In the age of lockdown, it’s time to get reading.
Everyone should read. Read to escape. Read to know things. What should you read right now? I suggest fiction. Some readers are finding a new appreciation for Jane Austen, whose upper class female characters were kept cooped up and feared dying of a trifling virus before tea. Or maybe now’s the time to reread the entire Harry Potter collection, where bones regrow overnight and love conquers all. Whatever you do, just don’t read The Road or any other bleak post-apocalyptic novel. Unless you’re a writer, in which case, read anything and everything. If you are a writer, you read not just to know things or escape, but to learn how to be a better writer, which is an ongoing journey with no end. So many budding writers ask me where to submit their work or how to get their work noticed so they can get published. They’re itching to get their writing out there, but haven’t paid much attention to anyone else’s. They don’t realize they can answer a lot of their own questions by reading. But first, let me back up a second: I am proceeding with the assumption that if you write, you enjoy reading as a pastime. If that is not the case, I have to ask why you expect other people to enjoy something you don’t? I remind you as well that publishing is an industry. Why would you endeavor to create a product you yourself wouldn’t buy? Assuming you enjoy reading but haven’t done much of it, consider that publishing without reading is like contributing to a conversation you haven’t been listening to. Imagine you’re an editor at a magazine. What do you think of pitches from someone who clearly has never read your magazine and has no idea what kind of dialogue you’ve been having with your readers? They’re just butting in, Hello! with non sequiturs, like texts from my mother. That’s why so many submission pages spell out the obvious and urge you to read before you hit send. In addition to having a sense of the literary landscape, you also need to study other writers’ technique, just as painters or musicians do. If you’ve ever taken an art class, you’ve learned the basics of drawing, then maybe graduated to copying famous works. If you studied music as a child, you were surely asked to learn pieces composed by other people, possibly people who had been dead for hundreds of years. Your teacher didn’t ask you to just come up with your own music and memorize it. You had to study. The same is true of writers. Some writers take workshops or get MFA’s. Others self-teach the craft of writing. But what they all have in common is reading: this includes the classics and contemporary literature. Imagine a conversation among writers you admire, dead or alive. Would you be able to keep up? Maybe no one could, but you should endeavor to all the same. Because literature is worth it. Another benefit of reading is you’ll naturally find where you want to publish, as you take note of the magazines you enjoy and the publishers releasing the books you like. You’ll also discover writers to admire whose reading lists are regularly shared on social media, or in newsletters. A few great examples are Matt Bell, who’s added a lot to my bookshelf, or Saeed Jones, who produces a fabulous, prose-driven newsletter. After you’ve published shorter pieces, such as short stories or essays, you may be ready to tackle a full length project. When you’re pitching yourself as a writer to the industry gatekeepers, editors and agents will expect you to tell them which contemporaries your writing resembles and if you say Tolstoy, you’re going to sound like a boob. They will also expect you to be able to sum up your book in one sentence. Reading is part of the groundwork that prepares you to enter the foreign, bizarre, and complex arena of publishing. As you read more and follow more writers, you’ll join writing groups and other networks where writers talk about the ins and outs of the industry, which will help prepare you for what lies ahead. In other words, you lose nothing by reading, you only gain. Above all, you should read out of respect for the craft of writing, which requires years to achieve mastery over, just like the piano or basketball. If you don’t have that passion for it, or appreciation for your ancestors and peers among writers, then you must ask yourself, Why do you write? And who for?
