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?

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.

Meanwhile, I’m also thinking about what connections I have.

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.”

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.

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.