Musings
Choosing Happy
First things first, yes, I’ve skipped three days of Summer Writing Project due to illness. Old perfectionist me wants to freak out about it. The streak! broken! Why bother going on if it’s not perfect?
New, wiser me knows that breaking a streak is not what matters. It’s deciding whether to quit or keep going. So. Onward.
The Daily Stoic has been a part of my morning routine for a couple years now. And supplemented with other reading (The Courage to be Disliked and Ego is the Enemy come to mind), I’ve developed one sort of grounding principle that shapes the way I move through life:
Other people are not responsible for my happiness. I am not responsible for theirs.
That’s not to say I don’t slip up constantly. That I don’t get my feathers ruffled by an email, or irritated at a tone or comment. That I don’t get my feelings hurt.
But I’m getting better at responding to those things. Of reminding myself:
I can choose whether or not to get upset. I am the only one who gets to decide what bothers me.
100% of the time, I am happier when I choose to not let things bother me.
It goes the other way too. Wondering if someone else is upset by a choice I’ve made. I’ll tie myself up in knots taking on moods or wants that do not belong to me. Literally sick to my stomach because I know someone wants me to do something that I don’t want to do.
I have to constantly remind myself: I am not in charge of whether or not another adult human decides to get upset. That’s their business.
That’s not to say we should all live isolated lives, or tromp on other people’s feelings all willy-nilly. We don’t get to say, “Well, you chose to get upset that I said you were ugly and stupid, soooo… that’s your problem.”
We must live with integrity, and act with kindness. Non-negotiable.
But I think too often we misapply ethical principles to suit our emotional needs. We expect other people to do what we want them to do. To want them to want what we want them to want.
And when they don’t, weaponize it. We make it a them thing. The other person is selfish, uneducated, inconsiderate, unkind, or just plain doing life wrong.
But maybe we have it wrong. Maybe the most selfish thing we can do is expect other people to live according to our terms, our values, our wants.
Recently Anth and I got into a … well, I’m not sure it was even a fight. But it was a deeply unpleasant discussion. I wanted him to respond a certain way to something I was working on. And I let myself felt really wounded when he was in a very different place.
That’s the key. I let myself.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend it didn’t hurt because I’m a Stoic. That’s a common misconception. Stoicism is not about not having feelings. People get that wrong. Emotions are a part of being human. Stoicism is about acknowledging your feelings, and deciding what you’re going to do about them.
It’s about saying:
Okay, that stung. What’s my next move.
I have to admit, pre-Daily-Stoic me, my next move would have been to draw this out into a huge drama that I allowed to shake the entire foundation of how we operate as a team. “You don’t support me!!!” (insert shrill reality TV energy here)
I was tempted! “BUT MY FEELINGS!!!!!!”
Instead, I channeled all my energy in the day or two that followed into thinking: “Okay, Lauren. He feels that way. What the hell does it have to with you? You get to decide if his stance impacts your mood and next steps.”
It took work. It takes work to take accountability for your own emotional mood.
But it’s worth it.
The key to a happier life is not wishing/hoping for other people to think like you, be like you, please you.
The key to a happier life is learning how to consistently say, “This happened, this person thinks this way, is this way.”
And then to say:
“Cool. But what’s my move?”
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” —Marcus Aurelius
Kate Spade Shoes
The water was coming up from the floorboards.
“This is weird, right?” I asked, applying pressure to the floor with the sole of a hot pink Kate Spade stiletto that was a little too big, but that I’d gotten on steep discount at Nordstrom Rack.
Water oozed. Squish.
Anth did the same thing with his shoe in another corner of the living room. Water there too. Squish. “We should call them.”
Not five minutes later, Chad, the head maintenance guy in our apartment building was in our unit; they don’t mess around with plumbing issues. Five minutes after that, Chad left and promptly returned with Amy, the building manager.
“A pipe burst under your shower and spread through the entire apartment. We need to get you out of here so we can tear up the whole floor.”
“Today?” I asked distractedly, noting that our dog seems increasingly displeased by her wet paws.
“Right now. For good. We’ll find you an open unit in the building.”