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![]() First, there are the clichés: write what you know. Learn the rules before you can break them. Practice every day because practice makes perfect. (Or does it? According to Twyla Tharp, “Perfect practice makes perfect... Art is a vast democracy of habit”). They’re tried and true because they do have merit; you don’t get to be a cliché for nothing. But they’re also boring and non-specific. If our teachers, idols, and mentors are the ones spouting these clichés, it’s hopefully because they’ve found them to work. Ideally, they combine the familiar with more curated advice. If not, well, you can’t squeeze blood from a stone. Knowing what advice to take is as much about understanding your own potential as it is about seeing other people’s limits. When I asked my network on Facebook about the worst advice they’d ever gotten, much of it was vague, like “make it more real.” (What does that even mean?) Other notes seemed downright insensitive. “Write less weird” or “don’t be so emotional and all over the place” with your acting are not constructive comments and give away the critic’s (negative) opinion without taking into account the intentions of the artist. Ouch. Though it’s easy to dismiss such sloppy advice, that doesn’t take the sting out of it. Here’s a tale of three teachers: in grad school, one teacher told me my stories had no emotional weight. I was crushed (no pun intended). This guy, a supposed role model, thought my work was meaningless, or so I believed. Then, another teacher in the program told me to write from my own experience to add heft to the work so that I could eventually write empathetic characters who were far removed from myself. The two were essentially telling me the same thing, but the packaging was different. The latter was also more specific: he told me what to try vs what not to do. I followed this advice and began to produce more experimental, emotionally resonant stories, resulting in a novel in the form of semi auto-biographical prose-driven vignettes that completely perplexed a third professor. “You’re a poet,” she said, throwing up her hands. It wasn’t meant as a compliment, or an insult. She wrote linear, realist work and had no idea how to talk to me about what I was doing. Out of the three, only one knew how to effectively offer constructive feedback that was specific to my work. Knowing the difference was my job. Then there’s advice that would be brilliant for someone else but just isn’t your style, perhaps because we tend to advise others to tackle obstacles in the ways that have worked for us, vs coming up with new strategies based on what we know about the other person. You will have to trust your gut enough to resist such well-intentioned suggestions, or else try it and be ok with it when it doesn’t work out—don’t fret over false starts, instead see them as part of the process, then move on. For example, a professor I know was advised to have papers in different stages of the publishing process at all times, which is similar to notes on submissions that I’ve received as a fiction writer, but she found it set an insane expectation. Rather than run herself ragged, she gave up the exercise and found other ways of achieving. Remember the method is supposed to work for you, you don’t contort yourself to work for the method. Same is true of the popular admonishments about getting up before sunrise every day to work on your art, an impossibility for many of us. Some advice just isn’t a fit for you. This is why clichés can’t be applied universally and must be paired with more curated input from a mentor who is paying attention. One of the greatest skills I can teach is learning when to agree and when to pass. That means following the suggestions that get you nodding excitedly as soon as you hear them, as well as the ones that make you inwardly weep as they hit upon a worry you’ve harbored about your work, like biting down on a sore tooth. You can always give a suggestion time to settle, then see if it feels right. In the end, it’s your work, your career, and you have to be consistent in your values and goals to maintain a sense of self. The person most affected by your choices in your work is you. So, take all advice seriously. Sift through it like a gold panner. Pay attention to what resonates, even if it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes we need to hear hard truths. Other times, someone is being petty or doesn’t understand what you’re trying to achieve. Be honest with yourself; your gut knows the difference. At the same time, it is ok to take suggestions that don’t work—that’s part of the process. Keep taking risks. You’re not here just to look pretty, you’re here to make something incredible and that often happens wildly, surprisingly, and half by accident. Forget about the people you want to impress. Find the people who get your work. Join collectives, exchange work with friends and other creatives you may meet at events, or in groups online. If you don’t go to such events or belong to such groups, start. We all need feedback to grow and that dynamic is most effective when it comes from an honest, agenda-less place of support. Over time, you will fine tune your instinct. Though the work itself may never get easier, processing feedback will. ![]() Historically, New Year’s resolutions began as a bargain with forces beyond our control, which seems an apt metaphor for dieting in our calorie-rich society. The Babylonians left behind a record of a new year tradition the involved making promises to the gods to ensure prosperity in the coming year. So will the gods favor you in 2020? If the fruits you’ve sown reap no reward, if your business fails to thrive, is it because you’ve displeased the divine and brought ruin upon yourself? Maybe what goes around comes around, but we also live in a world of inequality and natural disasters. In a sense, New Year’s resolutions are rooted in a narrative of self-blame and accountability for what actually amounts to good—or bad—fortune. Each turning of the wheel is an opportunity for further growth, but it can feel like an