Many times when I consult with writers, I find myself granting them permission to do less work, or to put less pressure on themselves. It always reminds me of how fond Alan Watts was of saying, “The nice thing about hitting your head with a hammer is it feels so good when you stop.” To feel unburdened and happy, we sometimes have to feel the opposite way to appreciate it.
Over at the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, Carmiel Banasky writes about the connection between self-work and self-care. She writes:
We “surrender” ourselves to our art, T.S. Eliot wrote. I hate to argue with the Master, but I’m not sold on the metaphor of war that’s implied. Instead, I think of my dynamic with writing as the most equal relationship I’ve ever been in. There is a give and take. Sacrifice, yes, but not “a continual extinction of personality.” If writing means an increase of empathy, then it cannot mean the killing or erasure of the empathizer.
Read her full piece, “Do we become better people as we become better writers?”
Also this month at Glimmer Train:
- Autograph Seekers by Caleb Leisure:
- On Literary Heroes and Loneliness by Siamak Vossoughi
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
[…] How do you balance work on your art with work on yourself? […]
I could not agree with Jane more. I was just discussing this (great minds and all that) in my monthly coaching call yesterday. Part of the problem, in my opinion, is the legacy of publishing. The power dynamic has historically been dramatically unbalanced in favor of the publisher. As publishing changes and becomes more accessible to all, we are seeing the conversation about self-care and writers crop up more and writers become interested in not sacrificing all for success. Now we don’t have to. And that’s a beautiful thing. Congratulations to Carmiel Banasky on the publication of her novel. I hope she can continue to balance out the pressures of book promotion with the big picture view of her writing career, as she has done here. 🙂
Thanks for the reminder. Hard to find the balance. You might like my recent post about this topic, “Get Under the Umbrella” on my blog; www:realsouthernwomen.com.
Thanks for telling me the Alan Watts quotation; I thought it was my mother who originated it. I have been using Donald Murray’s advice about writing an hour here, an hour there, and letting the Stuff come, rather than sitting down and doing “it” all in a lump. Putting it into stolen moments among marking papers and other things seems to work, currently.