The Writing Life is such a slim book, but every time I open it, I feel like I’m encountering fresh new wisdom. I’ve been thinking about a section late in the book (chapter 5, p. 78 in my paperback):
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abudantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
Whew. Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time.
I’ve been thinking about this passage in connection with a list I made in my planner at the beginning of 2021:
I wrote that early in the year, and here’s what I did: I pitched some of them, and I worked on others, and some of them even got published—but mostly I acted like those were the ideas I’d been alotted for the year, and I didn’t want to run out too fast. As Annie Dillard reminds us, that’s not how brains work. If you hoard your ideas, they go moldy and stale; if you share them and send them out, more ideas will come to you. (Elise Joy, who makes the Get to Work Book, the planner I’ve used for the last several years, used to have a great print that read “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO RUN OUT OF IDEAS.”)
This year, I’m trying to embrace the wisdom of another literary Anne. In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott describes writing what she calls the “down draft,” where she’s just getting all the ideas down, then an “up draft,” where she takes that early messy draft and fixes it up. So rather than holding out for perfect, I’ve been saying to myself “up draft, up draft,” as a reminder that sharing something that’s less than perfect is better than keeping my moldy half-ideas to myself.
So I’ll offer a suggestion: if you’ve gotten stuck like this, if you’ve been holding on to a good idea and waiting for the right time or waiting to feel ready, maybe this is a sign to get a little reckless and just go for it. The good ideas you have right now won’t get better if you keep them to yourself. You’ll have more good ideas after this.
At the risk of outing myself as a Taylor Harris superfan (I talked about her TIME essay about ice cream and other things last week; she also had a gorgeous essay in The New York Times recently about her mastectomy (that’s a gift link, so you can read for free, even if you don’t have an NYT subscription)), I’ve been reading This Boy We Made, and it’s truly the best book I’ve read in quite some time. It’s got a remarkable narrative momentum—I keep wanting to flip the next page to find out more, to get to know her and her family better—and it’s also so elegantly structured, dipping back into her own childhood, her years in college, meeting and dating her husband, that I keep pausing and re-reading to think about how it works. It’s about mothering a child who has a difficult-to-diagnose medical condition, but even if you don’t have kids or don’t think a book about medical challenges is so for you, it’s so well-written and warm and wise that I’d recommend it to just about anyone.
Heather Lanier, author of another one of my favorite books about motherhood, Raising a Rare Girl, has a newsletter called The Slow Take. In the newest newsletter, which went out this morning, Heather suggested that, if you’re feeling exhausted or frustrated, instead of giving up or doubling-down on the things that aren’t working, that we lean instead toward joy and play:
I think one strategy is this: If you’re burnt out on striving for a particular goal, maybe flip your goal on its side a little. Reshape it into something a little more lighthearted, into a goal you have some more control over. Into a goal that delights, that brings some fun.
(I highly recommend clicking through to read the whole thing, including a fascinating pair of studies about dogs and music students.)
I really liked this piece about two different New York Times writers who write by hand. Beyond the big idea—pen and paper can be good for thinking, and lets you avoid the distractions of a computer—it also just showed how different two really successful writers’ processes can be. (A. O. Scott edits and perfects as he goes; Sam Anderson writes wild snippets, then arranges and rearranges and revises.)
And! I realized right after I hit send last week that I’d gotten so excited talking about the weirdness in writing by Erika Meitner, Camille Guthrie, and Taylor Harris that I never explained the ham flowers in the title. It’s from a poem by Matthea Harvey that I love, Implications for Modern Life. It begins: “The ham flowers have veins and are rimmed in rind, each petal a little meat sunset.” A little meat sunset! Isn’t that an image that will stick with you all week?
How is your writing going? I’d love to hear from you.You can always reply to this email, comment below, or find me on twitter (@nancy_reddy) and instagram (@nancy.o.reddy).