This is how we ended up living in a lavish two-bedroom corner apartment on the top floor of a luxury apartment building in downtown Seattle for roughly the same cost as our modest one bedroom with the squishy floors.
It remains our nicest home to date, with unobstructed views of the Seattle skyline and Mt. Rainer, two ovens, huge bathtub, a balcony... I don’t remember the square footage (who are we kidding, I never knew the square footage), but I do know that our current bathroom could have fit inside that walk-in closet. And that wasn’t even the only walk-in closet.
I remember those years fondly. How could I not? We had cushy-ish paychecks, a decent amount of disposable income, and an apartment nicer than we’d properly earned. Sure, we weren’t in love with our jobs, and lived for Friday afternoon even as we started dreading Monday morning. But that’s what you do in your 20s, right?
We knew the bubble would burst when our lease came up for renewal, and we braced. But not hard enough. Our lease renewal packet was more grenade than bubble. Rent went back up to market value which was roughly double what we’d been paying. And so far out of our price range that we didn’t even bother with the conversation of, “Well maybe we can make it work if we cut back on happy hours, and quit buying Kate Spade shoes at Nordstrom Rack …”
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we had been able to stay in that apartment. I think we probably would have. And I think our lives would have gone a very different direction. Eventual house in the Seattle burbs? SUV? Two SUVs? Middle manager in a cubicle? Kids? Maybe. Maybe even probably.
Instead, we were staring down the barrel of an expiring lease with no idea where our next home would be. There were other apartments in Seattle in our price range, obviously. But we’d had the taste. A taste of the “good life.” We’d become snobs. I’d also recently typed “the end,” on my first romance novel, was increasingly unhappy at my day job.
Suddenly the life that had felt so sparkly and new just months before was peeling at the edges. We weren’t hard-up, but there was a vague restlessness that we hadn’t even identified until …
Anth got a call on a random sunny afternoon from his boss. His company was expanding to New York, and was Anth interested in relocating to NYC to open the Manhattan office? The trick: it was happening fast, in August.
Our lease in the cushy apartment we could no longer afford? Also up in August.
We didn’t believe in signs, but this definitely felt like a sign.
We said yes before we could think it through, and I’m glad we were so rash. Had we had time to research cost of living in NYC, those Seattle one bedrooms we were wrinkling our nose at would have looked awfully nice by comparison.
But we found a place in the city. New construction, which felt safe considering our tight timeline meant we would be signing a lease sight unseen. And it was in midtown, which to the uninitiated, seemed a prime central home base until we could get our bearings in a new city.
Plus, we could afford it. Barely.
But it still somehow felt right. Or maybe we were just too far committed. We’ll figure it out.
Anyone who’s ever moved knows that it’s not until you have to pack up your home that you realize how much shit you have. This becomes even more acute when you’re moving from a huge two bedroom with ample closet space into …
A studio apartment. With no walk-in closet. There wasn’t even a closet, just sort of wall with a nook to hang a few clothes in the hallway leading into the bathroom. And by hallway to the bathroom, I mean take a medium-sized step and you were in the bathroom.
We got rid of nearly everything. We had to. And when we arrived in Manhattan and began unpacking, we had to get rid of more. Until we were down to the bare essentials, not because we were minimalists—not yet—but because it’s what would literally fit. At one point I was down to three pairs of shoes. A pair of sneakers, a pair of “nice but practical” shoes, and one pair of horribly ugly waterproof boots for east coast winters. Those discount pink Kate Spade heels were long gone by this point.
It’s been sixteen years since that pipe burst under our floorboards. Fourteen since we moved to New York.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what’s next for me, for us, which counterintuitively, means I’ve spent a lot of time looking backwards. At that Seattle apartment, which to my memory, feels a bit like the Golden Age. Back when fancy dinners were commonplace, I thought nothing of buying a new dress for an upcoming event, and our bathrooms were freaking marble. Not faux. The real stuff.
And then I think back to that little studio apartment as well. Where our bathroom doubled as a phone booth, because it was the only place in the home with a door when one us needed to take a call. Where our idea of a big splurge was hailing a cab during a sudden downpour, or a slice of cheese pizza from Claudios for dinner.
