Ep: 233: Why Your Writing Goals Don’t Matter That Much!

YES, you should have writing goals. But here’s why they don’t (actually) matter that much. And it’s going to blow your mind. Enjoy. 

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Transcript:

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing. 

[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #233 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I am so happy you’re with me today. This is kind of going to be a bonus episode. No, it is a bonus episode. I am going to read to you an email that I wrote to my writer’s list. This is for two reasons, one big, one small. The small reason is if you’re not on my writer’s list, this is an example of the email that I send to you. You might like to be on my email list for writers. It really is a place that I put time and energy into and my job is to encourage you for free, just sign up and let me encourage you to do your writing. You can always get to that by going to RachaelHerron.com/Write. But the second reason I want to read this particular email to you is that I think it’s maybe one of the most important things I’ve ever said about writing, and our goals of writing. So we’re going to get into that in a moment, but, what’s going on around here? I want to thank new Patreon supporters. 

[00:01:21] Thank you. Thank you so much. Donna Ryan, Jenny Clark, Vivian Tee, and Helen Conway. Thank you so much for being here with me, supporting me. It means the world. Thank you to all of my current Patreon subscribers as well. It really does make a huge difference in my life. So, how is the move going, Rachael? Well, the room is a little bit emptier, boxes around us. I’m glad we started when we did, we still have a bunch of really big things to get rid of, like my beautiful desk. I still have not managed to clean out this desk. It is not because I haven’t had time. It is because I love this desk so much. I don’t want it to go. I even got out of box and filled the box with all of the things that I will need on a daily basis to have on my desk for the next six months or so things like my planner and my favorite pens. And oh, what else is in there? My headphones, my favorite coaster. And put them all in the box so that I could empty the desk and then take a picture of it with all of the empty drawers as a roll top. It’s big, it’s old. It’s wonderful. If you’re in the bay area and you want it, let me know. You’d have to pick it up. And in the last five days, all of those things have just crept back onto my desk because I just don’t want to let it go.

[00:02:38] I want to hug it, hugging it here, virtually on the podcast. So someday, perhaps I’ll listen back to this and think, oh, remember that beautiful desk. Isn’t it amazing that I have a new, beautiful desk that I love? That will happen. So we have been alternating fits of panic and joy, but the panic is subsiding and the joy is setting in. We had an amazing conversation with our friends, Mona and Damian, who you may, you’ve heard me talk about Mona MacDermid before she is a poet and writer. I just adore her and she and her husband have moved to so mentee in so many places all around the world internationally. And they gave us a little pep talk about how to move and how to do it in a sane manner and a sensible, responsible, joyful manner. And here’s some of the talking points that I took away from our conversation. Have and do your good goodbyes. So we are making a list of things that we love, not just people, but the things like the restaurants and the places and the particular lawn where I like to eat an ice cream in San Francisco. It is Dolores park, by the way, buy right ice cream across the street. That’s on the list. I would not have thought about doing that. 

[00:03:56] Of course, we’re going to be able to come back to the states every year or so and see things, but an intentional good goodbye makes so much sense to me. Number two, throw the party, throw yourself a party. I’m going to throw a party and invite all the locals that I love to come say goodbye. Hopefully they’ll be back as unaided. I don’t know where we’re going to throw it, because at some point we won’t have this house to throw a party in, and I want to throw it as late as possible but that’s going to happen. Number three, this is huge. Get excited about the destination. I have this strange brain tendency to try to put off joy. If I’m often, if I’m reading a book and it is incredible, I will put it down and walk away for a few hours a few days, sometimes a few weeks, never even finished lonesome dove for this reason. Because I want to prolong the joy. So, or like put it off because that feels delicious to me. It is something that pleases me, however, it’s okay just to like watch the movies, watch Wellington paranormal, read the travel guides, watch the vloggers on New Zealand and on this place, we’re going to go and get really excited about it.

[00:05:04] So that is something we’ve been doing, amazing. When we get there, they said these are two things I would not have thought of doing, present gifts to your new neighbors. Love that. I want them to love me. I want friends, I want my neighbors to know us and to wave at us and to chit chat on the street. Like we do here. We have an amazing little neighborhood community on our cul-de-sac in east Oakland and it is so great. So I’m going to bring like little gifts from home, Ghirardelli chocolate bars or something like that. And then this one, I love make yourself a regular somewhere. This is something I do when I travel. Normally, if I’m in a place for more than a couple or three days, I tend to try to do that, but being intentional about it, walking into this coffee shop, where we want to become regulars and saying, as someone I knew did, and as I did once in a coffee shop that I loved and it worked saying, Hey, I’m here. I’m Rachael, I’d like to know all of your names. We’re going to be here every day. And then it becomes friendship and it becomes awesome. So we’re going to do that. Thank you, Mona and Damien for taking that time. It was amazing. Also, thank you to Emma from Australia who made a move like this from the UK with her wife and Emma sent me this email that made me cry.

