The Undercover Introvert

From Delusion to Compliance: a Writer’s Five Steps

by Leave a Comment

Writing for a living is interesting. And by interesting I mean a maddening roller coaster of self doubt and overconfidence. It’s incredibly difficult to keep on task when you work for yourself, because there is no framework. You’re literally making things up for a living, including your own schedule. In an attempt to describe just how much of a struggle it is to squeeze anything meaningful out of a workday that starts when we say it does and ends the same way, I’ve identified five distinct steps that writers pass through during their hours spent tied to their computers.

Step One: Delusion

This stage is probably the most creative, as well as the most ambitious. While here, your goals for the day are lofty as fuck. You are going to write 15,000 words, outline a new novel idea, finish a short story, edit a few chapters of a first draft, and write a blog post or two. This furious planning starts around the time the alarm goes off at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. Your mind is a fertile treasure trove teaming with possibility that is yours for the taking if only you will get your lazy ass out of bed and get started. But, you don’t.

Step Two: Apathy

Creativity is a sword that cuts both ways, and this is the point in the day in which you use that sword to inflict the most damage to yourself, because if a way exists to derail your forward progress, you will either find or create it. Despite planting your ass in front of your computer by seven a.m., you’re unable to get to work. Well, you don’t have your coffee yet, and by the sounds of things, it’s just about finished brewing. Go get yourself a cup. While you’re out there, take a peek in the fridge. It’s too early to eat, isn’t it? Yeah, probably. You notice the time on the microwave. Oh, shit. Have you really been standing in the kitchen for nearly ten minutes? You book it back to your desk. By now, someone else is awake and messaging you. You message back. Check Twitter. Check Facebook again. It’s been quite some time since you posted to Instagram. Better get on that. Another friend messaging. And another. You haven’t even looked at the dozens of emails that have crash landed into your inbox. You start through those, looking for correspondence from clients first (I mean, you are working, supposedly), and then branching out to other messages. You fall into a rabbit hole. You resurface for more coffee. Then a snack. Bathroom break. Your dogs bark and you spend several minutes petting them. Before you know it, the afternoon is creeping closer and you’ve written fuck all. Shit. You have something to do that evening. You need to get it together. Stat. No more fucking around.

Step Three: Haggling

At this phase in the day, you’re beginning to acutely feel the passage of every solitary second. You do quick calculations in your head, comparing the time you still have left to write versus the time you’ve already wasted. Cursing yourself, you fire off a number of firm directives. 1,000 words before you can even think about taking a bathroom break, despite the fact that you’re 5 minutes away from an embarrassing accident (you are home alone, however, and your dogs don’t judge). 2,000 words before you get another snack or check social media. 8,000 words before you can leave your desk. You are painfully aware that you are to blame for this mess, but still see a way to meet a few of those lofty goals from early that morning. Definitely not all of them–that ship has long since sailed while you stood watching it instead of writing–but enough. You knuckle down in the limited hours you have left. You consider canceling whatever you have going on that evening, but it’s impossible. The only option is to complete your work. It’s fine. You can do this.

Step Four: Wretchedness

You can’t do this. No one can write 8,000 words in four hours. What were you thinking? Why didn’t you get up at 4:30 when the alarm went off? Why did you go to the kitchen ten times? Was that 20 minute long back and forth on Twitter really necessary? You are always doing this, and if you keep on the same way, you’ll never make your deadline and you won’t get paid. In case you haven’t realized, you need money to live. Thus begins your decline into the depths of despair at your own inability to muscle through your lifelong penchant for procrastination. You know how you are and you haven’t done anything to change it. Maybe you can’t. Maybe this freelancing thing just isn’t for you. But the thought of returning to a regular eight to five makes your skin crawl and your stomach drop. Still, instead of doing this, your time might be better served sprucing up your resume…

Step Five: Compliance

You are a world class procrastinator whose mind runs a hundred miles an hour. Okay. That’s nothing new. And since you know how you are, let’s just get this work done, shall we? We’ve had our pity party, and now it’s nose to the grindstone. You have bills to pay, after all. Somehow, this tough talk works. You crank up the music, you put your hands on the home row keys, and you get cooking. Before you know it, you reach the goal, and then you pass it. You don’t get close to the herculean itinerary your sleep starved brain cobbled together that morning as you lay in your bed maniacally planning a future that was never to be, but you rally and end the day somewhat successfully. You also kick off the delusion stage of the next working day a bit early, promising that tomorrow things will be even better because you won’t let yourself get off track in the first place. You will avoid this entire mess and break the five step cycle!