Our living situation right now is somewhere in between the two. We’re still in New York, and there are no walk-in closets or marble bathrooms. But we have do have a large one bedroom, and we now have two doors—no more bathroom phone calls. We still go to Claudios for cheese pizza, only now we can afford the whole pie.
It’s a good life—a very good life, one we work hard to craft intentionally. If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t go backwards.
But if I could bring elements of our past into our present?
It wouldn’t be from the Seattle golden age. I have a fondness for those glittery Seattle years, but it’s more bemused nostalgia.
But I do miss what happened after. I miss what happened to our lives, to us, when we got rid of it all.
In our earliest months in that little studio, we had no furniture besides a mattress on the floor. One sweltering September evening, Anth was working late. I had the windows open because money was tight, and AC costs money. I sat cross-legged on the hard floor, writing my second romance manuscript on my laptop.
I was hot. I was sweaty. Supremely uncomfortable. And almost unbearably … happy.
I miss the peace that comes from having everything you need, and not a single thing more.
I do not miss the Kate Spade shoes.
The Knot
I’ve been enjoying the Summer Writing Project immensely in these first few days, but I’m also feeling self-conscious as hell.
Not only because publishing anything is inherently vulnerable, but because I worry I’m doing this whole non-fiction/essay/memoir writing wrong.
Worried that I’m not sharing anything valuable with the world. I read the work of Glennon Doyle, Erin Loechner, David Sedaris, all of whom share their life and the inner workings of their mind with the world, and it feels profound.
But I sit down to do it myself, and wonder, “Am I just hitting publish on my diary? Are people going to read this and think, ‘Um, you sound like a self-indulgent hot mess … no need to share your every issue and thought and gripe with the world.’
To combat this feeling, I started watching David Sedaris’ Masterclass. It’s already immensely helpful, especially as it relates to people I know reading what I’m writing.
But I also started digging into myself. About why I want to write. Why I feel called to share the deeply personal, even when it comes from deep vulnerable places. Especially when it does.
Part of it, I think, is ingrained. I’ve never not wanted to write.
But my desire to share the personal goes back to a very specific moment.
First, indulge me in a little backstory:
It was late 2022, and the pandemic lockdown had largely lifted. Social lives came back online. The world seemed thrilled.
I was … conflicted.
Here’s something the extreme introverts in your life might be embarrassed to say aloud: We didn’t mind the COVID lock down. Yes, the death and stress and loss was horrific. Hard pass on that. We of course wouldn’t repeat it.
But not having to be anywhere? Go anywhere? See anyone? All without having to come up with an excuse? We did not hate it. We thrived.
And so while I was delighted to have the threat of the virus itself in the rear view, I was faced with the startling realization that I was less happy in late 2022 when normal life had mostly resumed than I had been in 2021 when my days were full of … nothing.
Suddenly my calendar was full of stuff again. And I pasted a smile on my face and nodded along eagerly to all of the “It’s so great to be out at a restaurant again!” declarations.
But beneath the surface? There was a knot in my stomach every time there was something on my calendar. Anything. Fun stuff, stuff with people I care about, things I should enjoy, that in theory I do enjoy, and yet:
There was a knot. Not quote dread, I just already felt weary and eager to be on my way home, and I’m not even there yet.
And I know most people delight in a free day—once in a while. But in the deepest authentic “real me” part of myself that I try to bury? I want them all to be free days. Not so that I can never see people or leave the home, but so that it’s spontaneous and organic and of the moment. If I feel like it. Because sometimes I do feel like it! I just don’t know today if I’m going to feel like it next Saturday.
But here’s what I hated even more than having something on my calendar:
Myself.
I hated myself for feeling that way in the first place. Convinced to my core that I was broken for not being excited about dinner reservations, or shows, or travel plans, or happy hour.
And so one morning, when I found myself dreading dinner plans three days from now and feeling like a Horrible Human Being, I googled this exact phrase.
“I hate having things on my calendar.”
