Making Up Time
Tick-tock, tick-tock: How many hours has your day got?
Welcome to the longest shortest month of the year, when a writer’s thoughts turn to what she isn’t getting done.
Craft: No. Time to Write.
Before I welcomed Buddy (see below, as usual) into my life eight years ago, I would have told you that my days were full, and I couldn’t possibly squeeze anything else in. And then I said yes to a dog, and somehow found an hour each day for walks. Before I launched this e-newsletter, I would have told you my weeks are full, and I couldn’t possibly squeeze anything else in. And then I said yes to doing this, and somehow found a full day (or more) every two weeks to pull this together.
I can make time for my dog. I can make time for the commitment I’ve made to readers.
So why is it so bloody bloody hard to make time to write? In my worst moments, I feel like I should pre-order my headstone with “She couldn’t find time to write” chiselled into it, and just set it in my yard where I can see it from my office window to make my frustration with myself visible.
I know that people of all genders struggle with this, but I also know that there are particularly gendered aspects to the challenges of carving out time to devote to creative pursuits. I remember sharing this piece, Do You Want to be Known for Your Writing, or for Your Swift Email Response? How Patriarchy Has Fucked Up Your Priorities by Melissa Febos, a couple of years ago. Febos writes of realizing that a male colleague was routinely inconsistent in his responses to her emails—and that she had never given herself permission to similarly prioritize her time over the needs of others, even in matters as basic as someone else’s desire to get a response from her to that email they had just seconds ago hit send on. She writes:
“Women are not taught to do this. We are conditioned to ever prove ourselves, as if our value is contingent on our ability to meet the expectations of others. As if our worth is a tank forever draining that we must fill and fill. We complete tasks and in some half-buried way believe that if we don’t, we will be discredited. Sometimes, this is true. But here is a question: Do you want to be a reliable source of literary art (or whatever writing you do), or of prompt emails?”
But she doesn’t stop at emails. Stop giving your time away, she advises. Say no to invitations. Block off time to write in your calendar—and treat it as seriously as an appointment with your doctor. Let go of trying to be good at everything. Learn to love saying no as a way of saying yes to yourself.
The poet and essayist Mary Oliver makes the case a different way in her essay “Of Power and Time” (in her collection Upstream, and also referenced in this essay on BrainPickings). Oliver acknowledges that we can be interrupted by others. “But that the self can interrupt the self—and does—is a darker and more curious matter,” she writes. There is the childish, emotional self, “powerful, egotistical, insinuating,” who disrupts. There is the social self, “the smiler and the doorkeeper” who is trapped by obligation to conform to the ordinary demands of everyday life. And there is a third self, “occasional in some of us, tyrant in others” that has “a hunger for eternity,” and is, by her definition, present in some intellectual, most spiritual and all artistic work. It is a connection, she argues, that requires concentration, focus, solitude. “The working, concentrating artist is an adult who refuses interruption from himself, who remains absorbed and energized in and by the work—who is thus responsible to the work.”
She writes:
“It is six a.m., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility it not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o-clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.
There is no other way work of artistic worth can be done. And the occasional success, to the striver, is worth everything. The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
Feel shitty yet? I do.
I looove Mary Oliver. I do. I underlined some of those passages twice, in bright pink pen, when I first read that essay. But it didn’t help me carve out more time for my own writing.
Maybe that approach worked for Mary Oliver, who, from what I can tell from her biography online, held university faculty positions for most of her work life. I don’t know what her teaching load was. I don’t know what committees she was obliged to contribute to.
I know that the approaches advocated by Oliver and Febos have worked for many many men, to whom we generally grant more latitude in the “I’m not responsible for ensuring we have mustard or the dentist appointments got made” department. But I suspect it does not work for many many who identify as women, nonbinary, queer, people of colour, or are marginalized economically or because of physical or mental health. And it hasn’t worked for me, a single, sole earner from a middle-class, no-financial-inheritance family with a half-time university staff position for the last three years, who has worked freelance for the vast majority of my working life, with a grand total of seven out of 33 work years with an employee pension plan and benefits. (And yes, I know that I am still tipping heavily onto the “privileged” side of the equation here, and that many others don’t have the advantages I’ve had.)
To be fair, Febos acknowledges the pressure marginalized people face to over-achieve in areas at which the privileged do not need to work as hard, and that effort sucks even more time away from the time one can spend on creative work. But neither Febos nor Oliver adequately acknowledge one of the dirtiest secrets of all about creativity: some of us need to earn a living. Some of us are the primary earners in our families. And those of us who are women are doing it at 87% of the income of men (and that gap gets bigger if you aren’t white or are otherwise marginalized).
If the gender wage gap disappeared, I could earn the same amount of money that I earn now and have 47 days—almost seven weeks—every year that I could devote without pay to writing.
And yet other people at all income levels, from a variety of backgrounds—people who are not me—manage it.
Feel shitty yet? I still do.