[00:06:14] She also had to leave an old cat behind and I hope you don’t mind I’m saying this, and had a cat die right before they left also because animals do that. Exactly what we’re going through right now. And she said, everything you need is inside you. And you only need to get that in mind. And to remember you’re loved. Everyone you know and love holds you in their heart. What an adventure we just get to go. It’s so exciting. Thank you. Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Mona. Thank you everyone who’s been responding to me about these kinds of things. It really does help me feel less scared and more excited. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. There will be another bonus mini episode coming soon because I’ve collected a good number of questions. I don’t know if that’s going to drop this week or next week, but I’ll get it out to you soon. And that’s at the $5 Patreon level I become your mini coach, not very many, but you know, I do many questions. Anyway, whatever that looks like. If you’re interested, that’s over patreon.com/Rachael. And now let’s jump into this email. Even if you get my email might be a good idea to listen. This- I write emails of encouragement to writers because they’re what I need to hear at the time. Honestly, they’re selfish. They’re what am I struggling with? What am I grappling with? Let’s talk about it with the writers. 

[00:07:34] So, here you go. I think this letter was called, what was the subject line? Oh, your writing goals don’t actually matter. All right. Your writing goals don’t actually matter. Dearest writers, I’ve been thinking a lot about goals. We’re moving to New Zealand and it is so exciting and it’s rather banana pants. I’m a citizen and my wife’s visa means that we have to enter the country rather more rapidly than we thought we would. So we’re leaving on July 24th. That’s a little less than three months from now and between now and then we have to pack the house. I’m a neat-nic but a bit of a pack rat and my wife is a collector. We have to fix the house. We’re lazy and have done little in upkeep, except the essential as I’m typing this, there’s a man on a ladder scraping the old paint off my office window to prep for painting. The look of horror every time I show him another thing we put off fixing would be amusing. If it weren’t such an expensive expression. We have to sell the house. This is a very grownup thing to do and it’s freaking us out. Neither of us ever having done anything like it before. Yes, we’re selling a house in the San Francisco bay area, but don’t get too jealous. We bought in 2006 right before the crash. So we’ll walk away with a little money. Yay. But not a lot. Hopefully, it’ll be enough for a smallish down payment on a house in new Zealand’s rather nonsensical housing market. And then, then what? And what’s our actual goal here? In the back of my mind, I have this goal one day we’ll look, look up in surprise and find ourselves happy and safe in a cozy home on the other side of the world, we’ll be relaxed and happy, but to get to that goal of being happy and relaxed, we’re going to be the opposite of relaxed or happy. It’s hard getting rid of most of our belongings and packing the few things we’re taking. We’re both cranky and really we’re just getting started. Once we’re in New Zealand, it’ll take months and months to figure out where we want to be, what we want to do. We’re going to be living out of suitcases and in total turmoil for a long time. Waking up to find we’re suddenly relaxed and happy and cozy and have everything we need. That’s not a real goal. We already have that kind of comfort here for the most part. If that’s what we really wanted, we’d quit packing boxes and tell our friends we’ve changed our mind so they can stop arguing about who gets our AirFryer. 

[00:10:05] Let’s look at writing now, a lot of writers have the goal of finishing a book or another one. If they’ve already climbed that peak, they think if they finish it or get it published, that they’ll finally feel confident. They think they’ll finally feel like a real writer at the base of that hope is the persistent desire to be happy and satisfied, but there is a big problem here. To write a book, that means you have to write, and what that means is that for many months or years, you’re going to be uncomfortable as hell. You’ll be unhappy with the way the words land on the page. The words won’t do what you want them to, and you have no idea how to make them better. Every once in a while a scene or a chapter feels great. But then the next one goes off the rails and the whole book crashes down around you. The sound of the falling word rebel ringing in your ears. So in trying to gain happiness from being a writer, you signed up for a boatload of difficulty and occasional abject misery. Guess what? This is why writers quit writing. They say, I just wanted to chase my dream and feel happy, but doing that, trying to write a book or a collection of essays or poems, often feels like utter crap. So, of course, we start second guessing that goal. They say, I must be doing this all wrong. I’m not a writer at all. How stupid was I to think I could even learn how to do this? I’m just a failure at this, writing is not for me. So we pushed the journal or the manuscript into the closet and stop trying, if the goal was to feel like a more confident writer and actually doing the writing made you feel very opposite of confident, of course you feel terrible. Of course you want to quit. 

