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This morning I received an email from an author I’ve been working with on a multiple-pass edit wanting to cancel the rest of our contract, saying that she’d lost faith in her story and her ability to write it and had to “admit defeat once and for all.” There were too many problems, in her view, and she was too overwhelmed by not just revisions, but some personal challenges and the dire state of the world. “Obviously I’m very disappointed in myself,” she said, and even in email the discouragement and pain and sense of futility she was feeling were palpable.
I can’t know exactly what this or any other author is going through, but based on recent experiences I have an idea that she’s far from alone.
The news is full of dire headlines, doomsday proclamations, and what seems—impossibly—like ever more heated rhetoric and polarization, and it spills over into social media that—even when it may be aligned with our own beliefs—seems designed to keep us in a constant state of rage or outrage or fear or dismissal and dehumanization of others.
Amid all that, I talk to writers feeling daunted or adrift in the challenging publishing environment, amid the rise of AI and what it might mean for our industry, and the ever-shifting sands of the market, who feel like throwing up their hands or even throwing in the towel.
I hear what feels like heightened frustration from many writers right now: authors who’ve lost the thread of their story, their motivation, or even their desire to write it. Authors I’ve worked with for years are feeling uncharacteristically overwhelmed by editorial feedback or the revision process.
I’ve noticed it in myself: days when working on the project in front of me is almost all I can do, and emails pile up unanswered, my long to-do lists left uncrossed out, because it just feels like too much to handle. I feel tired a lot, and this from someone whose nickname is the Energizer Bunny. To be honest, some days I’ve been fighting off my own sense of a gray fog descending on everything, as if I’m bailing water out of a rowboat as fast as I can and not quite managing to keep up with the flood.
On my worst days I wonder whether there’s a point in even trying. What does the work I’m doing matter in a world that feels like it’s on fire? With so many crises and tragedies and dire-feeling developments happening in the world how can it possibly matter to spend so much of my time and energy working to help authors bring stories of make-believe into the world?
How can it matter to create when it feels like everywhere you look, so much is being torn down?
Art Nourishes Us—but What Nourishes Artists?
When I’m feeling difficult emotions, I’ve always retreated to writing—not my own (though often it helps, even if it’s only journaling), but the words of others. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction or articles, blogs, even op-eds, that’s where I seek—and almost always find—understanding, perspective, comfort, solace.
I find it in other art too. A song can make me literally pull over to the side of the road just to listen and feel. Books and movies and shows remind me what’s good and beautiful and rewarding in the world and in humankind.
Art matters—perhaps more than almost anything else in the sense of holding on to our values and our hope and our shared humanity.
Art is what restores my hope in the very best within us, and the ever-alive possibility of moving ourselves and the world in a better direction. It reminds me that the struggles are part of life, and that we’re all more alike than we are different. That most of us sincerely, deeply crave connection and understanding and peace and simple human decency.
Art matters—more and more I think more than almost anything else in the sense of holding on to our values and our hope and our shared humanity.
And yes, that means we look to artists to manage to create it when the rest of us are floundering around desperate for the fortitude their work offers. We despair of a sinking world while searching out Atlas to hold it up, never wondering where he might find the strength.
But if you can’t create, if the weight of the world is feeling like too much for your artistic soul, how do you reclaim that most foundational part of who you are…the part that helps the rest of us figure out who we are?
Zoom In…Zoom Out
On my dog walk this morning, a woman walked by me on her Bluetooth, clearly having a conversation with someone on her phone. I heard only a snippet as we passed each other: “I told her it’s okay if I don’t have exactly three ice cubes in my water glass,” she said to whoever was on the other end of the line. “It’s going to be all right.”
I don’t know if she was speaking metaphorically or this was truly the biggest issue she was wrestling with at that moment, but it made me smile, and reminded me that even amid what feels like the epic scale of what’s happening around us, sometimes it’s just the little things right in front of us that might offer some comfort or perspective.