It was a hail mary. A desperate call to the universe to reassure me I’m not broken, or at least not the only one on the planet who is.
And you know what?
I’m not the only one. I know this, because a stranger named Kelly wrote this on a random blog:
When I have something to do on my schedule, I can’t stop thinking about it all day. Even if it’s just one thing, I base my whole day on it. And having MORE than one thing scheduled in a day? I instantly feel my stress rise.
Having a clear day with nothing to do feels like a dream. No stress, no obligations, and I can make my own decisions. Ahhhh.
I don’t even know if Kelly’s a man or a woman. We’ll never meet. But those few lines written by a stranger on the internet changed my life.
I’m not the only one!
I don’t know if Kelly meant to be brave when they put that out there. I don’t know if it was just a throw-away musing for them.
But for me, it was pivotal. It didn’t eradicate the knot in my stomach whenever I have to be social. That’s still there. But now I know I’m not the only one. Even if it’s just me and Kelly, and least it’s me and Kelly. Not just … me.
Why do I write? Why am I trying to be brave enough to write the deeply personal?
I write to be someone’s Kelly.
If not that you relate to The Knot, then something else here on my website. That I hate ketchup, that I struggle to balance my ethical disdain for Amazon with my love of convenience, that I don’t know how to define myself, and am not sure that I want to.
I write the darkest, weirdest parts of myself, the parts I sometimes hesitate to share even with Anth, in hopes that a kindred spirit will find it, read it, and their soul will sigh in relief. I’m not the only one.
I write to feel less alone.
Ironic, I know, for someone who loves to be alone :)
Below is the link to the Kelly’s post if you’re curious, but I will warn you: the website is completely smothered in janky ads I don’t remember from last time, including one pervasive pop-up that takes over the entire page repeatedly.
Verbs
Ryan Holiday is one of my favorite writers and his annual birthday posts are some of my favorites. He has a knack for stating what should be obvious, but most of us overlook or willfully ignore in the day-to-day.
Take this nugget:
I’m not sure I’ve ever opened a social media app and then after logging off thought, “Wow, I’m so glad I did that.”
Or this:
George Raveling—who I think is one of the most remarkable people of the 20th century—said that when he wakes up in the morning, as he puts his feet on the floor but before he stands up, he says to himself, “George, you’ve got two choices today. You can be happy or very happy. Which will it be?”
But the one that’s been looming extra large in my mind is this one:
Most labels are unhelpful, too—filmmaker, writer, investor, entrepreneur, executive. These are nouns. But what gets someone to that position? Verbs. Forget the nouns. Focus on the verbs.
I prattled on the other day about my journey in decoupling my identity of romance author from writer. And while it feels really good to be writing again, it wasn’t really the whole picture of what’s been going on with me over the past couple years:
Who am I? What am I?
I enjoy a lot of things and I’m good-ish at a lot of things. Which is not a unique concept. It has a name: polymath. In more modern circles it’s often called a multi-hyphenate.
In an age where authors are also podcasters, and podcasters also have YouTube channels, and YouTube creators often have a course, and from that course you can learn to be a coach, who has a Substack…
Being a polymath isn’t just common, it’s perhaps necessary in today’s creative economy.
There are even multi-hyphenates who make a career out of being multi-hyphenates. Take Jenna Kutcher’s homepage:
She’s way more than just one thing, and we are too!
It should be freeing, right? YOU CAN BE ALL THE THINGS!
And yet for years now, every time I go to create my Pinterest profile bio, my about page, even my homepage I freeze up when I try to finish this sentence:
“I’m Lauren. I’m a …”
Who am I? What am I?
For example, I love to design brands and websites, and I’d like to think I have an eye for it, but I hesitate to call myself a designer for fear real designers will scoff.
I’m a New York Times bestselling romance author, but I haven’t written a book in years, so … former author?
Dog mom? Nope. I love Bailey, but I’m not putting that.
I know a lot about astrology and can kinda sorta read your birth chart, but wouldn’t call myself an astrologer.
I’ve written a screenplay, but does it count if it’s not yet a movie and I’m not working on another one? Not a screenwriter then.
