A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

When Writers Feel Like Shit: An Advice Column

I kind of feel like an idiot for writing this, because I am certainly not an expert on the topic. But I just had a conversation with a friend and fellow writer who is having a bad day, and I thought some of what we discussed might be inspirational for other people who, like us, spend most of our time spitting into a void.

Spitting into a void is a stupid phrase I read somewhere else another time, but it seems appropriate for people who write — or do anything creative — for a living. All day long, you’re outputting all of these words that you don’t know is anyone will ever read, and it’s fucking exhausting and discouraging. You spend most of your time feeling fear and desperation and self loathing — and very occasionally, when you write something you know is great, you feel sublime. And that’s what keeps you going.

For me, writing is less about some sort of “calling” and mostly about distracting myself from the gigantic dark mass that always threatens to settle over my brain in the form of boredom. If I have a bad day, when words don’t come easily, or I don’t have any ideas, I get terrified that I’ve lost my ability to write forever. Or, if I’m overwhelmed and burned out, and writing starts to feel like a chore, then I get terrified that even writing, the one good thing I could rely on to always be there, has abandoned me, and become just an ordinary job that I abhor. 

I’ve gone through the cycle of extreme productivity and then extreme misery a few times in my brief — and mostly pathetic —writing career, so I knew that I had to take some steps to remedy the situation. The steps are below, and I think they really help if you’re feeling burned out or uninspired or like a fucking piece of shit that has come as far as they possibly can in life, and will never go any further.

1. Take a fucking day off, you idiot.

One of the problems of the rising generations is that we are all fucking programmed on tight schedules like we’re fucking micro television networks. We grew up waking up in the morning, suffering through modular days at school, going to after school activities or playdates, doing blocks of homework, and then sleeping on set schedules. Even if we watched television all day, we are still used to time blocks — the day dragged out in increments set by other people. I think that Ranciere, or one of those other French fuckers, called it synchronicity, or something — we are all programmed to be doing the exact same things at the exact same time all day, and it is fucking limiting.

Read More

Icon of the Week: Martha Gellhorn

As I prepare for cohabitation—which, given that I’ve never done it before, feels as monumental as graduating from college—I keep on encountering evidence of people who were not capable of it. First, there was that article in the New York Times that warned against it, which prompted an afternoon of wailing. Then, I came upon Martha Gellhorn, the writer, war correspondent, and third wife of Ernest Hemingway, who said of her difficulty domesticating:

“There is too much space in the world. I am bewildered by it, and mad with it. And the urge to run away from what I love is a sort of sadism I no longer pretend to understand.”

The funny thing is that all of my internal struggling against moving in with Caleb is really pretty half-hearted. I always say that you can tell the way you feel about something by the advice that other people give you—in subtle queues, in the tone of their voice, in the way that they phrase a question, they signal to other people how they would like them to respond. And every time I ask someone, even my therapist (although not my parents—I actually might never tell them that I’m moving in), if it’s the right decision, the answer is always an unequivocal yes.

Because in my secret heart of hearts, I’m really looking forward to it. It feels like an exciting beginning, the kind of thing that will change my life for the better. I’ve struggled for so long by myself, often depressed or disinterested, that the idea of having someone else—to do laundry with, to decorate with, to share bills with—feels like an incredibly luxurious relief. For the first time in my adult years, life might actually become so easy, that it can be lived rather than fought against.

What I’m really having trouble letting go of is the kind of childish idea—for I realize that to withhold yourself and your personal space is, in many ways, a way of delaying the eventuality that you must go through stages of life, and, in doing so, confront your own death WAA WAA—that I’m meant to live life as independently as did women like Martha Gellhorn.

Read More