What frustrates you about writing?

How to get past the "never-enoughness" of it all

I was honored to be featured in Sari Botton’s Memoir Land this week, talking about writing routines (or lack thereof), my writing origin story (like how I started out as a wildlife biologist), how to approach writing about family, and why paddleboarding and hiking will always be part of my creative process.

One question Sari asked stirred something inside me that I didn’t realize was there — a deep inner conflict over the relationship between art, hustle culture, and consumerism. Even after considering and answering her question, the problem feels unsolvable. And perhaps it always will be. But I wanted to share my response in case it resonates. Or maybe someone here has some magic insight into how to weigh the joy of creating art against the need to sell/perform/consume that art. If so, please tell us.

Here’s what I shared with Sari for Memoir Land. To read the full interview, click here.

What frustrates you about writing?

I worry that creative writing has become inextricably woven with hustle culture and consumerism. It’s telling that one of the questions I heard the most during my book launch was, what’s next? It’s something we ask the moment someone publishes something meaningful. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone. When I read a piece of writing I love, I want the author to produce more. I want to consume them. I imagine breaking off a tiny piece of their genius and swallowing it like a smoldering coal that will sit in my belly, stoking a creative fire.

I think the frustration is that this never-enoughness sets an impossible standard and distances us from the art. I want my work to be seen and consumed. But I also want to hold onto the joy of writing, creating for creation’s sake. I think we’d feel closer to art if we were allowed more time to sit with it and savor it before turning our attention to whatever comes next.  

If I’m being really honest, hustle culture brushes up against another dilemma I face (and I suspect many of you face if you survived childhood trauma): The desire — personally, professionally — for my work to be seen clashes with the terror of being seen. Some of us were consumed as children, used, invalidated. Our boundaries were crossed. Speaking up or making art out of our experiences (shining a light into dark spaces) would have invited further harm.

Everything I write and publish feels like an act of rebellion and exposure, but also liberation and peace. Whether it’s the grip of traumatic memories or the never-enoughness that comes from capitalism and hustle culture — the only way I know to fight it, to wrest that hand away, is to keep on writing.

My favorite spot to paddle board and reset my nervous system, which helps me write

Here’s another excerpt from the interview:

What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?

Sometimes it feels like we’re all tunneling toward our creative dreams with a teaspoon. It takes so much courage and persistence to keep going. Whenever you imagine the worst outcomes, you should pause and imagine the best outcomes too. Give them equal weight in your mind. 

What do you love about writing?

On a blank page, anything is possible.

I don’t have an answer to hustle culture, but I fucking love writing. I love imagining what’s possible.

So, here’s my advice to you for today: Keep making art for yourself. Keep enjoying other people’s stories and art. Sit with it. Connect to the joy and liberation of it whenever you can. Grieve the moments you couldn’t. Replace the question “what’s next?” with “what is now?”

Come see me and Nora McInerny in Phoenix

I’ll be at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe with Nora McInerny on Tuesday, August 27th at 7 PM. I’d love to see you there. Tell your friends! It’s free, but you’ll want to RSVP to reserve a seat.