At times like this, when the world and its problems feel so overwhelming and enormous, it helps me to make it small. Rather than spending so much of my attention and mental state and emotion on the news and every global tragedy and offense happening in the world, I narrow the lens and just look immediately around me, where I see so much good: this moment of contentment, these people I care about, this kind gesture, this wonderful evening with friends. My husband’s shoulder as we curl up on the sofa for a favorite show; my ridiculous, hilarious dog’s goofy smile; the feeling of sun on my shoulders; the pleasant stretch and strain of muscles and what they allow me to accomplish.
Telescoping can help when we’re feeling daunted or stuck in our creative work too. Instead of thinking of the magnitude of my to-do list or a project I’m working on, I just focus on a single task in front of me and take small bites. If the idea of writing an article or creating a new course feels overwhelming, for instance, I can at least jot down some notes about it, or write a paragraph or two, or create a few slides, or draw up an outline.
Conversely—and counterintuitively—when I feel weighed down by the unbearable weight and scope of the world’s problems, it also helps me to make my perception of all of it big, even bigger than it may seem already.
In zooming out from my little corner of my little community in my little country of my little planet that is but one tiny planet in an unimaginably enormous, infinite universe, where I am but one of the billions of people on it, and my life on earth not even a millisecond of time on the cosmic clock, I get perspective. Remembering how vast the universe is—vast beyond my comprehension—reminds me that whatever is happening now, none of it has any impact on the infinite solar system beyond our little cosmically insignificant slice of existence.
Even in just the history of humankind, cycles like this have occurred throughout our time on the planet. In a podcast interview I recently listened to, Good Place creator Michael Schur offered a fact that gave me instant perspective: that simply in having running water and indoor plumbing, modern appliances and air conditioning, access to health care and food, most people in the modern world, even at lower socioeconomic levels, live better than Louis XIV.
Buddhism reminds us that suffering is part of the human condition, and yet as bad as things may seem, things are better for humanity than they have been at most times in history.
Bringing this perspective to my creative work can also help me when I’m overwhelmed or discouraged. I take things big-picture rather than granular. If I have the flexibility, then I’ll swap a day of focused line-level editing for an initial cold read, to give my mind a little break. Or if I’m feeling stuck or daunted or discouraged by something I’m creating, I’ll step back and remind myself that I am offering just one tiny little kernel of information amid a fathomless stream of it throughout time, and my work—as meaningful as it may be to me, as helpful as I hope it may be to authors—will be a tiny byte amid a torrent of data, a momentary blip in history.
Read more: “Doing Creative Work amid the Shitstorm”
And remember that analyzing story is still creative work—if all you can manage is reading or binge-watching shows, you’re still feeding your creative engine. If you need to step away altogether, that’s okay too. There are times when rest is what fills the well.
Here’s what I told the author who seemed to be spiraling into despair:
I strongly encourage you not to give up on this story or yourself. You’re too good a writer, and this continues to be too topical and timely and good a story. What you’re feeling right now–which sounds a bit like despair or wholesale overwhelm with the story–believe it or not is normal, so much so that I joke it’s part of the revision process. As you start to unravel some threads, for a while the whole thing feels like it’s coming apart and worthless. It happens to me too–all the time: I’ll be well into developing and honing a presentation or article and realize I have no idea what I’m talking about, I can’t do it, and I just need to cancel with whoever hired me and admit that.
And then my husband reminds me this is a stage I often go through, and to take a breath and get away from the work and sleep and take care of myself…and then I’m fine. I do it–because of course I can. And of course you can. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of writers wade through this awful part of the process and come out on the other side, and I honestly can see in your story that you are more than able, talented, and skilled enough to do it too.
That said, it’s not my intention to pressure you to do something if everything in you is calling for stepping away. But if I may encourage you to regard it as a temporary break to rest and recharge, and to regain your objectivity before diving back in….