obligation to reinvent yourself instead. New Year’s resolutions reflect this pressure and consequently often take the form of sweeping statements promising dramatic transformation. I’m thinking of the classic weight loss and fitness goals and their accompanying “before” and “after” photos, as if a changed body indicates a transformation of the soul. While getting in shape may make you feel better and live longer, it won’t make you a better listener to your friends, or a more organized boss. This is why the pressure and promise of New Year’s resolutions are so dangerous: we want our resolve alone to be enough to change our lives for the better, change us for the better, and eliminate some of the burden of being a modern human. But once you address your underlying motivation for change, you also have to construct a plan to implement that change, one step at a time. The Romans continued the tradition of New Year’s promises but moved the date to align with their own civil calendar in 46 B.C.E. Roman NYE included worship of Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and endings, from whose name the month January derives. A beginning suggests hopefulness, while an ending gives permission to leave something behind that has come to a natural conclusion, or no longer serves you. We can arrive at the new year unencumbered, but with stars in our eyes. So let’s not think of resolutions—a hard resolve—so much as ambitions—a hope and a dream. If you “resolve” to achieve an ambition, then you’ll have to set incremental goals to make it happen. Start with a specific achievement like “get a solo show.” Then brainstorm the steps needed to achieve your goal. It may be difficult to estimate how much time each step will take you, which is why breaking it down into more detail can help put it into context and give you a sense of real time. Then make a timeline of the milestones to achieve over the next month, then the next three months, then six. For example, if my goal is to get my own solo show, I’m going to think about my current status as an artist. Do I feel like my body of work is ready? Am I emotionally ready? Is my website even ready? I know gallerists will check it out. Is my CV up to date to submit with a proposal? Maybe I need to produce more pieces to round things out. Maybe I’d like a former teacher or an artist friend to give me some input on my proposal and pitch, which I realize as I’m brainstorming I’m definitely going to have to write. And I know my favorite former professor can take a month to get back to me. Meanwhile, I’m also thinking about what connections I have. Where do they work, who are their friends, where have they shown? Come to think of it, which galleries am I even interested in targeting? Who has connections there? Maybe the director of the residency I attended last summer… How do I approach them and ask for help? How do I forge new connections that could help me? ![]() I keep scribbling notes on a to-do list, or making circles on a mind map, then I start putting them into chronological order. I notice each step, like building up my website, has sub-steps. Already, I’m beginning to see that I have months of work ahead before I’m even going to be ready to start cold-calling galleries or getting friends to reach out on my behalf. Perhaps this will take longer than a year, as not all of this is within my control. But I know from my timeline that I have at least six months of tasks planned out and that I can start working towards them today. That is my New Year’s ambition. The process of brainstorming each step towards achieving my goal, then placing it on a real timeline can be revelatory. And painful. A lot of us give up because our goals seem way too far out of reach or it’s taking too long to get where we’re going. We live in a culture that loves stories of overnight success, especially when it happens to someone who’s under 30. As Lizzo has openly discussed, there is no such thing as overnight success. Patience is a virtue for a reason: it’s really f’ing hard to achieve something. That’s why building a creative career is usually a lifelong pursuit. You’re playing the long game here. So give yourself credit for how far you’ve come and space to get where you’re going. Remember, “Beyoncé wasn’t built in a day.” Q: How do you handle fear of success? A: I have to be honest here: not too many people approach me and say they’re worried they won’t be able to handle their success. Most are focused on getting there at all and are truly petrified they won’t reach the goals they’ve set. Among those who have achieved what could be conventionally called success, such as widespread recognition and awards, many are terrified they will backslide into a less well-respected position if their work falls out of favor. In other words, they’re worried their successful work will suddenly be judged “unsuccessful” and they’ll lose their status and the platform for their voice that comes with it. So let me answer a question with a question: is the fear of success you’re talking about really different from a fear of failure?
Fear of success is a symptom of Imposter Syndrome, which manifests as a collection of feelings that can include tremendous self-doubt, a sense of worthlessness, and an inescapable fear that you are a failure, to the point of being unconvinced you deserve help, support, or the accolades you’ve garnered. This is accompanied by an underlying worry that others will discover you aren’t really a “good” artist. Imposter Syndrome presents in people who have already achieved success in some way, shape, or form—from acceptance into an arts program of study to receiving big awards and grants—but believe secretly that they are failures, because they think their work isn’t “good enough.” The most common advice given to sufferers of Imposter Syndrome is to “fake it till you make it,” meaning to go about pretending you are more confident or successful than you really are, until that success and the accompanying feelings of loving yourself eventually become a reality. The problem is that those with Imposter Syndrome already feel like posers in danger of being found