And, like the sucker you are, you believe it.

Image Source

An Ode to Those Working Jobs They Hate

by Leave a Comment

I’ve been where you are.

Getting up every morning to go somewhere you can’t wait to leave again at the end of the day. Counting down the hours until quitting time and the days until the weekend, when you are free. But even those precious hours are tainted by thoughts of eventually returning to work, when the cycle repeats itself and you are again marking the time until you can stay home instead of showing up to trade your labor for however many dollars an hour.

Like a child, you’ve cleaved to your dreams with a stubborn, illogical grip. Maybe your parents instilled in you the uniquely American belief that you could do anything, if only you put your mind to it. And what a mind you had, full of plans and ideas about the kind of world you would inhabit once you became an adult. Maybe you went to college, and maybe you didn’t. But you jumped across the stepping stones of your childhood, careful not to fall, always keeping your eye on the horizon and what you wholeheartedly believed waited there.

Now you have kids and living expenses, ends you make meet like clockwork as your dreams smolder on the back burner. When you complain, someone appears to remind you how fortunate you are to even have a job when so many people don’t. Hell, you tell yourself this sometimes, berating yourself for the directionless longing that keeps bubbling to the surface no matter what you do. Why are you so unhappy? You love your kids, your significant other, your pets, but deep inside, where that child you once were continues to live, you know that you were built for better things, that the American dream is a promise that will come to fruition if only you give it time…and you will, as soon as the kids are off to college and you’ve put enough away in your rainy day fund to justify taking a leap into the unknown. In the meantime, you keep your head down and work.

In the quiet times after dinner when the kids are in bed and you are alone with your thoughts, you remember the dreams you’ve guarded like shining embers in a high wind, waiting for them to grow into a blinding inferno. You consider your life up until now, the nonstop hustle to bring home a paycheck that never seems to cover all of the bills, the time spent away from your children that you can never get back, the parade of days spent at a soul destroying job that offers the stability you just can’t walk away from. The responsibilities you have don’t allow much room to breathe, let alone alter your life in any way, so your dreams diminish a little more as the years pass, those embers cooling as you watch, sad and helpless.

Will there ever be time, you wonder, to do the things you’ve dreamed of since childhood? Or is this really all there is?

You don’t ask this ungratefully (or aloud), because there are parts of your life that you cherish deeply. But beyond the claustrophobic limits of your small existence, you can just glimpse an entire universe of opportunity that might be yours if only you were willing to venture out in it. That would mean taking chances, and you aren’t sure how prepared you are to do that. You have a sure thing now, and exchanging it for an unsure thing seems crazy. And yet…

I am you.

I’ve known that I was made to write from the time I was in middle school. But I had a child young and married. So I dove into adulthood headfirst, and the responsibilities piled on. I struggled for years, working jobs I hated and jobs I didn’t hate but also didn’t love, all the while dreaming of words building sentences building paragraphs building books. In all those years, I did find room to write, but it didn’t pay the bills and money trumps all things when you have a household to keep and a child to raise.

And then, as if by magic, my child became an adult and the world shifted beneath my feet. I was still a young(ish) woman who could have that long sought after freedom if I wanted it. But not taking chances when you had a sure thing was so deeply ingrained in me that it took getting let go from a job to actually venture into that unknown universe of opportunity. I’m still exploring, but I’m also paying my bills with the seemingly limitless power of my imagination. Don’t get me wrong, I’m scared shitless every day that the bottom will drop right out from under me, leaving me no choice but to hurriedly spruce up my resume in order to secure another job that feels like it’s taking much more than it’s giving. But I’ve also never been more content with my work than I am right now. That’s more than something. That’s everything.

I won’t tell you to take a leap that I couldn’t muster until my child was safely out of the nest and I found myself at a crossroads–go right to find another unsatisfying job that would pay my bills or go left to find who the hell knows what. But I will encourage you to watch for the opportunity to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing, because the things that have doggedly beckoned you since childhood will lose their power one day and that silence must be awful.