[00:12:01] Here’s the thing, my darling writers, and you are already a writer by the way, reaching the goal of completing a book or of getting a published, or even seeing it on a shelf, changes nothing. Nothing. Yes, it is fun to walk into Barnes and Noble and to see our names right there. And if that’s a dream you have, please continue to fan that flame. But honestly, it’s a high that lasts like five minutes. And then you feel like an idiot for shouting at the stranger in the same aisle, I wrote this book! Before she hurries away into the next aisle. Ask me how I know. The next morning, when we sit at our desks to continue writing, we feel the same way we always do, unprepared, not good enough, not disciplined enough, you know that feeling and it sucks and it doesn’t go away, by the way, ever dozens of books in I still feel that way every day. And I honestly don’t want it to go away. A writer who just knows he’s great at writing, isn’t a writer, who want to read, that way lies cocky complacency, and no, thank you. So here’s the hard truth, a goal isn’t enough to keep you going for months and years at a time.

[00:13:12] A goal is something else entirely. A goal exists to make you uncomfortable. A goal exists to make you uncomfortable. The whole point is to feel discomfort. A goal is meant to bring up negative emotions so you can learn how to work through them. This is how we learn what we need to work on. The goal isn’t something we aim for in order to get a huge gold star, the end point hardly matters in fact, and I know that is a scary idea so stick with me here. Instead, moving toward the goal, teaches us about ourselves. Most importantly, moving toward the goal, teaches us how to move through difficulty while holding grace and love and tenderness for ourselves. Every single day, I sit at the computer and I feel discomfort because I’m not writing as well as I want to. Honestly, I’m feeling that way right now, as I revise this letter, worrying that I won’t write it clearly enough to blow your damn mind. But every day, I get a little better at welcoming that discomfort. Oh, Hey, it’s you again? Okay then, why don’t you just grab a seat? I’m going to keep working. It’s fine that you’re here, but keep the complaining to a bare minimum. All right? Like Elizabeth Gilbert says in big magic about being on a road trip with fear. Quote fear. You’re allowed to have a seat and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote. You’re not allowed to touch the roadmaps. You’re not allowed to suggest detours. You’re not allowed to fiddle with the temperature, dude, you’re not even allowed to touch the radio, but above all else my dear old familiar friend, you are absolutely forbidden to drive end quote. Pretty damn reliably. Our brain when handed a big goal will hand us back. Lots of negative emotions. We’ll stand there. Our hands dripping with gunk fear, imposter syndrome, lack of confidence, worry, anxiety, and all of these emotions want to steer the car. We can’t let them, our goals teach us how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. 

[00:15:29] In our move to New Zealand, my “goal” of being cozy and happy in a new house, in a new town. It doesn’t really matter. I’ll never get to that exact spot. Not in any way that I can imagine right now. But the goal remains useful as we move toward it. I’m reminded that yes, this is going to be hard. I get used to greeting those negative emotions, cheerfully. Sure, my wife and I are so grumpy, we’re about to chew the crumbling, lead paint off the walls, but that doesn’t mean moving is a bad idea or that we should quit. It just means that we get to actively learn from the hard things. The point of a goal is to grow into someone stronger than you are now. A goal to write a book is not about the end point of holding a book in your hands, although yes, that’s magical and wonderful. It’s really about learning who you are now and who you can become. And yes, it’s total cliche, but it’s actually about the journey, not the destination. And yes, you can get a gold star if you want one, when you hit the goal, but the real gold stars come along the way. You award them to yourself every time you sit and move your fingers on the keyboard. Every time you show up for something like Rachael Says, Write. Every time you read a book in your genre and try to figure out how the author just made you gasped aloud, you deserve all the gold stars. All of them. I say this as a person who just spent $34 on Amazon on gold stars, I would not have even guessed that was possible. So get comfy, being uncomfortable, stay at the computer while you’re angry, little inner editor fumes in the invisible seat behind you, frustrated that you won’t let her touch the radio dial or steer. By God, that little inner editor can also get used to being uncomfortable. Then at the end of the session, give yourself a gold star, either virtual or real. Don’t wait to hit the goal to celebrate. Instead, celebrate every single damn day. I know that you can do this. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.