out. Advocating for further performing won’t always help. Sometimes, the stakes just keep getting higher. Instead, you have to come to accept your own worth. The first step is to separate your identity from your work. Here is some of the best advice I’ve ever received: I had a painting teacher in college who told me I should never alter my work just because she said so. (She also told me in her adorable Swiss accent, “These brushes already know how to paint, so they will help you!” And so they did.) She wanted me to make my own art, whether she liked it or not. In grad school, whenever everyone praised her work, she would intentionally alter it and take it into a less likeable direction. By then, I’d studied with perhaps a dozen arts instructors, most of them writers, and this was the first time anyone had told me point-blank that I shouldn’t work for their approval. I was flabbergasted but also inspired. To be honest with you, I didn’t really learn the lesson. Not until several years later in grad school when I became so fed up with having my work judged through the lens of what fiction is “supposed” to be like that I began to ignore critics in my workshops whose comments didn’t resonate and instead created the kind of stories I wanted to read. I developed enough confidence to decide for myself what was “good” and worth pursuing. My painting teacher’s advice came back to me then and I realized how brilliant and daring it really was to challenge a college student to defy convention and resist the set standards to follow her own inspiration, or genius. Art is subjective, so if you work for praise, you will always be chasing down someone’s approval while simultaneously hating yourself for it. Try making/writing/composing something you actually think others will hate, not because it’s offensive—that’s too easy. Don’t make racist/sexist/phobic art. But because it’s different and challenging and uniquely yours. Remind yourself that a negative reaction to art is perhaps more powerful than a positive one because people dislike work that challenges their assumptions about themselves and the world and that impression usually sticks with them, producing passionate responses. Remember an artist’s role is to further discourse and hold up a mirror to society. You can’t always do that nicely, or prettily. This is why visual and performing artists sometimes shock their audiences on purpose. If you can produce a piece of unlikable art, it’s easier to see the line between your identity and your work, because you yourself are probably not that unlikable as a person. Toni Morrison, a favorite writer of mine, may she rest in power, sometimes mused about the strength of her own books, as if someone else had written them. She had a sense of self outside her writing that enabled a healthy distance. She wasn’t necessarily objective, but she got that her work existed apart from her-self. Indeed, she is gone but her novels live on. Next, rest assured that everyone feels like a big phony sometimes, even your artistic heroes. They’re all just people, not gods, which means they make mistakes. (Well, actually, even gods make mistakes, they just don’t have to apologize for them). I recommend looking at some of your favorites’ earlier to work to see if you can map their progression. It's likely someone told them along the way that their work was no good. Did they become a more valuable person as their work changed, or as it received attention? Or did they always have talent and, separately, value as a human being? Lastly, it’s corny but you have to believe in yourself. This does not mean convincing yourself that you are perfect. It’s about believing your voice has value, just as you think other people’s voices are important. You have a right to express yourself creatively, and that that action is beneficial to you and the world. (Even if no one “likes” your stuff, you are still contributing to the conversation. You can still push boundaries, raise issues, portray beauty as you see it). While your work is separate from your identity, being creative is not—it’s a key piece of your makeup, so embrace it. If saying “I’m an artist” makes you squirm, try saying, “I’m a creative” or simply “I’m a creative person.” Or, even better, "I'm an instigator." Fear of succeeding and all the attention—and scrutiny—it might bring may never entirely go away. After all, who doesn’t want to be liked and praised and eternally popular? As you progress, there will be new challenges, new hurdles to clear. But you can get more comfortable if you can separate your identity from your work, acknowledge lots of people feel this way, including probably every artist you know, and accept that your voice is valuable, even when you think no one wants to hear it. Q: My first pitch just got rejected after I answered a call for submissions at a magazine. I don’t know where else to submit and I’m feeling discouraged. Can you recommend something feminist and forward-thinking? A: First, congrats on your first pitch! Woo! This is a really big deal and deserves a moment’s pause to take it in. You reached out to an actual editor! And got an actual response! Sure, the answer was no, but you’re going to get a lot of “no’s” throughout the pitching process, as everyone does. Don’t ever let that stop you. Every “no” brings you closer to a “yes,” as cheesy as that sounds.
