Resenting Your Day Job Doesn't Make You A Better Writer

I’ve been dreaming about being a full-time writer since childhood. The desire to write for a living has been like slow burning coals in the pit of me as I’ve gone through degree programs and various jobs, waiting for some kind of landing spot where I could finally break away from the traditional 9-5 work culture for days filled with outlining, drafting, reading, hot tea, and walking breaks around the neighborhood at lunch time. 

This dream has been so perfect and so seemingly touchable that those slow burning coals sometimes rise to a heated resentment. Thoughts of all of the writing tasks I could be doing instead of being at work for 8 hours sit on my mind throughout the workday, like a low-hanging cloud or a low-grade headache.

“If it wasn’t for this job, I’d be the prolific, sought after writer that I’ve always wanted to be!”

“This job is holding me back from the writing life I deserve!” 

These are thoughts I’ve had, but neither is true. The truth is regardless of whether you’ve gotten to a place where you can write full-time or not, it’s this defeatist mindset, not your 9 to 5, that’s holding you back from a thriving writing and creative life. Here’s how to overcome 5 mind blocks that can hinder writers with 9-5s: 

My job doesn’t leave enough time for me to write!

This is one that I have struggled with and still struggle from time to time. If you spend 8 hours at your job and then spend up to another 2 hours commuting to and from your job, it can seem like there’s not much time left for writing, especially when dinner has to be prepared, kids have to be taken care of, or cleaning has to be done upon arriving back home. On top of that, you might be trying to fit in a daily workout. You can see how writing can slip closer and closer to the bottom of the to-do list until it doesn’t get done at all. 

I’ve had to change my approach to fit in short increments of writing time combined with freeing myself of the expectation that I will write and work on The Lush Lit Life every day during the week. My new schedule will allow me to focus on working out after work Monday through Wednesday and focus on working on writing and The Lush Lit Life Thursday through Sunday. First, pray and ask God to work with you to develop the  discipline that you need to be faithful to the time you set aside for writing. Then, remember to honor the time you set aside for writing by minimizing distractions like scrolling for hours on your phone ( I’m guilty!) or watching hours of television. Give yourself grace to do these things within a controlled period of time, and then show up ready to write during your writing time. You’ll be surprised at how much you can get done once you are not using so much brain power to worry about IF you’ll have time. You deserve to have time to write, so protect it! 

I’d be further along in my writing career if it weren’t for my job!

I think of all of the mind blocks, this one is the most damaging because it seems like it is the most insurmountable. I’ve heard some entrepreneurs say that they actually managed time better when they were balancing a traditional day job and their side business which eventually became their full time source of income, and while that might be true, I think it’s somewhat disingenuous to pretend as if putting a small portion of your time into something is going to render the same or similar results as if you put larger amounts of time into it. 

Let’s be honest, if we could devote all of our time during the day to our writing or other creative endeavors, of course we would be much further along than we would if we had to split our time between work, writing, homemaking, kids, etc. 

However, until you arrive at the point where you can leave your 9-5 job, you need to figure out how your job can be an asset toward your writing career and not think of it as a hindrance. Find out if there are any fellow writers among your co-workers and start a writing group. Think of what skills would benefit your writing business as well as your position at your 9-5 when you sign up for professional development courses that are provided through your employer. Take on a mindset of gratitude that your job allows you the stability that you need to pursue a writing career. Keep a notepad or a note taking or project management app like Asana near you or open so that you can quickly jot down writing ideas that come to you throughout the day.

Many of our favorite writers started their careers while balancing a 9-5, and some even still work at their 9-5s. I know it can be hard, but try making a few of these mindset shifts and see how this weight starts to lift (even a little bit!) off of your mind! 

I have to hide the fact that I write from my co-workers!

This is one you have to be careful about depending on what type of industry it is that you are working in, but chances are that you are not the only writer minded person at your job! Like I said in the previous section, start with co-workers that you trust and ask around to see if anyone would be interested in starting a writing group outside of work. Especially if you work in education, media, or a more liberal arts or social science based industry, you might find that your employer will embrace your writing aspirations more than deter you away from them if they see a potential for your success to bring good publicity to the company or, in the case of education, serve as a positive example for students.  

As an academic librarian, all of my employers have championed my writing pursuits by adding my poetry book to the general collection, allowing me to plan author and writing centered events, and allowing me to share my writing at events that are planned by other departments. You’ll never know until you ask! 

I’m too tired to write when I get home from work!

