session includes a lecture on craft, supported by discussion of assigned readings and exercises to unlock the potential of your ideas. Learn how to develop characters, language, voice, pace, tone, theme and setting, and participate in a group critique of student work. Enrollment is limited.

– SIGN UP HERE –

Wrangling Time Like the Varmint It Is

January 15, 2017

[In the effort to blog more often, I might sometimes crosspost my emails meant for my writing group if they feel relevant to my life and are something I’d like to remember later. In that spirit, here’s this post on time management.]

I started tracking my time in earnest this month, and it’s had a huge effect on my life almost instantly. It’s like when I started using You Need a Budget – I’d never really understood money and debt until I started tracking it. TopTracker for time is doing the same thing to my brain, and I’m really thinking about the way I use my hours.

Biggest surprise so far?

A lot of time blocks I didn’t consider work actually are part of my work. Earlier this week, I had to send an international wire transfer to reserve a block of rooms for a Venice writing retreat. I found that my credit union had stopped doing them, and I had to literally switch banks in order to get it done. That was three hours that I would normally have just whined about, three hours lost from my work time.

That banking kerfuffle? That was work time.

Mind = blown.

Did you read the recent article, Why Time Management is Ruining Our Lives?

Oy. To know that even Merlin Mann wishes he hadn’t gone quite so far down the productivity wormhole? That was rough to read.

I worship time management.

I bow at its altar and offer my pittance of minutes stolen from the recesses of my Midori Bullet Journal. Even as a kid, I was obsessed with time management, wringing every possible drop from the hours I was allotted. I loved Cheaper by the Dozen and its look at Frank Bunker Gilbreth Sr’s early study of time and motion. I walked around the house making sure to batch my trips. Going downstairs to get a snack? I’d carry two books that had to go to the living room and bring back upstairs both my snack and my laundry. (This was when I was about nine, mind you.)

So I listened with bated breath this week as Kim Werker told me about her foray into time management with the app Asana. Maybe this would be it! Maybe this would be the one thing that finally got my time whipped into shape.

Because I’ve been needing help.

I’ve always been good at managing my time. I’m not the kind of person who looks down at a pencil and looks up to find the sun is setting outside.

But I’ve been scheduling too much.

I’ve forgotten what I can and can’t do. I’m used to overreaching and just getting what I want right before I fall out of the tree, and I have to say, that method is exhausting and leaves bruises.

Every year, I choose a word that I’ll keep in mind for the next year. 2016’s word was BRAVE because I knew I’d have to be courageous to jump out of my day job (I didn’t know it would take bravery just to get through the damn year itself.)

2017 doesn’t seem to have a word for me. Instead, it has a phrase:

“Can I do less?”

This is totally contrary to what I’ve ever done.

But it feels right.

I’ll still do everything, don’t get me wrong. I have plans to write three (maybe four) books in 2017, and I’m releasing three. I have two podcasts.* I’m teaching at Stanford and Berkeley.* I will write essays for my Patreon (and will, every 6 weeks, hand to god!). I’m creating a new online class.

I can do all this, and still do less within a day. How?

While talking to Kim, she said her assistant had built her schedule for her, including buffer room.

Wiggle room!

I never give myself any of that. My days are constantly scheduled full, from top to bottom. I work right up to every deadline I’ve ever had. When I get a migraine and lose two days, my whole schedule is hosed, and I have to redo everything.

This year, no.

This year, I’m building wiggle room into:

My deadlines (two weeks of it)
My weeks (one day a week, unscheduled, to be filled as needed)
My days (TWO OPEN HOURS planned, every work day. That can be used to do the things I didn’t see coming (and there are always tons of those every week), or to read (part of the job!) or to nap (part of a good life!).)

I’m scheduling three hours of Deep Work (loved the book by Cal Newport) into each morning. That time is strictly to do writing of new words, and revision of old ones. The rest of my work hours are scheduled for tasks, the myriad things that keep my world turning ’round and money flowing in.

Thanks to a suggestion from my mastermind group, I’m going to try to keep one day a week completely unscheduled (besides the deep work time). As it stands right now, that may be a different day each week, but that day can catch some of the flotsam and jetsam of the rest of the week.

I’m going to use a combination of Asana (for the reminders it sends) and my Midori to track my time.

My simple bullet weekly layout, with glitter washi!

(Above: Midori, with glitter washi tape! I don’t list the deep work on it, only the To Dos. See Thursday for a “free day” during which I’ll do both deep work and regular work, but I have no specific scheduled tasks that day.)

I’m going to give myself more time.

I’m going to schedule down time, every day.

I’ll keep you posted as to how it goes. How about you? How do you plan out your time? I’d love to hear.

xo, Rachael

***

The world is testing me. As I’m writing this to you, I just got asked to teach a paying gig that is right up my alley, but I do. not. have. time, and I’m going to have to say no to people I care about. Augh.
I realize that I’m whining about time management when writing is my full time job. I understand the place of privilege I’m in, and boy, do I appreciate it and never take it for granted.
I have a new writing podcast, did you know? J. Thorn and I are talking about making the transition to writing full time over at The Petal to the Metal. Come listen. We’re funny.
At Berkeley, one of the classes I’m teaching is in the Extension program and it’s online, so YOU can take it if you want to. It’s called Developing the Novel, and registration is open now. The class starts in two weeks, limited to 20 students.