Above all, I hope you won’t lose faith in your writing or yourself. There’s zero reason to. You are in excellent company in the way you’re feeling right now, and it passes. Sometimes (if I’m honest, almost always) the biggest obstacles we face in this career are within ourselves.
The Aristotelian Approach
I mentioned last week that my husband and I have been rewatching the show The Good Place lately, for a lot of the reasons I mentioned earlier.
In season three, four deeply flawed human souls have gotten a second chance at life on Earth but are faced with the seeming certainty that they are doomed to wind up in “the Bad Place.” Eleanor, a cynic about human nature and the world and the least likely idealist among them, proposes that in whatever mortal time they have left they do everything they can to help others become better people so at least they can wind up in the Good Place—a possibility that also seems unlikely because of the endless moral complexity of the modern world.
It’s a quixotic mission, seemingly pointless, almost certainly doomed to fail, and the others are reluctant. But “Why not try?” Eleanor presses. “It’s better than not trying, right?”
Ultimately I think this is what always keeps me coming back to my creative work. In a time of extreme polarization and incendiary rhetoric and “us versus them” mentality that feels as if it’s become endemic; amid daily headlines that make it feel as if as the very fabric of our society seems to be unraveling, and an industry that so often makes succeeding within it seem hopeless, it can feel almost impossible to tap into your creativity, to focus on your art, to feel as if it matters.
But we can try. I think artists are the torchbearers of “try.” We help people see people in all our complex, contradictory, confounding glory. We offer insight and perspective and courage and resilience. And we bring the hope in our stories, if not for happily-ever-after, then at least for the possibility of moving the needle a little bit toward the good.
As author Oliver Burkeman (Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations for Mortals) recently reminded me in his latest newsletter, there’s little most of us can do about the Big Issues troubling the world right now. But what we can affect is the world around us.
Take care of yourselves, on every level. Take care of the people around you in your immediate community. Take care of the people you care about…even if they don’t fully align with your own perspective on the world.
As artists our reach is wider: You may never fully know the impact your words may have on someone you might never meet, the illumination or insight it may offer them, the respite from pain, the restoration of hope, the ability to understand and accept those who may be different from them, “other.”
Please remember how much art matters, including yours, your individual voice and perspective, even if you may never know the impact it has. If you reach even a single person, give them insight, better their world in some way, then you better the world at large too.
But you will never achieve that if you don’t create.
Authors, are you feeling this sense of overwhelm or ennui in your work (or life)? How do you take care of yourself during these times? What are your techniques for resparking your creative flame when it flickers? Are there specific books, movies, shows, or other stories that have helped you reclaim a sense of equanimity and hope?
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35 Comments. Leave new
OMG how can you always know the right thing to say at the right time. Amen! Thank you x
I’m always happy when the right post hits the right chord for someone at the right time–but also sorry it’s this chord… 🙁
Oh my goodness…. Reading this was like you were reading my mind. I haven’t been able to sit down to write in months because of all of the issues you describe in this post. I’m in the beginning stages of a fourth book and have been considering giving up writing entirely. You have given me hope. Thank you so much for writing this!
Ginger, I’m so happy to hear you’ve got a second wind! Thanks for sharing.
I can honestly say that one thing that helps are your posts. Thank you.
In a way, I could say, this is my life. I suffer from what can become crippling anxiety and depression—and can’t take meds for either. They tried. The side effects were terrifying.
So, like with writing where process is so important, I embarked on a journey of discovering natural ways to combat my issues. As someone who lives alone, if I start to spiral I can largely only count on me. I think I’ve done pretty good, but this year has stressed my processes to the maximum.
There’s so much that I do, and I view it all as tiers. There’s what I do that’s maintenance, what I do when there are warning signs, and what I do if spiraling is in motion. The key to it all is mindfulness. If I’m not self-aware I can’t help myself until it’s too late.
I could write a book on this, but I’ll spare you. In short, the outdoors renew me, help to clear away the clutter. As someone who writes hope, I’m always looking for signs of hope to hold onto.