I love to talk about and teach the Milanote app, but “Milanote expert” feels ridiculous.
I’m highly organized, especially digitally, and know I could help other people be as well. But what the hell do you call that? Professional digital organizer? Is that a thing?
I’m good at helping my author friends talk through and organize their careers, and feel like I have a million tips to share on how to write a romance novel. So, author … coach? educator? I guess, sometimes.
And I of course love to write, I’m good at writing, and I do call myself a writer…
But “I’m a writer” feels so woefully far from the full-picture of how I spend my days and what I have to offer, of ways I can contribute. And practically speaking, the kind of writing I like to do right now is not the kind people will pay me for.
Who am I? What am I?
Even if I did get comfy calling myself a designer, an educator, an astrologer… how do I take all of the things that I am and make a career out of it? Does anyone want any of this shit from me?
I’ve been looping in this identity-crisis for years, and laying awake at 3am at night, the self-reflection too often takes an ominous turn.
What am I doing with my life?
It’s uncomfortable to realize: I’ve been so busy deciding what to call myself that I haven’t really been doing anything.
It’s why the above quote from Ryan about labels being unhelpful was such a welcome light bulb moment.
I’ve been focusing on nouns. And in doing so, asking myself the wrong question: Who am I? What am I?
Here’s the better question:
What will I do today? What will I do right now?
Focus on the verbs.
Today, I will create something that did not previously exist and put it out into the world. Repeat.
Inky Afternoons
New York is stepping into summer in classic fashion: heat wave.
Temps? Nineties. Heat index? Hundreds. Chance of a good hair day? Zero.
I used to bemoan New York summers, especially these kind of days, the ones where it’s stifling by 7am. And while I still catch myself whining, it’s mostly because I go into small talk auto-pilot when someone says, “whew, hot one today!” in the elevator.
The truth is, I’ve quit minding summers. Not because I particularly relish the sticky, smelly heat of the city from June through September.
But because life seems too short and unpredictable to be constantly wishing for the next season, the better season, the trip to a place with better weather.
In the past couple years, I’ve gotten a bit better at “being here, now.” Figuring out how to enjoy this moment. To find delights hidden in any forecast, in every season. Even summer in Manhattan.
No, it’s not particularly comfortable outside. I don’t step outside into the thick air that smells a bit like hot garbage and think, “Now this is nice!” I’m not Pollyanna.
But there are sneaky, other joys if I look for them.
The fact that that for a few months, the city is already awash in morning twilight when we start the coffee at 5am.
Entering a revolving door in swampy heat and exiting into the refreshing bite of my apartment lobby’s air-conditioning. The shock to the system. The respite of home.
The threat/promise of a summer thunderstorm. The kind that are either a doozy or not-at-all, and you likely won’t know which until you’re caught in one.
That said…
All my big talk about making peace with the weather aside, I mostly hibernate in summer. The way some hunker down in winter until the thaw, I go mostly underground in summer and emerge when it’s time to wear boots again.
Which means that summer tends to be an incredibly creative time for me. That’s perhaps an odd thing to say, since I’m a professional creative. Ideally all times are at least a little creative for me, and when they’re not I’m in trouble.
But summer is different. Even though I don’t have kids or head to the beach for the season, I’m not immune to summer vacation energy. Work hours shorten. Productivity seems somehow less the point of it all. When June hits, my creative pursuits skew more recreational than professional. Neglected art supplies come out, screens go away. My email inbox grows fat, but so does my sketchbook. The first from neglect, the second from little bursts of wobbly artist bravery.
A legacy from the summer of 2020. That strange, surreal time when it hit all of us that the COVID lockdown wasn’t merely a little spring blip. With no end in sight, I, like many of people, had to create new ways to fill the days.
For some it was making sourdough, for me, it was eating store bought sourdough, and dabbling with watercolor. I didn’t take to that particular medium—too imprecise—but I did fall in love with the process of creating something that I didn’t have to worry about making marketable. Of spending countless hours on something that would never become a side hustle.
