The Work of Writing vs. Writing Work

These days, I live and die by my productivity app. 

Juggling a full-time job, childcare, housework, and two high-intensity hobbies will do that to you. 

One of my daily to-do items is listed as "Write", and three years ago, when I started to buckle down on writing again, that particular task felt very simple. Sit down, open Scrivener, and jot down some words. It didn't matter how many, or how good they were - as long as some words were typed onto the screen, I could click that to-do box with confidence.

But then a handful of projects were finished, edited, polished, and that to-do list item started to feel a lot more complicated. Not only did I have to actually write, but I also had to squeeze in time to do work that related to writing: "writing work". Sending query letters, filtering through potential agents, submitting to literary magazines, putting together a website...the things that felt a lot less fun, a lot more stressful, and yet still had to be done. 

There is satisfaction that comes from clicking off that "Write" to-do box, especially if I've been diligent and completed the task during the early morning hour between 5:30am and 6:30am before my son wakes up and my responsibilities start in earnest. It can feel like I've kicked off the day on a high note. But some mornings, when I've spent that block of time editing a synopsis or tweaking the website or scanning through Duotrope for a magazine that might match a completed short story, it can feel like I haven't earned that click. 

Did I actually work on writing if I didn't actually write anything? 

And it is hard to choose to spend that precious free hour on tasks that feel like a grind rather than on the joyous process of putting words to metaphorical paper. 

When I decided to be more serious about writing, was this what I signed up for? 

I was given reassurance by my accountabilibuddy that, yes, this part of the process is important. That, yes, it counts as completing my to-do list item. Yes, I've earned the click. If the goal is to have your art seen (which is not necessary for everyone, but has been an aspect of my own personal goals), then there are going to have to be times when that quiet hour is spent on tedious tasks.

On writing work, rather than the work of writing. 

And so, this morning, as I spend my limited time posting about a new publication on social media and tweaking this very website, I am allowing myself to click the "Write" to-do box with full confidence. 

I may not have opened a single Scrivener file, but I did do writing work. 

And that is part of the process, too.

Do Hard Things

The first hard thing had nothing to do with writing at all.

In December of 2020, I took a long look at what my future would look like if I continued to self-medicate decades of insomnia and anxiety with bottles of wine and finally decided that this future looked harder than the effort of quitting would be. On New Year’s Day—cliche, I know—I stared at the bottles of champagne in our wine fridge and realized that I didn’t want them anymore, even if I craved them. That moment precipitated days, months, years of work and though my resolve was firm, the change didn’t come easy.

Loved ones had to be told; countless questions fielded about why I “couldn’t have just one” or whether this was “just a health kick” or why I “wasn’t fun anymore”. Dinners out were fraught; even though no one cared what I ordered, I couldn’t help but feel like an oddity when I was the sole person to skip the cocktail at girl’s night. There were seemingly inescapable advertisements—on billboards, on the internet, plastered across the T—promising a life of glamour and adventure if only I’d give in to the temptation. And there were times when my own mind sought to upend me, whispering: Remember how fun that night was? Don’t I deserve to still have those experiences? Surely things weren’t actually that bad? 

The work was hard, but it was undoubtedly worth it. And if I’d already managed one hard thing—perhaps the hardest thing—all other challenges seemed infinitely more approachable. 

For years I’d talked about hiking to the peak of Mount Washington without taking any tangible steps towards actually accomplishing that goal; three years into sobriety, the bucket-list item was checked off. 

When I thought about transitioning my hobby of indoor rock climbing to the outdoors, an earlier version of myself might have thought the challenge too complicated or scary to tackle; by the end of that same summer, I was climbing on outdoor crags more weekends than not. 

And when my son was struck with an unexpected and initially misdiagnosed case of appendicitis while traveling in a foreign country, I was able to handle the crisis with a cool head—or as cool as could be hoped for, under the circumstances. 

But the hard work of writing still had to be tackled. 

Writing had always been something I did quietly and secretly, spending countless hours of dedicated effort on pages that no one else would read. I wanted to release my writing into the wild, but was terribly afraid—of what, entirely, I’m not sure. Ridicule? Rejection? Being told that I simply had no talent? At some point, perhaps a year after stepping away from the wine glass, I took a long look at what my future would look like if I continued to be controlled by this fear, and while I knew that success was entirely outside of my control—it was not up to me whether anyone would want to read or publish my writing—I could no longer stomach the thought that someday I might be on my deathbed, regretting that I never even tried. 

So I took baby steps. First, I knew that my husband was friends with a writer who had self-published; I finally asked for us to be connected and quickly found myself with an excellent accountabilibuddy.

Then I started sharing my work with a select few. The first few e-mails were truly terrifying, but week by week, it got easier. 

Then I began submitting to magazines and agents, most of which resulted in a no—but very, very occasionally I’d get a yes.

It was hard. It’s still hard. I still feel a twinge of nervousness every time I click the “Send” button on a submission. I still feel the flutter of anxious butterflies anytime I send off a story draft to someone new. These days, most rejection e-mails roll effortlessly off my back, but occasionally one will strike at an inopportune moment—on a bad day, in a moment of vulnerability—and it will still sting. And it is hard to choose to edit a manuscript rather than play video games; to work on a query letter that might go nowhere rather than watch television; to continue to send my art out into the open without knowing if anyone will see it. 

But it’s been worth it.

It’s worth it for the moments when a complicated plot clicks together and it feels as though the story was gifted to you by the muses. It’s worth it for the hours when you sink so deeply into a flow state that the external world falls quiet and all that remains are the words. It’s worth it for the gift of falling asleep at night knowing that, regardless of the outcome, you gave it your best. 

I am grateful for the experience of conquering the first hard thing—for getting a chance to understand that climbing the mountain might be a slog at times, but a vista awaits at the summit. For discovering that the things that seem the most daunting, challenging, scary can also be the things that you are the most proud of. For learning that the work is valuable, in and of itself. 

Because growth does not come from taking the easy route.

Do hard things.