There are currently tons of magazines publishing feminist and forward-thinking content, like Bitch, Lilith, Bust, Jezebel Teen Vogue, and so many others. Traditional women’s magazines like Glamour and Marie Claire have also moved with the times and developed a decidedly more feminist tone. They run the gamut in terms of difficulty breaking in, so make a list of those that interest you and think of them the way you did college admissions: which are the ones you have a really strong chance at and which are the reaches? (If you’re not sure, think about the overall circulation and notoriety of each magazine). The difference here, though, is you get to attend all the schools and never stop reaching for the top tier. In fact, the more bylines you garner, the more likely you’ll be to get work accepted by the most well-respected publications, especially as you continue fine-tuning your pitches, gaining confidence, and building connections. You’ll notice I haven’t actually told you where to submit next and there’s a reason for that. There are so many publications out there, it’s hard for me to tell you which you would like. Instead, do some googling. Look up “feminist magazine” and see what you find. Likely there will be big names you recognize, and many you don’t. Start with the unfamiliar but eye-catching ones. Next, you have to read them. Editors want pitches that are on-brand for their magazine. They don’t want pitches on topics they published a year ago. The best way to understand a magazine’s brand is to be one of their readers. If you like what you see and it inspires you, then that’s a magazine to aim for. The “About” or “Contact” pages can tell you who the editors are and often includes information on how and where to pitch. If you can’t find info there, join freelancer writer groups on Facebook and crowdsource the info. Consider going to readings promoting collections, or other events focused on essay-writing and journalism. The people you’ll meet there could be helpful allies and mentors. Many editors’ email addresses and other trade secrets are passed from one writer to another. In short, there’s a whole world of publishing out there for you to explore. Getting started can seem daunting, but you’ll find you ask the questions you need to ask as they arise; you don’t have to know it all from the start. For now, focus on finding magazines you love and would want to be featured in. These will help you get to your dream publications by building the path one stone at a time. Q: My friend and her husband travel all the time. They’ve been married for two years, don’t have any kids, (and won’t be having any) he has a very flexible job, and she has a lot of school breaks as a teacher. I meet her once a week for a drink while my daughter is at karate. My husband and I are both writers and every week this friend makes a comment about how we “never” travel. It’s getting to the point where I don’t even want to see her anymore because I know she’s going to judge me about this. Sigh. And it’s such a stupid thing, right? Why does she even care? A: Oof, death by a thousand little comments. The image of the globe-trotting life contribute heavily to FOMO because how could it not? We’re sitting here, chained to our desks, watching other people literally explore the world we can’t. Travel is about adventure and experience, we are told, which is supposed to enrich you and make you a wiser, more interesting person, even if it’s at the expense of the people struggling to live where you’re visiting. (For more on that, read Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place). There’s also the issue of how much flying on planes increases your carbon footprint, or how much waste hotels produce. In other words, travel may be great only for the traveler, while it’s a morally complicated, economy-controlling and environmentally hazardous practice for the rest. I say this not to denigrate travelers or argue for an end to tourism, (I love to travel!) but to counter the popular narrative that visiting other places makes you a better person. Maybe it does make you a more interesting person if you have good stories to tell at parties that you can deliver well, instead of just repeating the same anecdotes endlessly, but it doesn’t make you good. So right off the bat, we can reject the narrative this friend is trying to get you to buy into.
Next, you gotta wonder why your friend feels the need to make belittling comparisons about your rate of travel. Maybe the travel narrative has proven false for her. Maybe these jaunts aren’t making her feel as alive and enriched as she wishes. Maybe she is insecure about something in her own life, like her status in a child-free couple, causing her behave competitively with you. Or maybe she’s really just that oblivious. Whatever the real reason, she is making you feel judged, and judged unfairly on top of that, to the degree that you’re considering cancelling your weekly friend date with her. Is this the only comment she’s made that gets under your skin? How often do you find yourself feeling angry or put-down because of this friend? If your interactions makes you feel bad about yourself regularly, then I agree you should reconsider how much time you spend with her and maybe read a book during your daughter's class instead. Life is too short to spend time with people you don’t like. Whatever you decide about the fate of this friendship, a graceful pivot is an easy way to deal with the situation in the moment. If you do keep hanging out with this seasoned trip-taker, next time she makes a comment about your rate of travel, just say, “Yeah, we really wish we could get away more. I envy you!” — which is the truth! — then redirect the conversation to another, safer topic like a movie just saw or a new bar you’d like to take her to next time you hang out. The Art of Changing the Subject was invented for just this reason, so don’t shy away from using it; there’s no reason you have to endure a line of questioning that makes you uncomfortable. This is dinner, not an interrogation. And if this friend is trying to get your goat, your graceful, nonplussed response will prove her efforts fruitless. ![]() One of the biggest challenges for creatives is finding the time to actually create. Between day jobs, kids, chores, social obligations, family gatherings, their accompanying drama, and all the other stuff of life, it’s hard to keep a consistent practice going. During the holiday season, most of us just shake our heads, sigh, and decide we’ll get to it next year. But it is possible to enjoy the holiday hubbub and still maintain your creative practice. If you don’t have one yet, starting during the holidays may seem insane, but it could actually save your sanity to purposefully carve out time for creative expression. Make a Plan You know the holidays are coming. In case your calendar isn’t enough to remind you, every mall and chain