What Kind of Writer Would I Be If I Didn't Care About Money?
Digital painting I made on the iPad as a mockup for my office mural
December was a low energy month for me after a busy November. I had a lot of fatigue in the first half of the month, and then when I had more energy, I didn't feel like writing. That happens, and I'm learning to accept the ups and downs of my creative flow. However, it wasn't really true that I had less creative flow -- my creativity just went in a different direction. I started making digital paintings after I bought a new iPad Pro during Black Friday. Around late November, I decided I really wanted to repaint my home office and paint a mural on one of the walls. So I planned to do the work during the holiday break, and we spent about four days doing the work. The mural came out beautifully, and I feel so much more comfortable in this peachy-pink room than the old dark green.
The finished mural
During this break from writing, I've been thinking about my experiment with posting on my blog weekly(ish) over October and November. Despite trying to feel less anxious around deadlines, the problem for me was that they were still imposed. They don't make enough room for my creative ups and downs. Every week, I felt pressured about what I was going to write next and became easily frustrated when the writing didn't flow easily.
Lately, I've been asking myself, "how would I approach writing if I didn't have to make money at it?" Because the truth is, I don't, and writing from that lens puts a lot of pressure on my creativity. If I didn't care about how many people read my work, what would I write about? What would really please me to write?
This line of thinking goes back to what I learned from the book Fearless Writing a year ago, that my writing has more of that intangible spark when I write what I love and what feels good to me, not what sells or what I think other people want to read. Even though I'm aware of this dynamic, it's still easy to slip into second-guessing myself because I'm always aware of my audience when I write. I'm still learning to trust that writing what feels good, what comes easily to me, is enough. But that's why it helps to not care about "where this goes." If I don't care how many people read my work, then I can be myself and write whatever the hell I like.
The truth is, if I didn't have to make money at writing, I would focus on the book I want to write without the pressures of blogging deadlines, building my mailing list, or posting on social media. I would write when the impulse came and rest when it's not there. I would write the book that feels fun to write and not fear it isn't authoritative enough or researched enough. I would be more present in the writing process and find satisfaction in its own sake rather than be distracted with staying on schedule.
No matter how much progress I've made, I still fall into anxiety whenever I sense the chasm between where I am and where I want to be. So what if I am already where I want to be? If I were truly okay with writing being a "hobby" and not something that makes or breaks me, so many of my struggles would resolve themselves.
Last year, I started learning the piano and returned to painting watercolors. On the piano, I discovered how my moods and emotions can come through my hands and affect the sounds I make. I enjoyed more genres of music than I did as a listener because playing helped me feel the music more than listening. Painting felt soothing with its slow paint strokes that formed a beautiful scene. I learned from these hobbies how joyful and freeing creativity can be when I didn't place expectations on it.
I had always hoped writing could be like that for me. And perhaps the key is releasing the need for it to be "something." My intention for this year is to find ease with writing because my anxiety and perfectionism haven't gotten me very far. So I am letting go of blogging schedules and social media schedules once again -- not that I won't be posting, but I'm letting them come more naturally. I figured that by focusing my efforts on book writing, the fodder for my blog and social media will come on their own. January and February are busy times of year for my accounting work, so my writing will slow a bit anyway. Let's see how this experiment plays out in the next few months!
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