Image Source

Resolutions are Bullshit, But I Made Some Anyway

by Leave a Comment

What’s the old joke? We make resolutions on New Year’s Eve only to break them by January 2nd? Yeah, well, these aren’t going to be your standard, garden variety lose weight, exercise more, and learn Mandarin kind of resolutions. I actually plan to do all of this crap, no matter how much it hurts or pushes me to the brink of a psychotic break. So, indulge me, for the sake of auld lang syne…

Bring on a Blue Tsunami

The Blue Wave started with 2017 municipal races and special elections all across the country. Now we have the 2018 midterms looming large on the horizon. All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs. 33 seats in the Senate. 14 gubernatorial races (including Florida!). Countless state, county, and municipal offices are in play. Change starts by organizing locally, but that change is only solidified by getting good people into office to represent our values and fight for us. We have a lot of work to do in 2018, but I can feel that Blue Wave coming, can’t you? This time next year, I want to be mentally and physically exhausted, but proud.

Get my own work published

I’ve been writing for decades and freelancing for a little under a year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased as spiked punch to have enough paid work to handle my bills and allow me the free time to focus on full time activism, but paying my bills with money earned from my own novels is the goal. I was just kicking around Barnes and Noble the other day and dreaming like the fifteen year old I was once in between stacks of other writers’ works. The thought of holding my own published novel still makes me giddy inside. I’ll keep running after that feeling as long as it lasts.

Do no harm, but take no shit

I’m gearing up to exponentially increase organizing in my community this year. In 2017, I spent much of my time jacked up on coffee and fueled by outrage at the nonstop shitshow that is the trump administration. I’m committed to not allowing myself to be powered by rage this year. I’m going to tread lightly, but firmly, putting myself out there, but not allowing anyone’s negativity to derail my objectives. In short, I’m going to get shit done, fuck the naysayers, foot-draggers, and do-nothing complainers. The burgeoning, flickering hope that I fostered last year–tending to it carefully so as not to let it die in the onslaught of negativity that was 2017–is going to bloom this year into a parade of full-fledged results. If you want to get in on that, hit me up. If not, get the hell out of my way.

Build a coalition

There are literally dozens of groups in my tiny little red county that are all trying to do the same things. We habitually work at cross purposes though our goals almost perfectly align–scheduling events at the same time, recreating the wheel several times a month, pulling our common members in a dozen different directions. I may be a moderately new kid on the block, but it seems self-evident to me that we need to build a true coalition, enumerate our goals, and figure out what each group can do to further these initiatives. 2018 is the year to get shit done, and that won’t happen unless we stand together.

Get my hands on the contact information for George Soros

Remember the early days of the resistance when republicans were calling us paid protesters (of course, they were also simultaneously accusing us of being jobless snowflakes, but I digress)? Apparently, George Soros was supposed to be bankrolling the entire anti-trump movement. Try as I might, I just can’t seem to get in touch with Mr. Soros. I’d love to collect that fat paycheck. I’ve put in hundreds of hours this year and would jump at the chance to turn it into a paying gig. Anyone with a good phone number or email address for Mr. Soros, please, oh please advise.

And last but not least:

Figure out what will truly make me happy and go the fuck after it

This one is self explanatory, but it’s also incredibly elusive. Part of being happy will include putting out the dumpster fire that’s currently consuming my country. Hence, this 2018 action plan. The holidays are over. It’s time to get to work.

Image Source

How to Turn that Hobby into a Job

by Leave a Comment

I’ve been a writer since I was in middle school, and I can’t remember a time when I haven’t looked at a shelf full of books and imagined my own future novels sitting there. In between those halcyon days and now, my life unwound in ways I never imagined as a middle schooler–a child of my own, college, marriage, divorce, iterations of ‘real’ jobs that kept money rolling in but weren’t especially fulfilling. All the while, I kept writing, still dreaming of that day when I’d find my own books for sale. But it took actually getting let go from one of those ‘real’ jobs to force me into finally deciding to try my hand at writing for a living.