store was hosed down with glittering red and green as of midnight on Halloween. The pressure is definitely on. But don’t be fooled, Thanksgiving is weeks away and Christmas isn’t here for over a month! You still have time to plan around the yearly rituals you know are coming, like that annual shopping day with your mom or your kids’ school pageant. If you keep a consistent creative practice, now’s the time to begin playing Jenga with your entire schedule to free up some creative time to keep going. And when I say “time,” I mean anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours. Every second does indeed count towards achieving your goals; being an artist is a marathon, not a sprint. Maybe 5 minutes is all you’re going to get each day between now and New Year’s. That’s ok, that still counts as maintaining your practice! If 5 focused minutes a day is actually more than you currently get, then carving that out now will make you feel great and ready for the new year, with all its pressure to improve yourself. (More on that in a post to come). Re-Prioritize While you Jenga your schedule, consider reducing some of the other demands you make on yourself. If exercise is your thing, maybe drop down from 5 gym sessions a week to 3 so you can use that remaining time for your artistic work. You can cut corners at home, too. A little more laundry and a slightly dirtier house might be worth it so you can still make art and feel like yourself during this joyfully hectic time. Remember everyone else is stressed out, too. Cancelling book club this month might just result in a collective sigh of relief. Be Forgiving So there are the holiday needs you know are coming, like cooking and shopping and decorating your ice-covered roof with lights, but then there’s all the inevitably last minute stuff that pops up without warning, like snow days, and throws your whole schedule out the window. Now is the time to be flexible and forgiving. Take the time you’d spend beating yourself up over not keeping perfectly to your schedule to instead make some notes, or just close your eyes for a minute and meditate on your work. Remember that the work of an artist is largely invisible: all the time you spend dreaming, plotting, planning, and feeling your way through your creations still does indeed count towards your goals, even if you are actively engaged in another activity. In fact, the distraction of the mundane is a great way to stimulate the subconscious, so be mindful of that as you sip nog and deck the halls. Ask for Help The holidays often mean more mouths to feed (and listen to) but it can also mean more hands. Maybe the college kids home for break or a visiting relative can handle dinner while you go hide in the garage with some bourbon and work on your sculpture. Consider hiring babysitters to watch the little ones or using apps like Postmates and Task Rabbit so someone else can go pick up milk or a wreath from Home Depot. Free yourself from the fallacy that being efficient and productive means you do every single thing yourself. It’s all about creatively delegating. Speaking of, maybe those little Santa fanatics in your house could start walking the dog or vacuuming to show Santa how good they are, giving you a much-needed break and some additional free time. Opt Out You don’t have to attend every holiday party you’ve been invited to. You don’t have to attend any, in fact. If you’ve already accepted invites and are now breaking out into a cold sweat thinking about it, you can admit to a scheduling snafu and opt out. You can admit you have a lot going on and have a feeling you won’t be able to make it. Telling the honest truth now means way fewer hurt feelings later when you claim to have a cold at the last minute. (Don’t do that). Instead, assess your calendar honestly. Consider your priorities: is this event important to you? Where does your art practice rank in relation to it? If your practice is above that afternoon of cookie decorating, then be true to that. You can still show all your love and caring for your near and dear regardless of whether or not you show up to every single thing. You can also opt out of the drama surrounding these decisions. One of the biggest drains on your energy during the holidays can be the emotional labor struggling friends and family members expect you to perform. It doesn’t make you a bad supporter if you acknowledge you hear your sister’s concerns about Uncle Frank’s drinking or that you sympathize with your friend’s anger at her mother for putting oysters in the stuffing, then disengage. Most of these conversations don’t need to be taken further than that, as the drama will play out anyway, with or without your participation, and you are likely not the only one getting the play-by-play. It is ok to safeguard your time and sanity by stepping back from the drama, unless you’re using it for research for your next book, in which case, have at it. You can also decline to spend lots of time and money shopping. You don’t have to get a gift for every single person you think might give you one. (My mother used to keep some lovely but generic gifts around, already wrapped, with a blank card, just in case she got a present she didn’t expect. I strongly recommend this strategy if you can afford it). If shopping is more of a budgetary issue and you feel the pressure to make a gift for everyone instead to save money, I’m here to tell you now not to do that. Making gifts can actually end up costing you just as much in materials, especially when the value of your time is added to the total. Send cards, give hugs, but don’t exhaust your body and your bank account on consumerism. You don’t have to make all the food yourself, either, nor do you have to make anything from scratch. Everyone is still going to have a great, memorable season if you buy pre-made pie crust. That will in no way negatively affect their memory of the holiday but could positively impact the rock opera you’re writing. If you’re feeling pretty organized and maybe a tad sneaky, try scheduling fun things for everyone else to do, like holiday word games and crafts, or tree lightings, then