As for my creativity, I’m always engaged with a book. Fortunately for me, where I write fantasy, my stories, my world, are their own escape, a door I can step through to another place where I have more control. That includes aids like characters, maps, and worldbuilding. It’s all real to me (as much as that’s possible).
Another key is music. I have themed playlists and, with headphones on and the story in front of me, it becomes a creative cocoon. Like during the pandemic, writing is my safe place and aids being strong enough to face this world’s problems.
That’s a lot to struggle with Christina. It sounds like you’ve figured out self-care, though–which is so much of weathering hard times.
Hope seems to be a theme in people’s comments–one it’s nice to see, actually. I think the clouds feel thickest when we can’t access ours. Yes–art is my escape too, so often–and also my inspiration and fortitude and solace. Thanks for sharing your coping strategies!
I suppose most importantly, my 36-year media boycott insulates me from the barrage of political unrest in the US. Long ago, I took the broad view of my absence of power in that realm; I’m truly a speck in the long haul. Prayer, daily devotions, and Al-Anon reading keep me right-size and encouraged to do the next kind, compassionate thing, to impact my family and community with human decency.
With regard to self-doubt and creativity, I often consider throwing in the towel and taking more time to enjoy myself. Listening to and playing music are soothing, uplifting. I also allow myself an hour of TV per day, mostly PBS and home improvement programs. The former reaffirms my belief in human talents; the latter helps me appreciate the value of improving raw materials. We all possess unique gifts, can step away, and when renewed, can build something beautiful, entertaining, or encouraging. As you pointed out to your discouraged client, a writer’s potential to provide insight, assistance, or hope to others (perhaps only one person) is motivating.
Thank you for this thought-provoking, supportive article!
That helps me too, Lee–to just look immediately around me. Brings things down to scale, reminds me of all that’s good, gives me some sense of efficacy. And a little self-soothing and rest are a key part of my own equation also. Thanks for sharing your strategies–and your kind comment!
As usual, your post today is profound, comforting and deeply personal for me. Not sure you remember this, but last spring at the Write Stuff Writers Conference, after your inspiring keynote address, I introduced myself and said that I felt like giving up until I listened to your talk. You were very kind and encouraging. Thank you so much for that. I am now nearly finished with my 3rd book, and still pounding it out every day. I am actually an engineer/scientist with little background (or talent) in writing, but listening to accomplished writers like you helps me learn a little each day.
In terms of the huge political divide and acrimonious rhetoric in our country today, I use a simple mantra to keep from getting too upset: It is better to be happy than to be right. I think this is the only thing that allows me to talk to my children at all!
Thank you so much for your post today. Looking forward to next week.
I do remember that, Jeff–that meant a lot to me, and it delights me to hear you’re still writing. Creativity nourishes us, as much as our creative efforts may help nourish others.
And yes, like a lot of us I have to find ways to accept the views of many of the people I love most, amid what seems to me like a refutation of everything I believed they valued. It’s been…an exercise, as you suggest. Maybe this is a Zen lesson for us…? 🙂 Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I am a “write as I can” senior citizen who just read this wisdom. You covered so many aspects of writing struggles. Thank you.
Thank you, Karol!
Great post, Tiffany, and one that speaks to so many of us. When fear and uncertainty move in and take up residence in our daily lives, creativity struggles to survive and often moves out. Tuning out the world helps, even though I know burying my head in the sand doesn’t make any of it go away. But I believe we all need to take care of our own mental health, and zooming out helps. When we exam the world’s history, we realize human’s have been screwing things up from the beginning of time. What is happening right now in our country will be a blip of data in the history books of the future. The question is: will the facts be recorded accurately? Because as we know, the victors get to write the story.
