Quiet Quitting for Writers
Embracing imperfection in order to prioritize writing.
Oh, my writer friends. How are you? I wrote nearly an entire newsletter about how I was managing my time. I was going to try and help others with managing their time. But then I realized that time management is just a bullshit concept under capitalism.
I turned in most of my book revisions to my editor yesterday. Today and this weekend I’ll be revising the rest of my book. I am also teaching two writing composition classes, taking a class in renaissance literature, taking a nonfiction writing workshop, and juggling three credits of reading and writing in addition.
Before I came out to Florida from Seattle for my PhD program, I was prioritizing my physical health because I had to. My back surgery and the accompanying pain made it impossible for me to sit for any extended period of time. I was writing and working, but I also took long walks through the neighborhood, and popped in to coffee shops along my way, where I’d work.
Not so, here. Everything here requires a bus ride or a bike ride (because I cannot currently afford a car) and my neighborhood is cute, but it has few sidewalks and isn’t exactly walker friendly. I haven’t been walking as much because I’ve been focusing so much of my energy on writing and working, and I can feel the pain in my back and my nerve pain increasing. I can literally feel my life falling out of balance. And I must turn in the rest of my pages, keep up with teaching, and do well in my PhD courses.
Yesterday, after turning in my pages, I lay in bed all day feeling nauseous. Today, I still don’t feel great, and yet I have to work all day, and all weekend, and all next week.
But I’m not here to simply complain about how my life now lacks balance, or how I am (literally) paying for the time I took to recover and work less. Or how, when we don’t have the financial or emotional support of families we run the risk of being less successful in our endeavors, to no fault of our own.
I am here to tell you that it’s okay if you feel like you’re drowning.
Actually, you must feel like you’re drowning sometimes, right? Maybe all the time? I am here to tell you that this feeling of drowning is a natural response to what is expected of us as humans under capitalism. Whether you do or don’t have children. Whether you are privileged enough to feel financially stable or not. Whatever the circumstances: what I’ve learned and continue to learn is that our culture privileges drowning. Our culture of work holds us underwater and says: “look, I know it feels terrible, but feeling like this means you’re successful.”
In short, our culture defines success in terms of how stressed out and overwhelmed we are, and then we forget how to exist without that constant sense of dread and fear and “am I doing good enough.” Whatever this pertains to: parenting, caretaking, work, creative pursuits, the hustle.
We’re trained under capitalism that feeling good, feeling rested, feeling safe and secure— these feelings require penance.
Google “quotes about hard work” and you’ll see what I mean.
And I am not here to tell you that hard work is bad. Hard work can be so, so good. Especially if we’re working on something meaningful. On something that matters to us.
There’s been a lot of dialogue surrounding quiet quitting lately. As many of you know if you’ve been reading and/or talking about it, quiet quitting is essentially adhering to the duties outlined in your job description, leaving work when the work day is over instead of staying late, and taking care of yourself instead of spreading yourself thin for your employer.
I remember years ago when I was working 50 hours a week as a nanny, one of my employers worked at a big tech company and told me they woke up most nights in a panic, terrified they’d forgotten something important. The culture at their workplace is infamous for burning through employees. And it’s not unique.
I’m not going to go on about this. Y’all know what I’m talking about. But I am going to share what I’ve been telling myself lately.
Writing is the Most Important Thing
When I was in my MFA program at Syracuse University, I had the same teaching load I have now (except for that glorious first year when I didn’t have to teach), which was a 2/2 load of writing composition. Writing composition is a required course, and it can be very labor intensive for instructors. Here at my PhD program, our yearly stipend for teaching a 2/2 load is under $20,000. We’re required to work 20 hours a week for two semesters, but often our work load can be above that, to be honest.
I have promised myself that I will give teaching my imperfect good. Not my best. Because I didn’t come here to be a composition instructor. I came here to be a better writer, and learn more about writing, so that’s where my focus will go.
Give it your 70%
What I’ve learned as a perfectionist is that perfectionism can destroy everything I love. Not only can it destroy my writing, but it can destroy my health, my life balance, and the space I give my writing. I have vowed to myself: I will not do anything perfectly.
I must let it be imperfect. I must let myself fail. I must give less than I want to give to some things, in order to give everything I want to give to others.
I must take my walks and do my physical therapy exercises and make meals that feel good to eat and spend time with friends and WRITE the WRITING I want to WRITE.
I must let everything else be much less perfect.
I must erase the idea of perfect from my mind.
In order to embrace my writing, and the kind of attention my writing requires (which is an open-spaced, quiet, loving attention), I must practice quiet quitting the vampiric elements of my life that require little energy but, if I’m not vigilant, siphon massive amounts of energy from my life and attention.
Social media.
Rumination.
The need to be perceived as the best at whatever I do.
Including this newsletter!
No, that doesn’t mean this newsletter is going away. This newsletter falls into the category of things I care about and want to do well. So you’ll be seeing more of me in your inbox. I am tempted to ask what you want from this newsletter, but I’m not going to (though you’re welcome to leave a comment telling me). Instead, I am going to focus on creating a resource for people like me— people who may not have all those resources: family, money, community, etc. I want this newsletter to be a refuge and an inspiration. I want to help you write more, and to create more space for your writing.
So, to start, tell me what you’re working on. What are you writing, right now? What’s important to you? What do you want to create more space for, and what only needs your 70% (or 60%, 50%, 40%). Because we only have so many hours, days, weeks, months, and years. So, what is it? Tell me in the comments.
What’s in the Ether of my World
I am enjoying A League of Their Own, which I’m watching with my roommate. I don’t want to criticize any of it because I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but I mostly just love it.
I recently read In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin for my nonfiction class (which is taught by the inimitable Diane Roberts). It made me think about travel writing in general, and the discussions we had around it were nuanced in a way that I appreciated. But, it’s worth a read because it’s incredibly written. The criticism is also worth a read. I personally appreciated Chatwin’s sentences, and learned from them as a writer.
I’m watching and loving the second season of P Valley. It took me a while to get into it but now I have to stop myself from bingeing it. I’m loving the backstories of characters and character development in general.
That’s honestly it. I’ve been working on my book.
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“I must let everything else be imperfect.” 🤯