slip off while they’re all distracted for some “you and your art” time. It’s also ok to tell your boss or your partner you’ve got a flu shot to get or an urgent holiday errand to run, then go sit in your car and sing, write, draw, etc. You don’t need to explain or justify to anyone exactly how you spend every moment of your day, even if others make you feel that you do. You are entitled to privacy. Part of surviving the holidays is recognizing the demands the season makes on your time and sanity can be continually renegotiated. The holiday machine doesn’t want us to know that. We’re supposed to feel obligated, guilty, and stressed. Otherwise, we’re selfish, right? But there’s nothing selfish about maintaining your sanity. The art you endeavor to create will also benefit the world far more in the long-run than any single present you can buy or casserole you can bake. Art is eternal! By now you’ve realized that when I say “selfish,” what I really mean is self-protective. Launching and keeping a creative practice is in part about ninja-level scheduling and finding a rhythm that works for you, but it’s also about knowing your worth. You deserve time to make art. It is ok to view that as more important than other events or obligations in your life, including the emotional ones. That doesn’t make you a Picasso-esque ego monster, just an artist with priorities. ![]() Whether you worship one god or many, or none at all, you can still catch the “spirit” of Samhain. The blurring of the boundary between the spirit and physical worlds is an apt metaphor for fluidity between the conscious and subconscious mind, where creative inspiration sparks. This is a great time to face your fear of starting or returning to a creative project, as well as to open your mind to creative possibilities. For context, Samhain (pronounced SAH-when) is one of the year’s most important holidays for pagans such as myself, marking the end of the bounty of fall and the beginning of winter, when the year is darkest and barren. Its occurrence is about halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. While Halloween has roots in this celebration, they are different occasions: one a folk holiday, the other a two-day celebration honoring the dead and reflecting the cycle of Nature. Samhain is a time for resolving grief and communing with spirits. To get inspired, here are five low-key ways to celebrate: Take a Nature Walk Consider taking a Samhain nature walk as a meditative exercise and time to reflect upon Nature and your place in it. This is a time to regain perspective by fully being in the present moment. If you have loved ones buried at a nearby cemetery, consider visiting their graves, or stroll through and say hello to all the spirits, familiar or not. Cemeteries can be beautiful, peaceful places for reflection. Build an Altar If you’ve lost loved ones and are processing old or new grief, you consider building an altar on a table, dresser, bookshelf, or any other surface with photos and mementos belonging to the deceased. Light candles for those you’ve lost and then sit quietly with your memories. Inspiration may just visit you. Commune with the Relatives If an altar is too much, call an older family member with a good memory and ask to hear stories about your family’s heritage. You could take notes or just listen. Try having this conversation right before bed, then see which ancestors or images appear in your dreams. Host a Samhain Dinner If you’re really getting into the spirit of things, consider hosting a Samhain dinner, either just for you or with guests. Set a place for the dead at your table, or make offerings of the meal at the altar you built. Share a bite or a sip of everything with your intangible guests, then leave their share in a spot outside as an offering. If a whole dinner seems like too much work, find a Samhain potluck to join! Remember that breaking out of your routine and pushing yourself beyond your immediate comfort zone can be inspiring and help you feel a sense of renewed possibility. This Samhain, I call upon you to do something unexpected, something out of character, and to push your creative work in the same direction. What a harpy of a question, one which plagues those of us in creative fields. It arises from—and is fueled by—our insecurities, our doubts, our anxiety about poor time management. Every time we opt to go out for that office happy hour instead of heading to the studio, or reach for the remote, there it is again: the question that, by its very nature, suggests our choice in that moment elucidates exactly why we lack success: we aren’t committed enough, we aren’t driven enough. We aren’t enough. What if the question itself is flawed? What if we restructured it, gave it a facelift? Then it might look something like: How are you a successful artist? A question that would push us to identify the ways in which we have already achieved recognition or satisfaction as creatives. This leads to a larger discussion of what defines “success.” In our society, success is viewed in terms of wealth and status. A high-status job often pays well, so one thing leads to another, just as people privileged by wealth are more likely to maintain high social status. The why and how of the devaluation of the arts in our culture is a whole other subject. In any case, each of us has the chance to define what success means to us personally. The fact that artistic work does not tend to be well-paid is unfortunate and unfair, but also an opportunity to redefine achievement beyond dollars and cents. After all, whether valued at zero dollars or a million, the actual art is exactly the same. The only thing that shifts is the perspective. So, what if you began to think of your art as “worth a million bucks?” In other words, what if your talent and creativity became a worthwhile pursuit? A worthy investment of your time and energy? Perhaps you already have this feeling but haven’t been able to act on it. I’m just too lazy, you tell yourself. I’m not driven enough, not like those other, more successful people over there posting photos on Instagram of their gallery openings and book