I worry about that too. And then I remind myself that how history is recorded is also not something I can control, at least beyond not accepting whitewashed or altered “facts” or censorship myself, and refusing to play along with it. Recent years have taught me a LOT about acceptance, perspective, and letting go. But like you, I don’t want to bury my head in the sand; I feel a duty to stay tuned in and do whatever is possible for me to do to try to help uphold the values I believe in. I am hopeful that this time will pass and our better angels will prevail. Thanks for the comment.
Beautiful message, Tiffany. Thank you. I always try to strike up a little conversation with people, even if it’s just with the lady behind the counter. It’s always more appreciated than you might think at first glance. I notice that in the smiles I get on subsequent visits. And besides, I sometimes think that as creatives, we’re even privileged, precisely because we can create. We can create worlds that don’t exist around us (sometimes), and we can make them positive. Or so small and wondrous that they simply have to surprise. I still draw my greatest strength from amazement. Somewhere along the line, I’m probably still that child from long ago ☹️, and I’m glad about that. Thank you for your wonderful words. Here too, I did what you suggested: I paused the whole thing to read your text in its entirety. And I’m glad I did now.
I love that, Greet! The other day in UPS I was standing in line just looking around and the woman behind me and I struck up a lovely conversation. This is one of the things I’m really enjoying about having taken social media off my phone recently–the chance to connect with people IRL. I keep thinking that’s foundational if we’re going to manage to heal the isolation and “us versus them” divide that’s so corrosive. And it’s just nice, as you say–a moment of brightness in a day, and in our immediate surroundings. Thanks for sharing this. This feels like another of those lovely little moments of connection. 🙂
My go-to quote is from the I Ching. To paraphrase: If you take the world seriously, it will destroy you.
Love your post!
Whew, a hard lesson to learn (over and over, it seems like), but such a valuable one.
Tiffany, as many have already commented, your post today is a gift that we need to meet the current moment. Your words are necessary for everyone, but especially creatives who feel that spark of inspiration being muffled by the barrage of dismal and regressive news we are getting daily.
With the fear that our ‘annus horribilis’ (horrible year) might stretch on indefinitely, we need all the light and inspiration we can find, and reminders that ‘this too shall pass’. Thank you for intuiting that this message was needed at this moment, and for all of your thoughtful posts. They (and you), mean a lot.
Thank you, Phyllis! Your words mean a lot to me, as well. These little connections, as Greet mentioned above, are so welcome, especially these days.
Tiffany, as usual your newsletters are uncannily timed. 😀 I can relate *precisely* to your client’s struggle. Clearly I’m not alone.
I love to read, watch movies, getting into nature for long walks is a must. But I definitely am taken over by the news and that leaves nothing for writing especially as I’ve been stuck for ages with a big project. I recently had an aha! that I hope gets me going again.
Thanks always for your amazing posts.
I’m glad it hit the right chord (even if a crappy one). I think it’s okay if we sometimes take a break from the headlines–there’s only so much poison we can sip before it starts to affect us. I’ve also sought out less incendiary news sources, like Tangle News, that give me information without all the heated rhetoric. Many days I actually find its reasoned, levelheaded take soothing. Thanks for the comment.
I echo what a previous commenter said. It’s like you’re reading my mind. I’m feeling discouraged and blocked. There’s too much bad news in the world right now. My hubby and I talk about if/when I publish, my books will be banned. The world needs our books. It’s scary, but true.
I just had a chat with my writing buddy and that always helps put things into perspective. I’m ready to write again.
I’m glad to hear you’re writing again! I so often think that artists are the ones who beat back the darkness in so many ways–not least by writing about the things that those in power may be trying to suppress, and “un-othering” people, increasing acceptance and empathy.
I think a lot about the advice against tyranny (I think in Timothy Snyder’s book ON TYRANNY, in fact) to not obey in advance. Not writing for fear of book banning seems like a form of that, to me–so write on!