Even more, I fell in love with the tactile. Of rediscovering the sensation of tools other than electronics beneath my fingers. My iPad Pro is one of my favorite and most used possessions, but I’ll take the scratch and flow of a real pen and real paper every time. Procreate’s a pretty cool app, but it can’t beat the satisfaction of painstakingly drawing a crooked tree on a blank page, even with smudged ink. Especially with smudged ink.
And so the long summer days begin.
The ever-more challenging quest to be out of bed before the first hint of dawn. Leisurely conversations over coffee as Anth and I muse whether this will be the day we finally figure out, what’s next, what are we doing, where are we going.
Maybe, maybe not.
But in the mean time, it’s ink-stained fingers, and fresh notebooks. Flowers doodled in margins. A new pen I probably did not need. Nectarines I ate a day before they were perfectly juicy because I couldn’t wait. A glass of ice cold rosé, dinner of tinned fish and baby carrots, because why not. Jazz. Frizzy hair. Linen everything.
And if I’m lucky, a summer storm.
Cheap Shit
One of my least favorite things about myself is that I have daily fantasies about being brave enough to stop buying from Amazon …
But then five minutes later, place a Prime order for makeup remover pads. Pee pads for the dog. Sea salt Chomps. Laundry soap, toilet paper, dishwasher pods, loofahs, a new storage shelf, pens, notebooks, kitchen tongs, dish towels, bath mats, batteries, packing tape.
The list sometimes feels endless. My order history tells me it pretty much is.
Like so many people, I persistently fall into The Trap.
Amazon’s cheaper, easier, and it can be here tomorrow.
And so I try not to think about the other factors.
Like the fact that I live in Manhattan, and can walk to get all of those things myself, which would require no packing material or fuel, and would, you know, get me outside instead of waiting for UPS to do everything for me.
And then there are those Other Things we’ve heard and try to ignore, like Amazon’s reputed sketchy treatment of its workers, the broader environmental impacts, the accelerating decline of small businesses, that whole pesky monopoly thing.
And yet, if I want a new Midori grid notebook and I want it now, I am remarkably good about putting my head in the sand, or sticking my fingers my ears when it comes to the ethical implications of ordering from Amazon. Lalalala I can’t hear you!
Sort of how I generally eat well, am fully aware of the date on processed food and fast food, and yet good luck convincing me to say no to a Taco Bell chalupa.
And so I don’t say no, and then …
I feel gross after eating that chalupa.
Because it’s shit.
Much like the way I’m increasingly beginning to feel about ordering from Amazon.
Gross.
Because it’s shit.
For me, there’s something working beneath the surface, something more nuanced than listing “Amazon is problematic because…”
Increasingly I have an emotional, almost visceral reaction when I order something from Amazon. The nagging sense that something is just not right.
Frustrating me lately is my inability to put my finger on exactly why.
Why do I feel always feel like not quite looking myself in the mirror after a spontaneous click of Buy Now on Amazon. Or why do I feel ashamed of myself whenever I think about actually using that Amazon affiliate link I’ve had on the back burner for years.
Is it that Amazon knows I need to reorder tampons before I register my period is right around the corner? Or that when I add dishwasher pods to cart, I’m promptly presented with paper towels and I realize I’m almost out of those too. Convenient? Undeniably yes. But also distinctly unsettling.
Is it the way I type in a search with the exact book title and exact author name, I’m still presented with dozens of other search results that I very clearly wasn’t looking for?
Or that every book page (Amazon’s OG purpose, remember! books!) is smothered with sponsored ads to other books. Shopping on Amazon for books is like going to Barnes & Noble and picking a book off the shelf, and someone thrusting another book in front of your face because the author or publisher paid them to.
Is it the fact that Amazon has largely excused us from having to make choices. “Well, they said I got this last time, and that was fine, so …” As we shouldn’t be bothered to think or shop for ourselves because an algorithm knows better than us what we want.
Maybe it’s all of that.
All I know for sure is that there’s an instinctual unease. A sense that I lose a little something every time I choose to order from Amazon, or at least, become less the human I’m meant to be.
