Lessons From a Writing Residency
on ditching hustle culture and redefining productivity
I just got back from a 2-week residency at Yaddo1, a 400-acre artist community in upstate NY that has a long, rich history of protecting and nurturing writers, visual artists, composers, filmmakers, poets, playwrights. The list of alumni is awe-inspiring (Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Ta-Nehisi Coates…to name a few), and then you ARRIVE. I felt like I was stepping onto the set of Downton Abbey.
I stayed in a modern live/work studio down a long gravel road. There, I dissolved quickly into the quiet seclusion and beauty of the woods. I worked* alone all day and then met up with the other residents at the mansion for dinner each night. Some evenings, we’d head over to West House, another historic building where we’d share some of our work or just hang out and talk.
*I say “worked,” but the definition of work is quite different here. There’s a sort of anti-capitalist sentiment that permeates Yaddo and other residencies. At dinner, no one asks what you did today or whether you were productive. It’s assumed that simply being here is productive. Being nurtured and given space apart from the demands of everyday life is productive to art. So everything that flows out of that is productive.
Napping is productive.
Reading is productive.
Eating is productive.
Observing and listening to other residents’ art is productive.
Walking the grounds is productive.
Listening to the mechanical chirp of saw-whet owls at night is productive.
One day, my only goal was to hike the trails around the estate in search of Sonny’s Car and The Shoe, legendary artifacts that have baffled residents for decades.
When you remove the distractions that interfere with creativity, the side effect is more creativity. I saw my writing more clearly than I have in years. I saw solutions to problems that previously felt impossible to solve. I revisited an essay that I had abandoned and saw a new structure that could hold everything I wanted to say. I had time to build it, brick by brick, and realized the only reason I’d reached a dead end with it before was my own lack of patience with myself. I hadn’t believed my work deserved that kind of slow care and attention.
I’ve fallen prey to hustle culture so often, conflating the question what do you do? with who are you? what’s your worth?
In my everyday life, when I tell people I’m a writer, they often want to know what I’ve published, if they’ve seen my work. In other words, is it just a hobby or a legitimate pursuit? What makes you a REAL artist?
At Yaddo, the legitimacy is baked in. Ego and competition fall away. The day I arrived, everyone introduced themselves by their first name only. When asked about their art, some replied simply, “I draw stuff on paper” or “I write stories.” They had let go of the need to over-explain themselves and their work, because here, everyone inherently understood how important it is.
Yaddo is a bubble, of course. I can’t replicate the experience at home (I’d need a personal chef, for one!). But I can carry that spacious, permissive attitude with me, and maybe you can too. No matter what kind of work you do, what if you let go of productivity as the barometer for success? When your partner or spouse or child gets home from work or school, what if you asked them how they are rather than what they did?
Tell me: Was your day interesting? What surprised you?
My kids keep calling it Yoda, which seems apt given all the wisdom I gleaned from this very old place.
That sounds so incredibly dreamy!