I start off my mornings revved up and looking forward to 5pm when I get to go home and get back to my writing. As I go through the daily ins and outs of the workday, that spirit that I started with wanes until all that’s left when I get home is enough energy to eat dinner, take a shower, and sink into the couch. I know we’ve all been there! This mind block can be the most frustrating of all because we sometimes are at war with our bodies, but we don’t have to be. There are a few obvious things we can do, like aim to go to bed at an earlier time, workout and eat right in order to be at our best energy levels health wise. We can also follow the advice of the major refrain we tend to hear in response to this issue…manage our time better. How do you manage time that you feel like you don’t have though?

One way is to think less in terms of large swaths of time and more in terms of short increments of time. Write during your 30min or hour long lunch time. Take 30 minutes in the morning before you get ready for work and after you read your Bible for the day to write a few words to a poem, story, or blog post. Use a voice recorder to record poetry verses or essay ideas. Keep some sort of note taking device handy at all times to jot down ideas or even flesh them out. A little can add up to a lot! 

Take note of when your energy is at its highest and when it is at its lowest. For many of us with 9-5s, unfortunately our highest energy is also during the time when we are at work, and if this is you, there’s nothing wrong with taking 10 minute writing sprint breaks throughout the workday when things start to get a little slow. 

My job doesn’t pay enough for me to pursue writing like I’d like to!  

Many of us may have a list of dream writing retreats, MFA programs, and other writing opportunities that we are putting off until we have the funds to participate. Becoming a great writer, like many other creative pursuits, requires just as much of a financial investment as it does a time investment. If you have a strategy, you can have many of the same experiences regardless of your salary. Get a copy of DIY MFA by Gabriela Pereira, and create your own MFA experience. Choose a weekend, book an affordable hotel room not far from your house, and create your own writing retreat. Check Eventbrite or your local news outlets to find out what literary festivals are going on in your area. And of course, start a short term savings account that’s just for your writing business so that when pricey opportunities that are a perfect fit come around, you’ll be prepared. Think creatively to figure out how you can create the same experiences on a budget! 

Changing your mindset to one where writing is non-negotiable regardless of your 9-5 is how you will finally have the writing life you’ve always dreamed of. Don’t let resentment steal it away!

5 Ways To Deal With Writer Envy

Originally posted on NicholeONichols.com, October 5, 2015

If you're a writer and you spend any time on social media at all, you've probably felt writer envy before. You notice that a writer you're following just posted a link to an article they wrote for a publication you've been dreaming about writing for, or a photo of your Insta friend's first book scrolls across your phone screen. Moments like this can bring that age timeline that we all seem to measure ourselves by to the forefront ( my soror and writer Britni Danielle did a great post on this), or they can cause mini panic attacks as you frantically try to "catch up" since it now seems like everyone is beating you to your day in the sun. Writer envy can be paralyzing and ultimately, it can rob you of the energy you could be putting into creating your projects. I've realized over the years that you've got to have a way to quickly move past these feelings to put the focus back on doing the things that will bring you your own shine when the time is right. Try these five steps during your next writer envy attack:

Allow yourself to feel it...

It's easy to feel guilty about writer envy, especially when the person who triggers it is someone close to you. You know you should feel happy for people when good things happen for them, but the human side of you wants to see your dreams realized as well. Those are normal feelings that you should allow yourself to have. Try talking with someone you trust or writing your feelings down in your journal to acknowledge them. That's the first step to getting past writer envy so that you can get back to being productive.

Be good to yourself

Don't be hard on yourself about another writer "beating you" to achieving the goal of book publication, appearing in a dream glossy, starting a successful business, or any milestone that you think you should have achieved. Remember what those mothers of the church used to tell you. What is for you, is for YOU. Make sure that you are practicing stellar self care during a writer envy attack. Many times, I find that I experience more writer envy when I'm feeling burnt out from not taking care of myself the way I know I should. We all know how feeling burnt out can lead to frustration that can sometimes misplace itself.

Try a new perspective

When you see other writers achieve milestones in their careers, try to see these things as inspiration and proof that with hard work and perseverance, you too can achieve your writing goals. We live in a society that loves to view everything out of a competitive lens, but that type of mindset just produces a lot of stress and anxiety in the long run. Try to learn from other writers to find out how they were able to achieve their goals by reaching out by letting these writers know how much they inspire you. Many writers are more than happy to give you a little advice. Take the perspective of a life long learner who sees everything as an opportunity for a lesson.

Get to work...for the right reasons

Don't pick up projects that you haven't looked at in a while just because someone else's new success suddenly put a creative fire in you. Focusing on being productive will help you to overcome writer envy, but if you are fueled by the desire to compete with other writers, that fuel will run out soon. You'll also be more likely to start projects that aren't really reflective of your unique vision when you allow another writer's good news to motivate you to put more attention on your own projects. Instead, you may find yourself trying to mold your project into what worked for that person rather than creating something that only you can create. Take a break and step away from a project if a writer envy attack is causing you to not be true to your brand of creativity. When you come back, you'll have a clear head and a clearer sense of where to go next with your project.

