The Writing Life (With a Day Job)
And From the Archives: A Year of Permission Slips
Last time: In Praise of Distraction and Collages
“What am I being invited to compost and clear?” —Lindsay Mack, The Ultimate Soul Tarot Card Guide
As much as I wanted to call this newsletter, “Sometimes the Creative Life Looks Like a Baby Doll Head on a Gold-Plated Snail Body,” I avoided the temptation. Might change my mind later, though. Apologies for the haunting image. I’m leaning into my weirdness lately.
I told my students this week that the biggest gift they can give themselves is time. Time to create, time to stare at the wall and muse, time to revise and rethink and search Pinterest for inspiring images. All of the above. It got me thinking about how hard it is to fit the writing life—or any creative life— into a traditional work week.
Really, really hard.
I have a few thoughts, but hope you’ll offer your own thoughts in Comments section, too. How does someone with a busy day job fit in time for writing?
If you know me, you are probably expecting me to talk about the #5amwritersclub because waking up early is one of the only ways I stay sane and productive while teaching all week.
Here is a good explanation, if you aren’t familiar with the idea of Morning Pages:
But waking up early is really just shorthand for carving out time to sit alone and either create or think about creating. The thinking part, the part that looks like you aren’t working, that’s the part that needs a bigger embrace. Which is hard when your work week is rigidly scheduled and your have to switch over to “non-creative” mode for eight or more hours a day.
Giving my brain permission to indulge my creative side is what I have to remind myself to do each week. This means that when I have a free moment or a lunch break (acknowledging that I am privileged to have a job that gives me short bursts of time like this), I do something creative with that time.
This looks different to everyone, but for me it includes:
Reading a poem or short essay I bookmarked online (this week’s poem by Saeed Jones and this week’s short essay by Brian Doyle)
Writing a to-do list with crayons and colorful markers
Watching to a short Ted Talk from one of my favorite writers
Playing with Silly Putty while listening to “Creative Pep Talk” or another favorite artsy podcast
Filling a Pinterest board with images that inspire the creative project I wish I had more time to work on.
What this creative indulgence does not include (for me):
Watching/reading/listening to the news
Scrolling social media or watching cat videos online (unless it something specific that feels like creative fuel)
Checking my email
Planning my spring break trip
Paying bills
No judgement at all for the scrolling or other things people do online. For me personally, those activities deplete my creativity rather than fuel it. Do what works for you.
And if you aren’t currently looking for more ways to fit writing into your work week, I’m surprised you made it this far but very glad you’re still here.
Some people manage to make time for writing while at their day job, but I find it nearly impossible. Instead, by “priming the pump,” so to speak, by filling my day with fragmented creative thoughts, I open myself to more of whatever flavor of magical thinking I’m drawn to.
And when I make time for creativity during the day, my brain isn’t as fried by all the non-creative flotsam of the day (even after laundry and my son’s swim practice and making dinner, etc.). I’m ready to write, even if only for five minutes. I schedule the time for myself and use whatever the day has given me to either create something new or dive back into whatever I wrote the day before.
It isn’t an easy process, but it can feel expansive and, honestly, delightful.
It takes time to make this kind of space in your day. Sometimes it means prepping beforehand (bookmarking things to read later, for example). I mean, if I’m going to scroll through Instagram five minutes before class, at least I can fill my feed with other creators.
Again, this is what works for me. And it doesn’t always work. But it does make my weekdays feel fuller. I’m writing in my head even when I’m not writing.
Tell me what works for you. How do you keep a small fire lit when your day job demands a different kind of focus?
From the Archives, originally published in February 2023, “A Year of Permission Slips.” It seemed to fit. Enjoy!
“The risks you’re taking in your work now aren’t just for you. You’re writing permission slips for the writers who come after you, writers who’ll see in your work new things to try—with form, with content—that they might not have considered before.”—Maggie Smith, A Pep Talk
There are a few go-to compliments that I save up for books I really, really love, and I don’t get to use them as often as I would like:
This book made me want to write.
I couldn’t read anything else for days/weeks/months because I was still recovering.
I didn’t know a book could do that.
It’s number 3 in that above list that has been on my mind lately. I didn’t know a book could do that. “That” is a place holder for the “rules” the writer broke or the risks they took that reshaped my skull.
It’s my way of saying I don’t know what else to say. I mean, I’m over here taking a red pen to my semi-colons and inconsistent verb tense while there are writers out there having fun on the page and getting all innovative.
Then, last week, writer Maggie Smith wrote about books as permission slips in “A Pep Talk,” and suddenly I had a name for this feeling:
Permission slip books.
Permission slip books are filling the month of February for me. Most notably, I finally listened to the audiobook edition of Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here. Mind blown. It is the exact book I needed to read and within less than twenty pages, I could see all the ways the book would teach me about writing my own tender, funny, and weird books.
If you aren’t familiar, Nothing to See Here is about a woman who becomes the nanny for two young children who spontaneously burst into flames. It’s a story about family and friendship and wealth. And it is so very funny without trying to be funny. It’s sweet and just ridiculous enough to make me let down my guard and feel all the things.
Does everyone else obsessively read interviews with writers that they love or is that just me? I searched for podcast interviews and writerly conversations (never book reviews, not when I’m thinking like a writer). I wanted to see if Wilson described his writing style or touched on that element of weirdness I found myself drawn to.
This is when things clicked for me. In an interview with Porter House Review, when asked to describe his particular kind of off-kilter writing, Wilson said:
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The right amount of weirdness is exactly it. I’ve been saying for so long that I write suspense that veers towards literary, but that it isn’t really it. And I never fail to mention how much I love a good murder mystery, even though murder and mystery don’t always do it for me. I’m not always writing suspense, at least not intentionally so. There’s something else at play charging (and recharging) my work each day.
It’s that slightly tilted weirdness that I’m drawn to more than anything else.
Not that I needed permission to embrace my weirdness on the page, but Kevin Wilson gave it to me anyway.
Author Heather Sellers writes about a similar idea in her book, Chapter after Chapter. She calls these books “wise guides.”
Sellers recommends choosing six essential books to keep on your desk as your “go-to” writing resources. These are the books you will turn to when you need help with a certain concept (dialogue, point of view, etc.). These are the books you can always reread and find something new that will help you as a writer.
She suggests not just looking for what is most popular. Instead, choose your favorites. If you’re hoping to write your own novel, for example, find the books most like the kind of book you want to write. Sellers says, “To really know a book — how it’s built, its wisdom — is to read it several times. To go over and over certain passages.” Wise guides will help you to really focus and develop as a reader.
For my writer friends in particular, what are your permission slip books? And do they change depending on what you’re currently writing?
February is offering up little glimpses of sunshine over here —books and words and the promise of Spring Break. I hope you can find that sunshine, too.
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Hopefully there will be some big news soon that you don’t want to miss. Thank you in advance!
Reading Books & this is a great way to restore & maintain our memory
“#3. I didn’t know a book could do that.” I love this. You’ve given me a more efficient shorthand for my reading log and a reminder of why I need to keep seeking books that stretch my ideas of what is possible.