launch parties. (Guess what? Those photos demonstrate that the objects of your envy have become successful at using social media as a promotional tool for marketing. Good on them). The thing stopping you from investing in your art, from producing work to sharing it or marketing it, is not laziness. It’s not a lack of discipline, though of course discipline can help, or poor time management. It’s fear. After working for years with creative students who struggled to complete their work on time, who consistently fell short of the credits needed to graduate, who stayed in bed rather than face a critique, I realized that their problem wasn’t just about time management. The biggest blocker was a fear of not being good enough, of disappointing teachers, parents, peers, and themselves through inadequacy and mediocrity. They would spend hours and hours on work that was “never finished,” meaning it wasn’t yet perfect, and would absorb the impact of a zero for showing no work at all rather than make themselves vulnerable, reveal the “unfinished” work they’d poured their heart and soul into, and risk rejection and criticism. Sound familiar? Here’s the thing: an artist’s work is never “done.” You will always find things in your work you’d like to change or even blot out completely, and I don’t just mean typos. Growth, by nature, means continual movement. If your work always pleases you to the point that you think you cannot do any better, then how are you growing and changing? It’s like expecting your baby shoes to still fit. Do you want your feet to stay that small? There will always be expectations surrounding you that put pressure on you to live a certain way, be a certain kind of person. It comes from your (sometimes) well-intentioned parents and teachers and it’s writ large in our culture, broadcasted constantly and reinforced by the public image of The Artist. You live in that shadow. You feel you will never get out of it and all your innermost fears about yourself feed that anxiety. But you can get past your fear. You don’t have to be governed by insecurity. You just need the right tools: a support system, a plan, and a new perspective. A creative coach can help you get there. In redefining your metrics for success, you acknowledge you may not win a MacArthur or a Nobel Prize or a Guggenheim. Those are external forces beyond your control and tying your sense of worth to recognition will choke you. Instead, you can be fully yourself, the most “you” you’ve ever been, which includes the creativity you bring to the world. To do that is already a success. So when the harpy of self-doubting questions comes by, you can tell it to f*ck right off. Want to know more? Contact me. It’s become chic to have a nemesis, or nemeses. Well-known writer Roxane Gay’s frequent—but tantalizingly anonymous—tweets about her nemeses have fans and Twitter allies following her rivalries like it’s “Downton Abbey.” (Monica Lewinsky went as far as to dress up as one of Gay’s nemeses for Halloween). This has sparked a trend of nemesis-related commentary and confessions on social media. This is a pretty different kind of nemesis than the one I’m familiar with, which is rooted not just in rivalry, but payback. The word “nemesis” comes from 16th century Greek, meaning literally “retribution,” from nemein—“give what is due.” Yet Gay’s nemeses don’t even know they are objects of her ire and, in fact, just might not even know who she is. The currently popular version of a nemesis isn’t the Potter vs Voldemort kind of relationship where both sides are aware of each other and believe retribution is owed. It’s more like Ahab vs the whale, where one party is investing a lot of energy and the other is, uh, a whale: unattainable, untouchable, coasting through the depths, oblivious to the enemy floundering in a little boat on the surface. In my practice as a creative coach, I teach clients that envy is destructive. Rather than pushing you to work harder, as The Atlantic posits, being envious of a creative who has something you want suggests that their having of it deprives you, as if success is a non-renewable resource. It’s more productive to be encouraged by others’ success—if they did it, so can you!—than to put pressure on yourself to compete against another artist. We should foster a community of support and collaboration in the arts. Goddess knows, it’s hard enough to be a creative as it is. Secondly, it’s a misuse of your passion. The flush of rage and want you feel when you look at someone else proclaiming their success on social media diverts energy from your craft and sends it towards the screen, where it bounces back, like feng shui gone wrong, and disappears. This experience encourages you to focus only on the outcome of work you produce, rather than the value of producing it. Remember the act of creation is different from the business of selling art. Of course, social media is designed to fuel destructive envy. So maybe avoid or limit your exposure to social media if you find yourself feeling that sick-to-your-stomach sensation of toxic envy every time you scroll through your Insta feed. Mute your rivals and focus on pictures of adorable owls in hats instead. It might be fun and productive to even create a piece inspired by or in honor of your nemesis, allowing a chance for deeper reflection about the nuance of expectation and competition that goes into the feeling of envy in the first place. And that’s just it, envy is only a feeling, or a composite of them: desire, frustration, disappointment, anger, jealousy. It’s natural and sometimes unavoidable and no one is beyond it, including public figures we admire, which is perhaps the most positive aspect of someone as well-renowned and respected as Roxane Gay openly discussing her envy. It’s trendy to have a rival, but it’s healthier and more productive to have a role model or a collaborator. If gazing at someone else’s trophies and great skin makes you feel like crap, turn the gaze inward. Don’t waste the drive fueling that envy on someone else who doesn’t even know you’re watching. |
Lindsay Merbaum
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