Be grateful

Lastly, try to think of accomplishments that you have made in your own writing career that you can be proud about. Think of these things whenever writer envy seems to overwhelm you. I'm a firm believer in the fact that only I can write what I am here to write, and even if someone were to lift an idea from me, they could never do it like I can. Be grateful for this fact, your creativity, your support system, and the opportunity you have each day to put your work out into the world.

What do you usually do when writer envy attacks you? Tell me in the comments!

How To Write More Authentically And Not Freak Out About It

Originally posted on NicholeONichols.com, January 24, 2018

I’ve been in an everlasting struggle with the dissonance between my wardrobe and my personal style ever since grade school. For years, I’ve spent mornings looking for my own reflection in a closet full of clothes that didn’t quite look like me.

This year, I’ve decided to correct all this by reading Anuschka Rees’s The Curated Closet: A Simple System for Discovering Your Personal Style and Building Your Dream Wardrobe while I follow along by implementing her suggestions as I make my way through the book. The first step in her process toward a more personal style-aligned, carefully edited wardrobe is assessing what’s currently in my wardrobe and how I put those things together in outfits, so I started by taking photos of my outfits for the past two weeks and collecting them in a secret Pinterest board.

 Much of what I noticed is what I expected: pants that don’t fit or drag when I walk, dresses that look too matronly, and shirts that either drape sloppily over my body or ride up constantly requiring me to yank them down all day. Black is an overwhelming color in my wardrobe, even though I love color so much that Pantone’s announcement of their Color of the Year is one of the highlights of the year for me. (By the way, 2018’s color is Ultra Violet, my favorite shade of my favorite color…just in case you were wondering.)

Like I said, this is what I already knew. My wardrobe is boring, kind of sloppy, void of color, and the opposite of who I really am, but buying a closet full of clothes that are none of these things isn’t the cure. A huge part of Rees’s advice in her book revolves around spending lots of time getting in touch with yourself, studying what you like and why you gravitate toward those things, and honing that self-knowledge down into a guide on how to reflect the inner, intangible parts of you to the outer world through the way you dress. That’s what personal style is, and people with the best personal style are the ones who know themselves well enough to consistently pick only pieces that they see themselves shining brightly through.

And that’s where personal style and great writing have a lot in common.

The same process that you must go through to arrive at a wardrobe full of pieces that make you look perfectly pulled together no matter which combination of them you happen to throw together is the same process that you must go through to write exactly what you want to say in a way that shines with your unique essence while it resonates with your audience. If you’re freaking out about writing more authentically, it’s probably because the thought of writing in a way that’s more truthful to who you are and how you really feel is your first step into this process of discovering yourself, and it scares you. However, the only way that gets better is if you push through it.

We spend a lot of time in this society trying to meet other people’s expectations and deadlines while also trying to defy their doubts about us. Shifting energy from building ourselves into what others want or need us to be to building ourselves into what we envision for ourselves is a major life change that starts with these four steps:

STRIP DOWN

Before you can start to write (and dress) from a place of self-knowledge, you’ve got to strip away the layers that you’ve been hiding behind that have built up over the years. These layers come from all the elements that we’ve dealt with in our lives that never really fit us. They are jobs we weren’t passionate about, relationships that we outgrew but stayed in too long, or expectations that were more about pleasing someone else than about what was best for us. We use these layers as excuses for why we can’t write what we know we should be writing. Strip all of that away, layer by layer, until you get down to your bare self. Who are you without these ill-fitting layers?

STUDY YOURSELF

Now that you’ve stripped all the layers away, take some time to study what’s left. What are some truths about you that you need to admit to yourself? What are your passions?

The more you ask yourself these questions and others like it, the more you will be comfortable with answering them and writing about the process that you went through to get to the answers.

BE ATTENTIVE TO YOUR ATMOSPHERE AND EXPERIENCES

Pay attention to how your experiences and your surroundings shape you, especially now that you have shed all the stuff that was hiding your true self from you. It’s very easy to fall into the habit of rushing through the meaningful moments that happen in our lives every day, especially if they are small and seemingly mundane. Great writers who have a strong sense of self know how to funnel their thoughts and assessments about these experiences into the type of writing that’s perfectly nuanced, resonant, and magical...all things that come from a place of authenticity.

KNOW THAT ONLY YOU CAN WRITE FROM YOUR VANTAGE POINT, AND YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO PUT IT OUT THERE

Only you can write about you and the way you experience things. Your words have the power and the potential to free someone else who is trapped under layers of inauthenticity. Don’t let your fear keep you from the responsibility you have to the people who need your words and your ideas.