Once you become an adult, it’s difficult to justify spending time on something that doesn’t pay the bills, take care of your kid, or clean your house. And folks are quick to storm all over your parade when you tell them you want to pursue something artsy. Oh, you write? How nice. My 7 year old likes writing too.

But there are some people who aren’t as judgmental and awful. Upon hearing that I’m a successful freelancer, they want to know how I managed to escape the hellish trap of working in a job you dislike so you can afford a life that’s not quite going the way you planned. I became a freelancer officially after losing my job last April, but I learned the focus and discipline necessary to write all day long many years before that. And for those of you who are wishing and hoping and thinking and praying and planning and dreaming to transform your own love of writing into a job that actually pays the bills, I have some suggestions to get you started.

Treat writing like the job you want it to be

I used to write in between managing the rest of my life–raising my kiddo, doing laundry, working a job, etc., etc.. But once my kiddo was in school and I had a supportive (now ex) husband who agreed I could give this writing thing a go and see where it led me, I realized the only way I was going to be able to get any consistent work done was by actually treating writing like a job, not a hobby that I fit in if I found myself with an abundance of free time. Once I shifted the way I thought about it–even though I wasn’t yet making any money–I had instant results. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that envisioning shit doesn’t help you actualize it, because it totally does.

Plant your ass in a seat

This is critical. The best way to treat this writing thing like a job is to sit your happy ass in a chair for sprawling hours at a time and force your fingers onto the keyboard. No matter what happens, power the hell through. Doing this helped me set up my own individual groove…and the words flooded in by the thousands every day. Thanks to this process, I found that writer’s block isn’t really a thing. It’s really just a prettied up way of saying ‘plain old loss of focus’. And do you know what the cure is? Keeping that ass in that seat.

Don’t focus so much on quality of the words you write (that’s what editing’s for, silly). Focus on quantity, because without quantity, you can’t get to quality. If you have to put a knife to your throat in order to force yourself through the harder scenes, do it. Every time I do this, I’m sure what I’ve written is complete shit, but then I go back to read it and am pleasantly surprised if not outright pleased as punch. But you’ll never get there if you keep removing that ass from that seat. I’ve had days where I knocked out well over fifteen thousand words. Just don’t overthink it. Give your inner editor/critic a swift kick in the balls and keep writing so furiously, you don’t have time to contemplate the how and why. In this way, I went from writing a novel a year to writing three to five a year (and now that I freelance, I can do an 80k novel a month, no joke, and that includes editing).

Make like Virginia Woolf and get a room of your own

For years, I wrote on my living room couch, sometimes while the TV was on. It sounds incredibly stupid now, but that’s how it was. When I first started treating this writing thing seriously, I made myself go to my local library from the time it opened until I needed to pick up my daughter from school in the mid afternoon. This got me used to sitting at a desk and writing for hours at a time. I couldn’t wander to the kitchen or decide my baseboards needed a good scrubbing at the library. It also helped that I didn’t yet have a Twitter account and only had like 50 friends on Facebook. After a few months of that, I trusted myself enough to try working at home, but not on the couch this time. With the help of my (now ex) husband, I converted one of our guest bedrooms into an office. Every morning I got up at 5, went running, took my daughter to school, and then came home to write until it was time to pick her up again. Having my own space that was only for writing changed everything.

Soldier through, no matter what

I have submitted eight novels to agents and dozens of short stories to literary magazines. I’ve managed to land an agent and work with her for two years through several edits of my novel only to have her tell me that she was quitting the business ASAP, without selling my novel first (that was a blow that took some time from which to recover). I have weathered more rejection than you can imagine. It’s a bummer and I hate it, but it has never made me question my desire to write. I know I can string words together so they jump off of the page. I just need to get the right piece of work into the right person’s hands, and that hasn’t happened yet. So, no matter what, keep writing. Even if you’re working a job you hate. Even if you believe what you’re creating is total shit. I guarantee you, it isn’t. Writing is a process. The more you do it, the better you get. Stopping won’t get you where you want to be. Do. Not. Quit.

There are writers who are much more successful than I am, but there are also writers who are stuck where I used to be: dreaming about turning this burning desire into a job that pays real money. I’ve done that (this would be a marvel to the Tess of several years ago). I still have more work to do to get to the point where I’m seeing my own original work on the shelf, but I’ll take this. For now. But, believe me, the hustle never ends.