So what’s the answer? All advice is imperfect—Oliver’s, Febos’ and mine. So I’m going to try simply sifting out what might be of value to me, right here, right now, and letting the rest wash downstream. First is working to believe that making room for my writing—my “call to creative work,” my own “creative power,” to use Oliver’s words—needs to be as valuable to me as any of my other efforts may be to others. I’ll admit it: I’ve been as well trained in good-girlism as almost any woman alive, and the urge to make other people happy is a powerful one. (I blame gold star stickers in primary school. Oh, and patriarchy. And Catholicism. Which I think someone on Twitter recently said is just patriarchy with fancy headgear.)
Tied to this is the development of better “no” muscles. I may be stealing this from Oprah, but you can’t say yes to yourself until you learn to say no to someone else. (Tangent: You know, getting Buddy more or less coincided with Oprah going off the air…that may be where I found that hour a day for dogwalking.) I’ve spent the last year trimming volunteer commitments, activities from which I gained wonderful connections and through which I contributed to valuable community building—but from which I need to take a break, for now.
Volunteer work isn’t the only work I’m trying to corral: some paid work is getting “no’ed” as well. As someone whose income is still significantly derived from contract and freelance work, this is a tough one. But taking steps to streamline my financial obligations and trim debt over the last few years is starting to pay off, so earning a bit less is possible.
Writing time is getting calendared. Booked, so to speak. It won’t be days at a time—more like hours here and there. But it’s a start.
And most of all, I am striving to be as generous with myself as I try to be with others. I am not going to waste time berating myself for what I haven’t managed to do. I’m not picturing that damned accusatory headstone anymore, and instead am shifting my gaze to this beautiful garden sculpture that really does sit in my backyard, created by the late Master Stone Carver Heather Lawson.
I chose this piece from Heather’s workshop the last time I saw her, about three years ago. I’d interviewed Heather years earlier for a magazine feature, and we’d had some lovely conversations about gardening and working with stone and dogs and life. You can get a glimpse of Heather at work here, in the short film Stone by Breakwater Studios.
On that last visit, we spent a couple of hours catching up as Heather shared her recent struggles with cancer and showed me new work. This piece captivated me, and even in a garden asleep in winter, reminds me that creating beautiful work is as complicated and as simple as showing up and hammering away.
Exercises
Bookend your day: Some time ago, I noticed that my screen time was amping up my anxiety. It may have coincided with a certain presidential election, but it wasn’t just news that was keeping me awake at night: as I scrolled and scrolled, I felt that not only was I not catching up, I was sliding behind, reading more frantically, skimming more quickly. So I changed a habit. I shifted back to print for bedtime reading, and, for the most part, from articles to books. A side effect I didn’t expect: my overall concentration improved. It was as if the time I now spent in focused reading was rebuilding muscles that had been underused in flitting from Tweet to Facebook post. Now, I’m thinking about adding a morning habit as well—perhaps not a book, but a poem, to start my day with the beauty of language, and end it with the pleasure of getting lost in the pages. (I’m not going full luddite here: social media has been a source of great reads, interesting conversations and deepened understanding of unfamiliar points of view for me. And yes, a steaming bucket of troll vomit too. It’s complicated.)
Take 5: Carving out blocks of time is hard. If you’re finding it impossible, start with 5-minute increments. Tuck a notebook in your purse or compose on your phone: sit in the car in the parking lot, stand on the sidewalk outside the subway station, or grab five in the washroom stall (seriously) and write just one sentence. And then take five more minutes, and do it again.
Team up: When I first started freelancing, a friend and I would mail each other at the end of each week with a list of three things we’d accomplished that week and three things we were going to do the next week. (Yes, this was before email was invented, and a couple of years before I bought a FAX MACHINE. Not quite the same era as Little Women, but close.) Accountability made a difference. In a perfect world: team up with someone who is just a little bit more goal-oriented than you are—just enough to fire your competitive urge. You don’t need to swap work if you don’t want to, but agree to set, track and share goals. You can even give each other gold stickers. I hear that works for some people. ;) Yes, there are programs that will also help you do this. Humans are better.
What I’m reading: Know My Name by Chanel Miller
I went on a book-buying binge last weekend: Samra Zafar’s A Good Wife, Carmen Machado’s In the Dream House, Leslie Jamison’s Make It Scream, Make it Burn, Chuck Palahniuk’s Consider This, and Chanel Miller’s Know My Name. Miller’s is the book I’m starting with, and just two chapters in, I know I’m going to be gripped by it until the end. Miller is the young woman known as Emily Doe in the Brock Turner rape trial, the woman whose victim impact statement at Turner’s sentencing echoed well beyond the courtroom walls. Miller gave up her anonymity to pen this memoir and reclaim her life. She is thoughtful, clear and justifiably angry (and even though I embrace anger as a necessary and valuable emotion, I still find myself hesitating to label another woman so, knowing that angry women are so often dismissed as irrational and hysterical). As a feminist, I think the book is valuable for its insights into rape culture. As a writer, it is full of lessons as well: Miller writes with precision and grace and is terrifically good at painting characters (herself included), capturing places, describing action and emotion. Some examples from just the first chapter: A sexual assault advocate “wore a sweatshirt and leggings, had hair that looked fun to draw, a volume of scribbly ringlets in a ponytail.” Miller and friends drive before sunrise “to the Arastradero Preserve to watch the sun spill its yolk over the hills.” She describes panic as arriving “like a fish, briefly breaking the surface, flicking into the air, then slipping back in, returning everything to stillness.” Highly recommended.