WRITE REGULARLY

A regular writing routine paired with all this self work is the ultimate thing that will help you get over your fear of writing authentically. Any skill that we attain must be practiced for us to improve, grow, and master the skill. In the same way that you must practice picking pieces of clothing that reflect the true you, you must practice writing pieces that reflect your true essence. At first, your work may sound corny or amateur to you, but over time you’ll learn to stop holding yourself back by critiquing as you write. Just get it out and polish later.

Being yourself and writing authentically are two of the hardest things to do, especially in a society that constantly tells us to be someone else. Neither is impossible, but they both take more work than many anticipate.

I know I have a lot of work to do, and so do you. Do the work. It’s worth it!

Blueprint Of A Writing Life: What Is #TheLushLitLife?

Originally posted on NicholeONichols.com on October 27, 2016

I’m a poet. I’ve always been one, but until now, I’ve consistently fought against embracing that. I want to be a novelist. I’ve had multiple ideas for novels that I’ve started on and scrapped. I’ve become frustrated, and I’ve wondered why I can’t finally commit to an idea and run with it. Anxiety took over, and I started to ruminate about never being published and never achieving what I could have as a writer. That’s when I pulled out my collection of over 100 poems that I’ve been working on since middle school. Over the years, I wrote them off as just a bunch of teenage angst poems combined with some newer stuff about my experiences and observations. I assumed that they were just practice writing, and that they would never be good enough to be a collective work on their own, but as I read over them with new eyes, my passion was rekindled, and I finally realized that poetry should be my debut.

I’ll still be a novelist. And an essayist. And a non-fiction, how-to, inspirational writer. Poetry is what started it all though. Poetry has been my mode of travel through adolescence, young adulthood, and my life today. It has been the most direct way for me to access my story and package it for others to consume. There will always be room in my writing life for poetry.

I think that I forced novel writing on myself for so long because I kept listening to a variety of people say novel writing is what “real” writers do, or nobody buys poetry from anyone unless you’re Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, or Jill Scott. As a young or starting writer, no one tells you that one of the most important things you can do to start your writing career is map out your own path based on what you really want, not on what people say will sell, what might win a literary award, or what writers who inspire you are doing. Once you commit to staying faithful to your own path, you’ll suffer much less writer’s block and confusion.

For pretty much the past year, I’ve been putting a lot of time toward thinking about exactly what kind of writing career I want and what types of things I need to do to make it manifest. Writing is who I am, but a writing career is something that has to be actively and strategically built. It affects or has the potential to affect every aspect of my life, so when I think about what I want for my writing life, I also must think about what I want specifically in each of these aspects.

#TheLushLitLife is what I call a writing life that is fulfilling financially, spiritually, mentally, and socially. This is what I’m striving for within each of these aspects:

Financially- I will be able to live the lifestyle that I want to live because I am making the income I want to make from my writing and other products and projects.

Spiritually- I am writing and creating content that just feels right and is in line with my values and my Christian faith. It is perfectly, authentically me.

Mentally- I am mentally challenged and I mentally challenge others with my content/writing.

Socially- I am connecting with enriching, genuine, highly motivated people through writing, creating and promoting content that reflects my authentic self.

These are the standards that I have set for my writing and where I would like for it to take me. Writing this out was the easy part.

Now comes the work.

Bene Viera recently did an interview about writing and branding for Brainwash Digital that really convicted me about how I’ve romanticized “the writing life”. I have to admit that I can get caught up in fantasizing about what I think a writing career can do for me rather than what I need to do to create the type of work that builds a solid career. I’ll also admit that sometimes I doubt that I’m living “the writing life” because I don’t have the trappings that I think I need to be a true writer, like a fancy, decorated office, a schedule full of speaking engagements, or a book tour. The only thing that makes you a writer, though, is the fact that you write. Period.

Sometimes, living the writing life means staying up late or getting up extra early to finish a poem or a story. The writing life many times will mean learning how to manage time between your writing and a day job. It definitely will mean going through lots of frustration as you write draft after draft until you finally create something that you’d be proud to put your name on. These things are just as much a part of the writing life and what I call The Lush Lit Life as some of the more “glamorous” parts of being a writer. Embracing this reality was one of the main hurdles I had to clear to finally become serious about committing to building the type of writing career that I’ve always dreamed of. All of this is part of the blueprint of a writing life.

Be the architect of your own writing career. Don’t let other people’s judgements about what a writer is or romantic assumptions about what a writing life should be cloud your vision of what a writing life will look like for you.

WHAT DOES #THELUSHLITLIFE LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?