Image Source

A Single Woman’s Guide to Dating in Trump’s America

by Leave a Comment

The morning after Election Day 2016, it felt like I woke up in a completely unrecognizable country surrounded by people who weren’t just on the other side politically but were actively against people who looked like me: black and female. These folks voted for a man who stirred an already simmering pot with his racist rhetoric, causing it to boil over, and bragged about using his money and fame to forcibly kiss women and grab them by their genitals. He was endorsed by David Duke (and it took days for him to denounce that endorsement) and routinely talked about women’s bodies and looks. Did I mention that, besides being disappointed and scared, I was also single? The world had changed so much, seemingly overnight, and I realized that finding a date in Donald Trump’s America was going to be difficult.

In the year since then, I’ve come up with a strategy for avoiding the new dating pitfalls given our current political climate. If, like me, you’re single and not batshit fucking crazy enough to have voted for the morally bankrupt, racist, sexist candidate in the presidential election of 2016, you might be wondering how you can start putting yourself out there to find a love match.

Here’s my advice: don’t.

That sounds bleak, but think about it. What would your first question be upon meeting a new guy? Here’s mine: did you vote for Donald Trump? If the answer is yes, we’re done right then and there. That alone has probably kept me from even bothering with anything like online dating, because that’s not just a no, it’s a hell no. But meeting men in person is problematic too. Number one, I keep way too busy all of a sudden. There just isn’t enough time in the day. But, number two, even the guys I tend to meet in progressive, socially active circles are still guys. I’ve had plenty of frustrating conversations with so-called male allies, especially in light of the avalanche of #MeToo posts. Men, y’all really don’t like to hear a woman say that you need to do better. You don’t like to hear about male privilege. I’m thinking some of you don’t even like hearing a woman’s opinion at all unless it aligns with yours. As a woman, I can tell you that living in America as it is today is exhausting (to be honest, it always has been, but this year cranked up the intensity to nearly insupportable levels). It’s hard to enjoy yourself with a guy when you’re busy giving nonstop lessons on feminism and race relations. At this point in my life, I’m not interested in push back on basic issues. If my vagina or brown skin keeps you from treating me like an equal, I don’t want to waste one or two dates to find that out. I’d rather we just not go out at all.

At this point, you might be asking: don’t you miss being in a relationship? Well, sometimes. But, like I said, I keep pretty busy. And, also, I’ve heard more racist and sexist shit in the last year than I’ve heard in the last fifteen years. I’m frustrated, I’m tired of the bullshit, and I’m not about to compromise on a single issue that’s important to me. I’ve talked to guys who don’t think systemic racism exists, who don’t think misogyny played a major part in the 2016 election, who don’t think that they contribute to rape culture in any way, who think that a woman speaking about sexism is divisive. These same men are quick to chastise a woman who speaks out, warning her that she’s chasing away ‘good men’ who might be her allies if she would just STFU about the inequality she faces based on her gender and/or color.

But I have no plan to STFU.

Here’s what I know about myself: I’d rather occasionally be bummed about not having anyone to snuggle and watch Netflix with than to be dating someone, even casually, who just doesn’t get that the world is simply a different, less forgiving place for women and people of color. We have a limited amount of time in this world. Why waste even a moment of it on someone not worth your time and energy?

And if any guys have stuck around long enough to get to this point, I can almost hear your retort: who would want to date you anyway (insert insult here about uppity black feminist)? You’re exactly right. Because I don’t shut up and I’m too old to compromise on things that truly matter to me. But I’m also too old to care that I’m not your cup of tea. I’m too busy being my own cup of tea.

So, my guide to dating in this new political landscape is to spend your time getting as comfortable as you can in your own skin. Only then will you know the things you can afford to compromise and those you can’t. For me, there are too many items on that latter list. But that’s okay. Being single is better than going out a few times and then finding out he voted for Trump, or that he thinks women just aren’t as smart as men, or that he flies the confederate flag and believes that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. I don’t need that noise. I’ve successfully taken my own inventory and realized I’m just fine as I am.

Does that mean I’ve closed the door to dating? Sure, but it’s unlocked…

Image Source