Anth I are dying to read Ron Chernow’s new Mark Twain. We make a point to order from Bookshop.org which supports indie book stores, or sometimes The Painted Porch, which is an indie book store. It’s always more expensive, and this is a (literal) price we’re willing to pay to ensure that when we travel to little corners of the United States, we’re able to tuck into little book stores trying to survive in Amazon’s wake.
But this latest book on Bookshop.org is $41.85.
Shipping is extra.
Woof.
We spend a lot of money on books, and this still felt like a hard punch in the face. So I couldn’t resist. I checked Amazon’s price.
On Amazon, the same format of that same book is $24.47 as I write this.
Shipping is free.
It was really hard to not just one-click buy on Amazon and have it delivered tomorrow.
And yet, I hesitate.
Maybe it’s because I’m an author myself, and know what it feels like to devote years of your life to writing a book. To 12+ hours in your chair putting words on a page in a single day. To literally ignore your family and everything around you because you’re so committed to birthing this thing.
Only to learn that Amazon is going to discount your work for $1.99 or $3.99 (in my case). Or $24.47 (in Chernow’s).
And perhaps the dollar amount matters less than the fact that Amazon cares very little about standing for something other Cheap.
Then again, who doesn’t delight in cheap shit.
“Damn, a set of twelve for $4.99, and this artisan store wants to charge me $19.99 for one?!”
Until we pause a moment. Change our emphasis. And realize we’re actually just getting cheap shit (see: the AA batteries we just bought from Amazon that last approximately 45 seconds, or the off-brand Q-tips that snapped in half when we merely looked at them.)
Or, just as bad, maybe worse, we all support a company that takes quality good and merely prices them as shit.
I’ll pause here to note that my argument is wobbly at best because it’s hypocritical. Most of my author income comes from Amazon, even as my touch points with Amazon as an author have been almost exclusively negative.
Hypocrite.
And I’d be silly not to mention that Amazon’s cheapening of the price of books means that they’re accessible to more people than ever, and that’s a good thing (and yet … libraries…).
Nuanced.
Or that for those of us without access to Costco or another big box store, Amazon’s price on Kleenex is hard to look away from.
Practical.
And yet, the ick remains.
This sense that our lives are determined by algorithms. And that we’ve lost the sense of discovery that happens when we go looking for our new nightstand lamp, and come home with a vase that looks like Medusa.
Or just the satisfaction of buying a quality hand-crafted picture frame direct from the person who actually made it rather than from the ginormous company that is going to throw it in with the same box into which it throws bulk dryer sheets.
Maybe next time I need my ankle socks in bulk, I care less about, “Wow, this pack of thirty socks is only $11.99!” and start asking why it’s only twelve bucks. Who made it? What was compromised?
Something is always compromised.
Perhaps I’m ready to treating myself, my belongings and the planet with more respect than Cheap Shit, Fast.
I may not yet ready to spend $41 on that Mark Twain biography, but I’m not going to give Amazon $24 for the book either.
Conceptually, I love the idea of saving $17.
Ethically? I question the actual cost. I’m ready to start asking what corners were cut to make that $17 in my pocket possible.
Yeah, I may gain cheap book. But what do I lose in the process?
Made For
I was a quiet, awkward-ish kid with a big gap in my teeth, a unibrow, and a genuine excitement for writing assignments in school.
Now, I was a good student, but not a particularly dazzling one. Group projects were my nightmare, I could never sleep the night before a math test, and science experiments were just never nearly as cool as the teacher’s excited tone implied they would be (A battery out of a potato you say!? Boy oh boy, I hope they make lab coats in size Fifth Grader!)
But a double-spaced, one-inch margin, 12pt Times New Roman two page essay on MLK, tornados, or the theme of My Ántonia? I loved every part of that. The trips to the library for research (this was the 90s, so I yes, I was probably wearing Doc Martens or Adidas Sambas with my school uniform as I perused the Dewy Decimal system like a casual pro). The satisfaction of writing the notes in my college-ruled spiral Mead Five-star notebooks, even as I wondered why they didn’t come in cuter colors. And most especially, the almost unworldly satisfaction of watching a blank page fill with words. My words.