Other good stuff
Read A story of creativity unfulfilled: “Maeve Brennan: On the Life of a Great Irish Writer, and Its Sad End: From the New Yorker to the Streets of New York” by Kathleen Hill (excerpted from the book Nine Irish Lives: The Thinkers, Fighters & Artists Who Helped Build America, edited by Mark Bailey and published by Algonquin Books). Maeve Brennan was writer who spent much of her career at The New Yorker, and much of that career penning Talk of the Town items under the nom de plume “The Long-Winded Lady.” They are exquisitely observed gems (collected and republished in 2016 by Counterpoint as The Long-Winded Lady: Notes from The New Yorker). She also wrote short stories: The Springs of Affection: Stories of Dublin was released four years after her death, and consisted of pieces that had been published in The New Yorker and elsewhere during her lifetime. But Brennan struggled during her life, with unhappy relationships, debt and alcohol, sliding down to cheaper and shoddier apartments and rooms as Manhattan gentrified, sometimes camping out at the office and eventually ending up hospitalized and then in a nursing home. Writes Hill:
“Perhaps her colleagues and friends at The New Yorker tried and failed to intervene on her stories’ behalf when Brennan was unable to do so herself? To help see her existing volumes into paperback? Or press for the Dublin stories to be compiled and arranged, as did Christopher Carduff? Would things have been different if she had been “one of us”? A man rather than a woman, a compatriot? Unknowable and complex factors, surely, must have played their part, but it’s painful to remember that Brennan’s furious dedication to her art had been witnessed by so many.”
Watch A story of creativity appreciated: I no longer own a DVD player, but I hang on to my copy of Herb and Dorothy, a documentary by Megumi Sasaki subtitled “You don’t have to be a Rockefeller to collect art” about the Vogels, a Manhattan postal clerk and a librarian who started collecting Minimalist and Conceptual Art in the early 1960s. They lived on Dorothy’s salary, and used Herb’s post office pay cheque to buy art they liked “guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit into their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment.” Over the following decades, the couple built “one of the most important contemporary art collections in history with very modest means.” “Fitting into their apartment” becomes an almost comical measure, since by the time the couple are ready to begin donating their collection to museums, the weight of the art threatens the structural integrity of their apartment building. The film is a delightful exploration of the joy of appreciating the creativity of others, and the support and encouragement that the then-unknown artists (many of whom became world-renowned) derived early on in their careers from the Vogels’ patronage and understanding of what the artists were attempting and doing.
Listen A conversation about creativity evaluated: After reading Parul Seghal’s pointed and on-point review of American Dirt in mid-January, I noticed that the New York Times reviewer had been interviewed on Longform (Episode 371) in December, 2019. It’s a terrific episode, filled with insights into how Seghal approaches her work as a reviewer, and the responsibility she feels to readers, authors and books. Rather than taking pleasure in penning a negative review, Seghal is more intrigued by interrogating why something doesn’t work, in unraveling what it means, for instance, when a favourite writer pens a book she dislikes. Seghal comes across as generous, thoughtful and diligent in her reading and assessment—and the interview has me watching more closely for her byline. You can also hear Seghal regularly on The Book Review podcast from the Times.
Book industry stuff
Big new prize for female and nonbinary novelists: The Carol Shields Prize will award $150,000 starting in 2022.
Tips & techniques for longform writing from Great Canadian Longform: Check out this new enewsletter edited by GCL Editor Rob Csernyik. Great insights from longform writers (and yes, an interview with me in the first edition on writing a nonfiction book).
New award for US self-published books: Publishers’ Weekly is behind the launch of the Selfies, a new award for books self-published in the US.
Book club picks get NYT’s respect: The New York Times has launched a monthly column called Group Text, focusing on books that would make good book club picks. It includes a synopsis/review of the book, suggested book club questions, and other suggested reads.
Authors connect with book clubs: Check out this terrific new platform, linking book clubs with authors willing to do club visits, in person and virtually.
Barnes & Noble takes heat for ‘literary blackface’: I don’t even know what to say about this one.
Tweets & stuff
Me too.
This dog has the right idea: The only way to get through February is to find a way to enjoy it.
Mmmhmm.
Obligatory picture of Buddy
Buddy says “Have fun in the snow!”
Stuff at the bottom
I’m a writer, editor and teacher. This is my personal e-newsletter on the craft of writing nonfiction, sprinkled with occasional feminism and social justice. You can find out more about me on my website at kimpittaway.com. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter. I’m the executive director of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction limited residency program at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. If you’re interested in writing a nonfiction book, you should check our program out!