You have certainly made a big impact! Perfect message at just the right time!!! Yes, I think most of us (certainly creatives) are feeling this right now. Everything is just hard. Somedays I retreat into the writing, thinking this is what I can do, if I can just write a good book that gives someone else the comfort that books give me, that is enough. And even if I can’t, the retreat into the writing makes me feel better. On other days … I’m just tired. Thoughts swirl and the gray fog descends, and all I want to do is binge-watch a TV show I’ve seen a million times because it brings comfort from an era when things seemed better. I guess the bottom line is, we’re all in this together, so we might as well make some art.
I often think that creatives are so keenly attuned to the world because we train ourselves to remain open, sensitive, to feel and react, and we observe so much. That can fuel our creativity, of course–but in time like this it can also drain it. But yes, as you say, our creative work is so often tonic–for ourselves in making it, and also for those with whom it may hit the right chord.
I also find weird comfort in the fact that books, art, and artists are so often targeted by those who fear free thought (just look at the Jimmy Kimmel incident). That tells me how much power art and artists actually wield. And that helps keep me motivated and hopeful. Thanks for the comment, Audra.
Didn’t Roseanne Barr have her show cancelled permanently for a rude comment in 2018 and Jimmy Kimmel himself said it was right to do so?
She did–I don’t remember whether Kimmel weighed in. What chilled me about this was that the censorship is coming from the government. That’s as un-American as it gets–as Kimmel points out, even the FCC chairman, Brenden Carr, frequently tweeted as much, at least prior to his being the one doing the government censoring: https://www.alternet.org/send/carr-trump-kimmel/
The censorship that took place from about 2021 through about 2024 of free speech on many fronts from medical to social, cancel culture for opinions, was everywhere and severe, and the social media companies were pressured badly. This is not the first time. Let’s not be divided. I enjoy your work and posts.
Thanks, Laura–glad you’re here.
At my house we talk about ‘short order cook time.’ It originally came from a Neil Gaiman blog post talking about the point he gets to, every novel, midway through the novel, where he decides he can’t do this novel writing gig and should get any of a list of other jobs–the one that stuck in my mind was short order cook. Now, when I go to my husband and tell him all is lost and I can’t right after all, he just looks at me knowingly and says, “It’s short order cook time again, isn’t it?” and then when I confirm, he goes on with, “this happens every time, and you always figure it out, too. You’ll be fine.” (This is how I know I married the right one)
Partners like that are worth their weight in gold! I have one too. Sometimes we need someone to hold up the mirror, and give us a breath of perspective. 🙂
Listen to Billy Joel’s, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” song. Find the lyrics so you can sing along; see that utmost chaos has been the rule of this world almost since its inception. Thank God for the spark of the creators: for the music, movies, and books that have gotten us through. And let those heroes be us.
I love that song–and it definitely resonates even more for me lately. And I agree–this is the human condition…but the optimist in me endlessly hopes that we learn a bit better as we evolve.
Amen on the value of art and creators. <3
Great post! Thank you! It’s hard to imagine there’s anywriter anywhere who can’t relate to this. Making something like a book out of something as insubstantial as ideas strung together is hard. But it’s worth it.
One of the novelists I read, I can’t remember who, once described writing a novel as ‘trench warfare.’ I’ve never experienced trench warfare, but I think I know what he means. We get there in sips, not swallows. We gain a few inches of ground and find ourselves in a new trench. A direction stretches before us, to the horizon, but no path. We create the path as we gain the next few inches and another trench.
Maybe, the best counsel I’ve ever received when I can’t even see the horizon is: “You’re exhausted; go do something for yourself.” Sometimes it’s even hard to think of something to do for myself. But when I do: a nap, a long, hot shower, an ice cream cone, a good dinner with a friend, doing something for someone else, it begins to restore me. I’d forgotten how to enjoy things. So maybe I should enjoy a few more things just to get back up to speed on it. If I give myself that space, it doesn’t take me long to re-learn that I can, and that as long as I can, I will. ‘Cause there’s nothing better to do.
I hope that helps somebody.