👆The above love of writing as a kid is usually part of the story I tell when people ask if I always knew I wanted to be come an author.
Yes. Yes, I did always want to become an author, and when I was 28 I quit the corporate world to do exactly that. And I’ll forever be grateful to have spent more than a decade living my dream career. But in hindsight (I’m 42 now, and therefore Wise), I see that that something happened without me realizing it:
In my concentrated pursuit of becoming a published romance author, I somehow narrowed my view of what it meant to be a writer. Even when I broadened my scope to include screenwriting, in my head, being a writer meant creating fictitious stories.
Which might not have been a big deal, had my life gone to plan. I thought I’d be like my icons, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Nora Roberts, and the late Mary Higgins Clark, writing novels well into my 70s and beyond. And nobody was more miffed than me to wake up at 40ish with the uneasy but unavoidable realization of:
I don’t really feel like doing that anymore—at least not right now.
So I hit pause on being an author.
And so ingrained had this idea become that for me, writing = novels, that I inadvertently hit pause on being a writer as well. I closed the door on that life-long identity because I thought it no longer fit now that I was no longer publishing romance novels every year.
It’s a strange sort of blind spot, considering I read nonfiction almost exclusively, but while I strongly considered (and attempted, and failed) to pivot to another fiction genre, it never occurred to me that I could step away from novels and still be A Writer.
I’d forgotten that girl who delighted in writing the cliché “What I did over summer vacation,” who couldn’t wait to write the book reports that my classmates loathed. Or the college student who pulled an all nighter writing to Simone de Beauvoir and the application of The Second Sex to politics, even though the paper wasn’t due for another week.
And you know what happens when you turn your back on the thing you were born to do, even accidentally? You listen to Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” on repeat while eating string cheese, drinking Chard, and trying not to freak out about what you’re supposed to do for the next several decades.
Who am I if not a writer?
One of my most-used apps is Things. Don’t worry, this is related. So anywa, Things is not only my task manager, but my “catch all” for thoughts and ideas I want capture when I don’t have a notebook nearby.
For example, it’s not unusual to open my Things inbox and find things like “Is time a natural phenomenon or human framework?” sandwiched right in between “buy toilet paper” and “clean out the cheese drawer.”
The other day, a thought kept nagging me, so I opened Things and typed this:
I feel like I have things to say, but I’m afraid to say them.
Then, as I usually do when I’m in the app, I did a quick scan of the rest of the inbox items to see if anything need to be scheduled or deleted.
My eye caught on this, written months ago:
I feel like I have things to say, but I’m afraid to say them.
Verbatim of what I’d just written.
Suddenly, the very thought became very loud. Less a recurring passing thought, and more a calling. And a realization that when I’d put down the pen, so-to-speak, I’d inadvertently been censoring myself. Silencing myself.
I knew that when I typed “I have things to say” was that I really meant was “I have things to write.”
Writing isn’t just something I do, it’s who I am. It’s how I express myself. It’s when I’m most alive. The most me.
Things I’m meant to write. Not just made-up stories, but my stories. Essays. Poems. Papers. Opinions. Articles. Blog posts just like this one. All those things I’m afraid to say, but somehow suspect that I’m meant to be the one to say them. Even just collecting other people’s writing in a commonplace book of sorts.
But I’m rusty.
Enter, The Summer Writing Project.
Every day from June 20th to August 31st, I’ll be writing something. Anything. And posting it here on this blog. (Yes, we’re starting using the start of astronomical summer for the start date, and the end of meteorological summer for the end date. Because today is the first day of “official summer,” and that’s handy, but also, summer is dead to me on September 1st.)
My husband decided to join me in the SWP. (an acronym makes it real)
There are no rules. Not in length or topic. It can be a list of things we ate that day, a book review, a poem, a rant, a personal essay, a deep thought, or a single sentence.
You can subscribe below to get notified of new posts if you want, though you should know I make no promises on what sort of content you’re going to get. They may be only lightly edited, or not at all.
I spent more than twelve years writing 42 novels that I hoped other people would like.
This summer, I write for me.
It’s what I’m made for.
(No, YOU went too deep on the first SWP installment …)