Writing isn't a job

It's a dance

Dear Writer,

I don’t think we think properly about writing. We treat writing like it’s a job; just sit down and get the shit done.

You wanna be a writer? Write. Writers write. Just get on the little machine and typey-typey-typey. It’s not like it’s real work. You’re not lifting shit or cleaning shit or selling shit… it’s just words. Now write them. NOW.

Oh. I’m sorry. My internal voice tipped over and spilled all over this entry. What a fucking mess.

Anyway.

Writing is not a job¹. You can make money with it, sure, if you’re very lucky and very determined and market savvy and all that… but it’s not a job. Not really. A job is something where you are given clear tasks to do, and you do them in exchange for money.

Writing is not that. Writing is something that happens to you, and the result is something that sometimes, in some circumstances, might result in some money… but it’s not a job.

People try to treat it like it’s a job, and I think that’s where things get messed up.

Anyway, this is what I was thinking when I read this month’s question:

There was more to the question, all about how the questioner has held jobs and always showed up and gotten the work done, sometimes to the tune of as many as 80 hours a week, but writing has somehow eluded their work ethic.

But that opening line was so powerful, and spoke to such a universal experience, that I mostly want to focus on just that.

Because writing isn’t a job. If you think of it like a job, it’ll freeze up on you.

Because it’s not a job.

---

---

So I said this thing a little earlier, that writing is something that happens to you, and I stand by that. Think back to the first thing you ever wrote that you were not commanded by some kind of assignment to write; why did you write that thing? Because you were inspired to write it; not for money, not for grades, but just because suddenly you had this desire to write a thing.

Writing happened to you.

And you liked it. So, you decided to learn more about it. You bought a book about craft, you developed a story, you took a class. You decided that this thing that happened to you was something you wanted to happen to you full-time, forty hours a week, and from which you would then get money by selling what you’ve written.

That’s where you went wrong.

That’s where it all went wrong.

Writing is not a dog that you command to behave the way you want it to. Writing is a wild, magical, ethereal creature, and you do not command it. You coax it. You beckon it. You recognize that it owes you nothing, that all it wants to do is dance, and if you’re not willing to dance… well, that’s not the relationship it signed up for.

Is it the relationship you really want with it?

Capitalism has trained our brains to think in really fucked up ways, the same way that patriarchy and white supremacy have. In the same way that you must work to decolonize your mindset, you also need to work to decapitalize your mindset. The Protestant Work Ethic—a problematic idea in a million different ways—is wicked in its destructiveness.

First of all, it rides on the idea that if you cannot Work Productively, then you have no value, which is why our disabled and our elderly are shuffled off to the margins of society where we can’t see them starve and die. But this “work ethic” also promotes an individualist mindset which is anti-community, because it makes us think that we not only have to but should do everything alone. We isolate, we work, we receive just shy of enough to get by, and then we think it’s our fault when we can’t pay a bill because we didn’t work hard enough.

That is the kind of bullshit thinking that makes 81 billionaires control more than 50% of the entire world’s wealth.

So now this mesmerizing creature has asked us to dance, and we want to chain it to a desk for 40 hours a week and command it to produce, and then we wonder why we can’t write.²

This is not to say, at all, that those of us who write fiction cannot write productively and on a regular schedule; we absolutely can. But we have to stop thinking in terms of the command, and start thinking in terms of the dance.

If you want your creativity and inspiration to come to you, you must coax it. Not command it; coax it. You create a writing space that is welcoming, full of things your creativity likes. A warm mug of tea; a fluffy pair of socks; loads of office supplies.

Creativity absolutely fucking loves office supplies.

You build a soundtrack full of music that it likes. You create a collage representing your story elements and put it on the wall. One of my favorite types of collage is getting a satin-covered pinboard, setting it on a shelf, and printing out pictures of my main characters, then going to the dollar store and buying little tchotchkes that represent different experiences my characters will have in the course of the story. Having something physical to touch in a collage can be really powerful.

Go to your writing space at the same time every day for twenty minutes. You don’t have to write, but you can’t do anything else. If your dance partner knows where and when to find you, they’re more likely to show up and extend their hand.

When you’re stuck, remember that you’re not doing a job. Even if writing is how you make money, it’s still not a job; it has always been, and will always be, a dance.

Everything,

L

The Dear Writer newsletter is also available as a podcast. Copy this link to paste into your app of choice.

1. Fiction writing is not a job; other kinds of writing are jobs, like copywriting, journalism, etc. Those are different; here, I’m talking about fiction, though.

2. To the person who sent me the question, I’m not taking shots at you; when I say “we,” I mean “we.” I do this, too. I am not criticizing, I’m empathizing.