Just Get Things Out, Sweetheart
I don’t know who needs to hear this today. I need to hear this today. So maybe you do, too?
See, I have a day job. No, that’s not the whole truth. I have a day career. And that job/career is a huge distraction, a huge excuse, and a hugely inconvenient necessity of my life.
But since I’m honest, and I’m going to be honest with you all in addition to being honest with myself, I like my day job/career. It pays well, I get lots of validation for my work, and I love interacting with co-workers and colleagues.
I have worked full-time as a writer — but never really full-time, if I’m sticking with the honest theme. I worked as a writer when I was a young mother of three, when I was battling cancer (two times), and when I was “in-between” day jobs (thanks to a “rage quit” of sorts that didn’t allow me any severance pay). The income I brought in as a full-time writer was never high enough to cover the bills. Why? Because I distracted myself with paying gigs that brought in money but didn’t fill me with joy. Why? Because I was busy doing the other things … alllllll the other things.
Now, I am busy with my day job/career.
Before my work day, I want to prioritize self-care and fitness.
I don’t always do that well, either, by the way. Sometimes, I drink too much coffee and play games on my iPhone before panicking because I’m late showering and getting dressed. Sigh.
At the end of the workday, I am so mentally drained I can’t even. You know? When you just … can’t … even.
I do have conflicting thoughts about my choices—and they are choices; I am well aware of that fact. I know I can wake up early and write; I’ve done what. I know I can write at the end of the day; I’ve done that, too. But nothing sticks. I am energized later in the morning and early afternoon, and that is when I have to focus on that day job/career.
So I choose, more often than I’d like, not to write. It’s hard to say that out loud. But it’s true. Ughhhhhhhh.
I stick with what I’m doing full-time because it brings me joy and money. And nagging thoughts like “Don’t quit your day job” ruminate in my head… I don’t kick them out. Is that some deeply residing fear or failure or an addiction to procrastination or inconvenient pragmatism?
Yes. Probably yes to all three.
But today …
Today I find myself on Day One of a week off from work, a week when my company closes down to allow staff a bit of a sabbatical after our busy season, and all I want to do is write. I want to take an online writing course. I want to immerse myself.
Today I feel obsessed. Today I remember the infamous Julia Cameron laying out in her Basic Principles for The Artist’s Way that “The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.”
Let me repeat for the kids sitting in the back of the room.
“The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.”
Trials and failure … obstacles and ordeals … why, oh why, can’t I escape the abyss?
SO … today … when my day job/career isn’t a distraction … I harness my self-will and allow myself to be creative and find my true nature by just getting some words on a page and …
Maybe while I look for a helper, I can be of help to you.
Perhaps our hero’s journeys overlap and intertwine.
Perhaps you need someone to tell you not to “just write” — which is what writerly types like to tell one another and themselves all the time — but to “just get it out” and put how you are feeling into words.
Maybe that’s all the help I need today.
I’ll go with that. Because now I want to do something else writerly … all because I just got something out.
