What You Can Do Is Enough

I was going to write a post about villains today. Then I realized I already wrote that post and had forgotten about it, and got frustrated because, well'p, there went my idea for the weekly post. And then I got even more frustrated when I realized that I would, yet again, be going without a Monday blog post like I always promise I'm going to do and yet never actually get to.

And then I just kind of fell into a loop of being annoyed at myself for never being able to do all the things I want to do.

Which, as a disabled person, is a loop I'm all too familiar with. And it sucks.

So here we are, 10:58 PM on a Monday night, and I'm here to tell you some things that none of us get told nearly often enough:

The things you can do are enough. You don't have to do more than you are capable of. You don't have to be productive. You don't have to be constantly at work. "Do your best" does not mean "force yourself beyond your own capabilities."

It's okay to get frustrated with yourself. It's okay to get upset at the world we live in for pushing the idea that if you're not being productive, you're doing something wrong. Because it's all bullshit, y'all--we live in a world that tries to enforce arbitrary ideas on what's "normal" and "acceptable" and "admirable."

You don't have to run yourself into the ground because society tells you it's the Done Thing.

It's okay to half-ass things. It's okay to leave them un-done. It's okay to know and respect your own limits and boundaries and needs.

What you can do is good enough.

I'm going to go play Sims now. Take it easy.

'Til next time,
Jenn.

You Can't Quantify Hard Work

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted. I've enjoyed having a blog again, and I've really been scratching my head for topics. The one I keep coming back to feels like a variation on my post "Don't Write Every Day," and I'm always wary of beating a dead horse.

Thing is, it seems like that message needs repeating. Often.

So many people fall into the trap of believing that people who don't write every day just aren't working hard enough. The thing is, you don't know how hard I work. You don't know just how hard it is to put my butt in the chair, as the common advice goes, and put words on the page.

"Hard work" is subjective, as well. There are days I can put down several thousand words without breaking a sweat. More commonly, I struggle to string together even a few paragraphs. Hitting 500 feels like a miracle. That doesn't somehow mean I worked "harder" or "better" on the day I wrote a few thousand.

I have to celebrate the baby steps. Every word is a victory. I've spent a long time feeling like I'm not successful because I don't have any published books to my name. I've spent a long time feeling miserable because it feels like I can never do enough, and my words will only mean anything once people can buy them in a bookstore.

I have never been a fan of the way the writing community puts published writers up on a pedestal, as if they are harder-working, better-writing, better-than-the-rest-of-us paragons of authordom. I have never liked the way that we as writers only seem to "count" once we sign that contract and have an official book deal--or, sometimes, when we only count once our book is on the shelf at Books a Million.

Writers are writers are writers, and we as a community have got to give more respect to those who struggle, who work for a week and produce only a handful of words, or who go weeks or months or years without being able to write much at all. We have got to have more respect for those who break themselves trying to meet far-off goals, only to realize that cramming themselves into the mold of what the community says success looks like is making them miserable.

There are countless paths to success as a writer. There are countless views on what "success" even means. There are countless ways to work hard, there are countless ways to produce content, and there are countless ways to be an author.

Your success is not the only way of being successful. Your accomplishments are not the only ones that took hard work. Your hard work is not the measuring stick by which others should be judged.

It's hard being too exhausted to write. It's hard being constantly told what my goals should be, what my workload should be, and what my daily output should be. It makes me hate writing, sometimes, to know that I'm "not working hard enough" by a lot of folks' standards.

Screw your standards, I work by my own. I am a writer regardless of what my output looks like, and I refuse to listen to those who put arbitrary quotas on people they don't even know.

It feels terrible to know that there are folks out there who think you're not doing enough. It feels terrible to find yourself buying into it, and to catch yourself beating yourself up for going a day without putting down words.

Don't let the gatekeepers and the naysayers get you down, because they're full of crap.

Every word is a victory. Celebrate it as such.

You are a real writer, and you belong in the writing community.

I promise.

Until next time,

Jenn.

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Don't Write Every Day

In the past, I've written about the passive ableism inherent in lots of popular writing advice. Recently on Twitter I posted the following series of tweets:

[Image description: A series of tweets from Twitter user @JennBasel discussing ableist writing advice. The tweets read: 

Stewing on some ideas for a post about how so much creativity advice is passively ableist. Because hoo boy, is it. 

“Write every day or you’re not a real writer!” is advice that’s been super harmful to me personally. I /can’t./ I only have so many spoons. 

“You have to force yourself to put your but [sic] in the chair and write!” is well and good on days I haven’t used all my spoons on basic hygiene. 

Some days I have fewer spoons & have to put them toward eating & getting dressed. I’m not less of a writer for not writing on those days.]

[Image description: A series of tweets from Twitter user @JennBasel discussing ableist writing advice. The tweets read:

I really can’t treat writing like a job most days, because even just existing is hard. “Write when you can,” is the policy I work by.

Today I made a to-do list, took one look at it, and nearly panicked because I KNEW it wasn’t doable. I cut everything that wasn’t vital.

tl;dr, don’t act as if “write every day” or “treat writing like a job” are accessible ways to approach being a writer. They’re not.

This thread brought to you by an autistic writer with severe anxiety and chronic fatigue, among many other things.]

I posted screenshots of these tweets on my Tumblr, and almost immediately started getting comments from fellow disabled writers that made me realize just how necessary this sentiment is. Multiple people across Twitter and Tumblr replied with thanks, and with frustration that this same sentiment isn't more common.

It really upset me. As nice as it is to have strung together words that resonated with people, these words shouldn't be so rare that they strike such a chord.

Too many writer communities get hung up on what it takes to be a "real writer." How much do you have to write? How often? How seriously? With what goals? To what end? All of these questions get debated hotly, and the conclusions that get drawn are almost always variations on, "You have to write every day, with the goal of publication, with the intent on making it a lucrative career."

That's a bunch of crap.

Not only is it dismissive and rude to those who write solely for fun, with no desire to make it a career, it's downright cruel to those of us who have tried our damnedest to meet those standards and failed because they are utterly inaccessible. I have broken myself in pursuit of that "real writer" ideal. It sapped my love of the craft, killed my creativity, and made me absolutely miserable.

"Write every day" is hurting people. It's time to acknowledge that, widely and loudly. I shouldn't be one of the only people saying it.

Write in the way that's best for you. Write what you can, when you can. If all you can manage is once every blue moon, you're not somehow "not a writer." You still write. You still have that desire to tell stories and have fun with it. Arbitrary quotas mean nothing, especially when they're imposed by other people.

I'm making this post not necessarily to elaborate on what I said in my tweets, but to keep boosting the message: You aren't less of a writer because you can't write every day. You aren't less of a writer because you can't or don't want to treat writing like a job. You aren't less of a writer because you don't write as much or as often as some other writers do. You don't have to meet someone else's arbitrary standards.

Write in the way that is best for you.

Until next time,
Jenn.

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